Social Media Marketing

#Ramadan, #mickfanning, #Sharknado3 and #unexcitingvideogames dominated the week in Twitter.

This week, the Twittersphere buzzed with Ramadan blessings and shark-mania.  

More than 8.4 billion impressions around #Ramadan were generated on Twitter as the 30-day festival came to a close on July 17. This heat map shows Twitter engagement for the topic over the Ramadan period.  

Twitter was a favored channel for brands and celebrities alike to send best wishes during Ramadan, with U.S. president Barack Obama gaining thousands of retweets with this message:


Brands in Indonesia, one of world's largest Muslim countries, celebrated the month by sharing Ramadan-related content, much of it around forgiveness and togetherness such as this Coca-Cola Tweet.

Korean-Japanese messaging app Line – which is aggressively pursuing markets in Southeast Asia – sent this Tweet from its Line Indonesia account, showing popular sticker characters Cony and Brown, who often fight, in an act of reconciliation.

Manchester United didn't miss a chance to wish Muslims a Happy Eid, attracting more than 25,000 retweets and 10,000 favorites for this post:

While KFC Indonesia kept it all about family.

Surfer Mick Fanning's close call with death started the week rolling with Twitter's obsession with sharks.

#MickFanning and #Sharkattack started trending within (Read more...) of live video showing the surfer fending off a shark during a surfing competition in South Africa.

But brands were slow and wary about how to capitalize on an event that could have ended disastrously for the surfer.

National Geographic offered up an educational Tweet, capitalizing off peak audience interest in shark attacks.

Red Bull, Fanning's official sponsor, and a big endorser of surfing in general, posted a number of Tweets around the attack but came under fire by the Australian press for being opportunistic after promoting Red Bull cans and logos during a media conference.

Online fashion and beauty retailer Asos hoped to appeal to its female fans with a Tweet celebrating fellow surfer Julian Wilson's heroic rush to Fanning's side.

It seemed like the prime opportunity for an insurance brand to jump in with this Tweet from AAMI in Australia.

Backed by engaging content from the Sharknado Twitter account, combined with enthusiastic Tweets from the movie's stars, #sharknado3 topped the twittersphere during its movie premier on July 22. 

No words were needed, as gifs and short videos lent themselves perfectly to the stream of ridiculous shark related visuals being generated by the movie.

 Or this one, with Jerry Springer:

Star of the movie, Ian Ziering invited fans to join him live at the premier with Periscope, while co-star Tara Reid used her personal account to keep the buzz alive to her 400,000 followers with Tweets like this one:

Here's how brands jumped on board:

Universal Orlando promoted its theme park with this Tweet:

While NASA used the opportunity to promote conservation and environmental awareness through its marine life technology:

TGI Fridays posted a number of food related images around the #sharknado3 theme, including this one:

Doritos, riding off a mobile only campaign launched last week around the Sharknado 3 premier, did very well with user engagement for this simple Tweet.

Miller Lite and NASCAR teamed up in a well-planned and executed video Tweet connecting Sharknado to the Emmys.

Even Game of Thrones got a mention with this George R.R. Martin gif.

With Twitter's popularity amongst gamers, it was perhaps no surprise that the random hashtag #unexcitingvideogames began trending mid-week, creating substantial user-generated content.

Brands, many of them related to the gaming industry, had fun getting on board with the theme.

Gaming retailer GameStop came up with a word game for fans of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt.

Lost in translation, as users not familiar with the North American term of the word 'pie' for 'pizza' got very confused by this Tweet from digital gaming provider, Origin and its play on No Man's Sky:

Monster.com came up with this clever Vine video in relation to the popular Call of Duty games:

And this final one from Skittles:

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