Another before-the-conversation principle discussed in the UMSL Department of Communication’s course on the use of social media in public relations involves efforts to develop the type of content that’s most likely to be discussed, shared, and thereby spread through social media.
In 2009, MTV achieved considerable success using social media to support it’s GYT campaign, encouraging celebrity and other social media users to guess the meaning of the GYT acronym.
A couple years later, the restaurant chain Denny’s took its own shot at compelling social content, developing a series of humorous (and sometimes crass) Web videos that were targeted to college-age adults and featured celebrities such as Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard, Maya Rudolph, Will Forte, Andy Richter, and Jessica Biel.
More recently, the Dove brand launched an extension of its “real beauty” campaign, Â which took a very unique approach to the subject of women’s self-image.
In class, we discuss the four traits that the social media content in all of these cases had in common.
