Starting a Social Revolution
As VP, GCD at EP+Co, I had the privilege of helping start the social/content department with some incredible human beings. One of our first clients was Denny’s. In just over 6 months, we helped Denny’s become one of the best brands on social according to many publications. We crafted a new blueprint for social success built on creative fan engagement and riffing on real time trends.
We’d start each day with a brainstorm and would create work that would go out the same day to ensure timely, on trend topics.
In a short time, we helped make Denny’s the #1 brand on Tumblr in the world in terms of community engagement. And with the help of our phenomenal community manager and team, we transferred our Tumblr style to Twitter. I’ve included some of the organic press we generated and some of my favorite work that I contributed to through the years. The work was recognized by The One Show, New York Festivals, National Addys, and many more.
Credits: Lance Ford, Alan Hanson, Justin Gammon, Robbie Cobb, John Macaluso, Rich Cutter and many other great creatives, strategists and account folks.
A new way to engage.
When we took over Denny’s Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and IG accounts, we saw an opportunity to interact with our target in a new way. Our approach was simple. We used our social channels just like our audience used them. To post about what was happening in the moment in the world and in pop culture. To riff on memes in our own way. To create a new type of fan engagement built on responding and recognizing fans in creative ways. And to post and make content that was humorous, and even snarky. The new approach led to great fan engagement and growth, increases in sales in a younger demo, tons of organic press in trades and consumer publications, and recognition in national award shows.
We focused on humor, creativity, creative fan engagement, making our version of memes, and some photoshop wizardry to keep people not just engaged. But always waiting to see what we’d do or say next.
What’s the joke in this gif? It’s space jam of course. A movie loved by the internet, and a pretty solid example of some of the memes my team and I came up with through the years. We brainstormed content every morning and posted it the same day to make sure we were talking about the things our fans were talking about in real time.
While a lot of what we created were real time plays on current events and memes. We also developed a unique voice and tone that was one part stoner, one part satire and one part existential philosopher. That voice started on Tumblr and then our community manager suggested migrating it to Twitter as well. The small sampling of examples below are just some of the ideas and things I came up with over the years.
