This year’s Super Bowl Sunday showed how social media tie-ins keep brands and products on the consumer’s mind long after the commercials – or the Super Bowl – are over. Ranging from free pizza to winning a Mercedes Benz, in their Super Bowl social media campaigns companies rewarded consumer engagement with goodies. For instance, Budweiser let fans guess the storylines to their three Super Bowl ads on Facebook. Once all three storylines were guessed correctly, an exclusive, internet-only fourth ad was revealed. As a result, online discussions about this year’s Super Bowl commercials increased by 9 percent from last year.
Posting Super Bowl ads on YouTube before airing them also turned out to be a winning strategy for creating a social media buzz: Volkswagen’s “The Force” commercial went viral and got 1.5 million views in the first two days. Another Super Bowl social media winner was Foursquare. The location-based social networking website went global for its first promoted venue and attracted 200,000 football fans, making Super Bowl Sunday their most popular venue so far.
Following the Super Bowl, Social Media Week kicked-off this week in nine cities around the globe. In the U.S., New York City and San Francisco are hosting the global conference that features panel discussions and workshops and connects social media professionals to discuss emerging trends. Read up on the event’s local and global blogs or follow it on twitter to keep up with the latest developments.
Two-Way Street 