Got a real zinger about the election? You’re walking a fine line. Tweets and social media posts about current affairs is a pretty good strategy, but it can be risky.
A great way to get exposure for your business is to jump on the current trends, and this can include the biggest events of them all. Elections, sporting events, can provide a great way to get exposure for your business due to the increased attention on social media before, during and after these events.
But where lies opportunity, lies potential risk. Read the room wrong, and you could be alienating potential customers and bring on greater bad press. A misplaced joke, poking the wrong bears, and you’re be re-tweeted or posting for the wrong reasons.
Here, Ryanair took that risk. It’s very much skirting the line. Potentially could insight backlash from Trump supporters as it insinuates that the Trump Administration will be leaving the White House. On the flip side, it’s not really an opinion on the election or either parties, and quite evidently a joke. This reduces the potential fallout, but you can never please everyone.
Another point to consider in this example is that Ryanair being a European Airline, it could be more damaging on an American based Airline making the same post, as it could very easily be skewed as a private business taking a political stance.
In any case, we think it’s pretty funny clever. Not only topical, but also showcases a strong value prop with their low-priced air fares. They’ve not stopped at one as well. They’ve been rolling out a range of topical election tweets.
When running a strong social media campaign on any platform, it’s important to read the room and think about your target market. Don’t alienate too many people within your potential customer base. Get a wide range of opinions before posting something on social media potentially edgy. No matter how funny, it’s not worth the bad PR for a misguided meme or joke. Remember, you’re playing with social fire!
Check out some of our other articles about social media!
When managing your own socials go wrong!
Why we gave away free start-up digital strategies?