Social media strategies are commonly adopted by large and SMEs due to the expected impacts on customer engagement, branding, sales, and overall company performance. One particularly interesting strategy conducted on social media is real-time marketing (RTM) that enables the company to get involved in the discussion of trending topics. The main aim of this chapter is to analyze RTM impacts on user engagement in the case of socially relevant topics, particularly Women's Day. It provides an analysis of publications by the 25 most valuable brands in Brazil (comprising both large companies and SME) and explores the interconnections between RTM publications and CSR policies. One main conclusion is that companies should approach socially relevant dates in accordance with their CSR policies, and that successful RTM initiatives can comprise alternative approaches: promotional actions, tributes, and CSR. The findings of this chapter are particularly relevant for SMEs, considering the democratic nature of RTM and overall social media strategies.
TopIntroduction
Social media are in their essence spaces of dialogue and interaction, where people engage in conversations with their peers, share opinions and discuss topics of interest. Aligned with the bidirectional nature of the dialogue, the success of social media marketing strategies is dependent on the ability to generate interaction, and being part of the ongoing conversations is of utmost importance for brands and companies’ integration on the different social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, to name but a few.
One popular tactic of social media marketing is to associate brand messages to trending topics and events. In this regard, real time marketing (RTM), defined as the publication of messages as a reaction to ongoing trending topics and events (Busch, 2016; Scott, 2011), is a strategy aligned with the immediacy of the digital world we live in. The main focus of this communication model is engagement with the public and generating conversations (Willemsen et al., 2018). RTM focuses on taking advantage of trends in social media discussions to generate user engagement, and ultimately generate post interaction and increase brand messages’ reach.
Obviously, trending topics and events can have very diverse nature, from cultural and sports achievements, national dates, entertainment gaffs, and social relevant issues. One of such examples is International Women's Day celebrated on March 8. In recent years, brands have embraced this date as an opportunity to show their alignment with female empowerment, gender equity and women’s causes. This activity has been increasingly noticed in the market and brands are linked to narratives and speeches that are trends in social networks. The annual celebration of women’s day is often related to the brands’ involvement with feminist values and with corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices, while simultaneously associating it with a social relevant issue, namely considering the Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations (i.e., Goal 5 – gender equality).
Indeed, gender issues have proliferated along with brands' CSR. CSR comprises actions aimed at sustainability, responsibility and ethical performance (Cho et al., 2017), and organizations understand that CSR programs have a significant impact on women's lives (Ozkazanc-Pan, 2018) and companies use their social networks to also publish their actions and initiatives in favor of women's causes, equity and even deeper issues such as femicide and violence against women (Grosser & Moon, 2019).
Despite the relevance of RTM for practitioners and the fact that RTM actions are often related to social-relevant topics, the literature on RTM is still very scarce. For instance, Web of Science database only lists one journal article on the topic by Pereira et al. (2022). As for the wide database of Google Scholar, a total of 85 articles are listed as in April 2022. Clearly, this is an emerging research topic, still lacking comprehensive studies. One of the gaps in the literature regards the possible synergies with the values and social-relevant practices embraced by the company whenever the topic connected to RTM is associated with a socially-relevant issue.
Thus, the main objective of this chapter is to contribute to the explanation of the engagement of brand publications on social networks on women's day, exploring how it is influenced by the brand's involvement with feminist values and CSR practices. To better understand how brands have positioned themselves on social networks during Women's Day, a study was carried out with 25 most valuable brands in Brazil (Sutto, 2021). The research explored the posts of each of the brands on Instagram on Women's Day and compared the CSR actions in favor of women that each company publishes on its platforms. The analysis was guided by the literature on RTM and the main aspects associated with CSR practices, which are presented in the next section.