3 Pittsburgh Social Media Marketing Trends to Avoid
Social media is a realm that comes stock with plenty of trends. Work as a social media manager for long enough, and you’ll start to notice trending content types across personal and company pages.
Zoom in a little further to the city level and you’ll notice even more themes start to emerge.
Pittsburgh is a place that comes with its own charming quirks, especially our own language known as Pittsburghese. Beyond the classic examples in daily life, I’ve started noticing some Pittsburgh-specific trends becoming incredibly popular on the social media marketing scene.
Social media managers handling Pittsburgh accounts, please give these up. And companies, do us a favor and tell your social media managers handling your Pittsburgh accounts to give these up.
1.) Recounting Every Single Moment of Pittsburgh Sports
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Yes, Pittsburgh is a town that loves its sports.
I respect this city’s love of sports, and I respect our city’s sports teams. But guess what? Each team has its own dedicated social media channels along with countless other fan and/or spoof accounts. Together, they produce a staggering amount of content in the digital airwaves and I can confidently say that the official accounts do it extremely well. I often find inspiration from the content that the Penguin’s social media team puts together.
Pittsburgh brands–unless you’re tied directly into one of our sport’s teams or you’re a strictly sport-focused brand–please lay off the updates.
Yes, I know that Big Ben just tossed a beautiful touchdown pass into the end zone–I was watching. Yes, I know it’s almost hockey season–I’ve been paying attention. You don’t have to recount that to me just to try to relate to your Pittsburgh audience or fill your content calendar. After all, you ultimately sell (insert something unrelated to Pittsburgh sport’s teams here) so it doesn’t quite make any sense why you’d be a sports announcer.
Sharing every update on game day is just too much, especially if your brand is unrelated. I’ve witnessed automobile companies blasting the digital airwaves with every stat, yard and update during game day. Unless your spokesperson is Big Ben, and he just did something amazing, you’d best stick to your script unless a championship is secured in an emotional victory.
2.) Incessantly Sharing Pittsburgh News
I’ll be the first one to tell you that Kiss FM shares some outrageously hilarious Pittsburgh news from time to time. That doesn’t mean I want to see your company share it from its platforms.
Much like the Pittsburgh sports conversation we just had, unless the Pittsburgh news has extreme implications that warrant you to share it on behalf of your company or has something to do with your company, you’d best avoid using it as content.
Leave the reporting to the news platforms. We’d rather see your news.
3.) Using Random Facts About Pittsburgh
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Shadyside is hip, Schenley Park is gorgeous, we like Primantis sandwhiches n’at and there are a lot of bridges. Everybody knows all of that.
Please don’t bother posting these random facts without first tying them into your company’s overall content strategy.
The general rule here is this: create your own custom content. Tailor it to your audience and needs. Don’t resort to the easy way out regarding the sharing process–take the time to do it and to do it right. There might be a place in your content calendar for some Pittsburgh trends, but make sure they fit well.
What Pittsburgh social media marketing trends are you sick of seeing?