How to Jump on a Bandwagon, Properly!
2nd August 2022
Going all-in on a topic, person or trend? Here are three quick takeaways to help you get the most out of your investment – and avoid failure.
- Have a strategy
If you’re going to go big on a trend or have identified a brand, person or cause you want to support or partner with, the worst thing you can do is jump headfirst and hope for results.
Like any investment, put some thought into how long you want the relationship to last, the budget you have for it, and the measurables that will come out of doing it. For example, if you want to partner with a local charity, then you may want to view it as a long-term time investment, with the reward being CSR or recognition related, rather than commercial.
On the other hand, partnering with an influencer who has just blown up on social media could be a short-term time and effort investment, with a clear commercial focus and subsequent KPIs
2. Be relevant
Jumping on a bandwagon just because it’s going places can be a bad move. Why? Because who likes the cringe moment when a corporate organisation tries to talk about a trend that’s utterly irrelevant to what they do?
Rather than trying to get leverage from absolutely everything that comes along, be smarter and let some trends (even if they seem juicy) go if there’s no clear correlation between you and whatever the trend, cause or business is. Quality over quantity is a good mantra to live by here.
3. Know when to get off
Guess what? All good things come to an end. Although it may seem a good idea to tie down the star of a good news story for a multi-year contract, it isn’t going to look great when they’re the face of a new campaign in the future, and everyone has forgotten who they are.
It’s sometimes difficult to measure how long a trend, brand or person will be popular/relevant for, but in equal measure you don’t want to get off the bandwagon too soon. Look for the signs (reduced media attention, fewer new followers, less prominence across platforms) and make your thank yous and quietly sneak out / stop related content.
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