I was scrolling through my Twitter feed the other day when a Tweet from Kate Upton caught my eye.
Why?
Well, for starters it was Kate Upton.
But mainly because it was a Twitter ad, a sponsored Tweet, for an app called Game of War.
Kate is the face of the game which explains the Tweet.
But what is most interesting about this ad is the account that it’s from.
It’s from her personal account – not Game of Wars.
This is a great example of celebrity endorsements being taken to the next level.
I’m willing to bet that the same ad, tweeted from Kate’s account gets way more notice and interactions than one sponsored by the company.
It’s from a real person, a well known person and an influential person.
I think we’re going to see way more of this in 2015.
- Nike can run Twitter ads or Facebook ads from Lebron’s account to sell his new shoe.
- Red Bull can run ads from Shaun White’s account to sell energy drinks.
- and on, and on..
This opens up not just another opportunity for advertisers, but an opportunity for celebrities and athletes to extend their endorsements.
But my company doesn’t have celebrities
Ok, so this strategy makes sense for companies that have house-hold name celebrity endorsements, but what if that doesn’t fit your business or you can’t afford it?
I think this can work just as well for niche-companies with niche-celebrities.
If you are a kitchenware company, you can approach a food blogger that loves your product and use their account to run ads while profiting from their audience and influence.
If you run a software company that serves developers, like Twilio, can you get someone like Patrick McKenzie to run a sponsored Tweet from his account to your desired market?
With a little creativity you can create an ad campaign from a trusted authority in your industry and compare how it performs against your standard campaigns.
Find your target market’s ‘celebrities’ and see if this marketing-hack works for you.
