It may seem like a “duh” moment for most brands, but legitimizing posts is an essential element to any social media program. Given the abundance of fake news, the use of recognized traditional media outlets covering a brand posted on social media can be one of the best ways for it to appear legitimate.
Case in point: Voxus client Agero. In 2016, it was developing a breakthrough analytics platform for its business customers that captured detailed driving data directly from a smartphone app. However, Agero needed a proof of concept. To solve the problem it launched an app called MileUp that paid people for what they do every day – drive. In order to gather the necessary data to prove and refine the platform they were developing, Agero needed drivers, downloads and miles – many of them.
So they turned to Voxus. The primary audience for dowloading MileUp was millennials, dictating the choice of a social media campaign. However since most people would assume posts about an app that pays to drive is a scam, Voxus advised Agero it needed to secure articles about MileUp to legitimize the social posts.
Although traditional media outlets certainly serve as validation, newer online-only publications also get millennials’ attention. Voxus secured articles for MileUp spanning new outlets like Vice, female-focused blogs such as BRIT+CO, print including the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and tech-focused sites like CNET, reaching a potential audience of nearly 300 million people in the first month of MileUp’s availability.
Driven by the early articles, MileUp surpassed gathering 40 million miles of driver behavior data and tens of thousands of app downloads in about a month. Agero had set 40 million miles as its original success metric and expected it would take about six months to reach this goal. Because it collected such valuable data, Agero continued running MileUp for more than a year, capturing more than 2 billion miles of driving behavior. MileUp became the eighth most downloaded US lifestyle app on Google Play and tenth most downloaded US lifestyle app on the iOS App Store.
So while your #MondayMotivation and #ThrowbackThursday posts may drive engagement, posts from legitimate traditional media outlets will drive the most important engagement…. customers.