Getting excited about a new song on Spotify or YouTube video seems to happen just about every day. But how long does that feeling last? For me it’s about three minutes (if that) until I move on to something else. If it’s your job to pump out content onto your company’s social media channels, there will eventually come a time when you don’t have anything new to share with your audience.
Repurposing content and creating reels out of old videos is one way to keep your audience engaged, just ask Seinfeld. Since the final episode aired in May of 1998, it’s consistently held multiple time slots to air its syndication episodes. Yeah all 180 episodes are awesome (except for the one where Kramer inherits the original set from the Merv Griffith Show, that seemed like a stretch for a show about nothing) but the people at TBS are always cranking out trailers with recycled footage for the upcoming airing of episodes. Sometimes they will be focused around Kramer’s antics, other times it might be a 30 second spot of all the times Jerry says hello to Newman. These short commercial trailers will air during primetime, for an episode that airs during the late night hours. Whatever the bumper may be focused on, it is able to get you to momentarily think, “Hey, Seinfeld is on tonight”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNISpWxy9V4&feature=youtu.be
Keeping the Matter feeds busy has never been much of an issue because there’s always some sort of event or extracurricular activity going on around here (read: tonight’s World Cup viewing party), but a lull in the action does happen from time to time. Right after the start of 2014, most clients were still securing budgets and project plans so I found myself with some free time on my hands. I decided to throw together a “Year in Review” video which included candid shots from company outings, business trips, and employee spotlight videos.
https://vimeo.com/83602312
For a show that cut its cameras five years before MySpace was invented, Seinfeld has a phenomenal social media presence. They’re always posting photos of the day, or perhaps a meme with a memorable line from one of the characters. Hypothetically speaking, a meme posted on June 21 with the caption “the Summer of George” would be fitting, or perhaps a photo of Elaine’s boyfriend David Puddy with his face painted at a Devils game to mark the beginning of the NHL playoffs. It generates traffic and is very cost-efficient.
One event that we like to create a buzz about is a monthly networking meet-up called LunchSpotting. People in the Boston startup and tech industries gather for free lunch at different spaces around the city just to chat about ideas, exchange business cards, and check out what the innovation district has to offer. We recently produced a single overview video for LunchSpotting, and now use it whenever the next one is approaching.
https://vimeo.com/90255681
To wrap it all up, I think the absence of new material creates a giant opportunity for creativity. It’s fun to look back and see all the good times and accomplishments your company or respective social media channel has made, and your audience loves to see that stuff too. If you really want to nerd out and watch all the Seinfeld episodes in chronological order, check out http://seinfeld-episodes.com. Or just watch the reruns on TBS.