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Leveling the Field on Social

I attended a session on social media strategy last week where the presenter emphasized the point that “social media levels the playing field,” in the sense that a tiny start-up or a grassroots not-for-profit are on the same level as major consumer giants like Nike or Apple.

This…might be a stretch. Nike and Apple have teams of graphic designers pushing out special visuals, they have community managers talking to different audiences online, celebrities being paid to share their content and they’ve got the money to boost posts and run highly targeted ad campaigns. Compared to your one-person shop and limited budget.

But perhaps, there is some truth to it. It is true that for organic content, you are using the same medium and once you’ve built an audience and earned Page Likes, you are delivering your message in much the same way every other brand in the world is. Even if Facebook limits organic reach to about 3%-5%, here are three quick ways to help reduce the gap between your organization and the bigger players.

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Deadspin’s Takeover on Twitter: What Was the Point?

There’s no denying that Gawker Media has a certain edginess that draws readers in like addicts.

As one of the leading click bait sites, Gawker does a lot of things to give it that reputation: they swear in articles (gasp), they rally against the status quo when others back down, they write lists about everything from Lost characters to pie. They even split fans of America’s pastime and wreaked havoc with the whole Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this year when they bought a vote from ESPN’s Dan LeBatard. They are not strangers to controversy, and people either adore or hate them for it.

Having earned such a strong following (47 million monthly users in the U.S. alone) and extreme levels of engagement, it’s easy to picture some marketing teams spending countless hours stressing over how to tap into that sassy, no bullshit, screw societal norms attitude.

The Atlanta Hawks decided to just eliminate the middle man.

Deadspin Twitter takeover Atlanta

Deadspin’s Drew Magary tries to rebrand the Atlanta Hawks as the “Death Hawks” on their official Twitter account.

Earlier today, the team decided to hand over their Twitter feed to Deadspin (Gawker’s sports site) writer Drew Magary (as well as allowing him to sing both the Canadian and American national anthems before the Hawks game against the Toronto Raptors).

Magary brought his usual balance of wit and astute observational skills to the feed, evidenced by his repeated attempts to make “CAW” the team’s new slogan, as well as his insistence on rebranding the team as the “Death Hawks.”

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