The beauty of the internet is that in the technological jungle sometimes being small gives you an advantage over being a big and traditional business.
Today’s examples come from Brazil, one of the biggest internet markets in the world with nearly 140 million users spending on average 9 hours a day online.
So what happened?
The Biggest TV network of Brazil (TV GLOBO) was airing live a resistance challenge on the reality show Big Brother Brazil, the winner would take home a brand new pick-up truck from the automaker FIAT. So a very charismatic participant called BABU was able to keep up until he had only one competitor but was beaten and didn’t win the truck. That is the 3rd challenge that gets to the final and loses.
As he is the only man left in the game and doesn’t have much sympathy from the girls he didn’t hold his emotion and started crying and letting his emotion go while he was lonely sitting on the stairs and no one reached out to him as a consoling shoulder or voice.
What did the companies do?
The web went crazy in Brazil and in seconds his name was trending on Twitter, FIAT the giant automaker that probably spent a lot of money to put the car on the show didn’t take any action or advantage of the social media buzz. At the same time, the startup EasyCarros went to twitter and offered BABU a car when he leaves the house.
Free Translation: “I couldn’t handle it! @BabuSantana we (easycarros), in a partnership with the Green Automotive Group, don’t want to see you cry anymore. When you leave the #bbb20 (big brother brazil 2020) house, your brand new car will be waiting for you. A gift for you from us <3”
As you can see the tweet got some traction more than 200k likes and 51k retweets. Noticing the reaction, FIAT decided to move, but almost a day later they posted:
Free Translation: “We are here to announce that @BabuSantana will go back home to his favela with a Fiat Toro Ultra! We know that his passion for FIAT is not a new thing and today we want to make your dreams of a new car come true! After all, I really understand about passion! Babu, you deserve it!”
They acted but as you can see by the numbers of likes and retweets. FIAT a giant automaker with almost 10 times more followers than EASYCARROS got a lot less traction on their post. That comes to show how much timing is important when you are doing online marketing, especially on Social Media.
What do we learn?
- In social media timing is king.
- Speed to act is very important. It is easier to move a rabbit than an elephant.
- Online many times size doesn’t matter.
- Social media is a place where small businesses can go head to head with big ones.
Digital marketing made possible for small companies to compete with big companies in a fair fight. If you have the right strategy and the feeling to move at the right time. You may be able to take advantage of a situation that a big company can’t because of their policies.
Keep in mind all businesses have a shot online. But this vast quantity of information requires you do the right move at the right time.
