April 1 made for a special breakfast "treat" presented by our good friends at Bernstein-Rein and sponsored by the fantastic folks at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Hostess snack cakes have a fond place in many hearts but when reestablishing a brand identity, nostalgia isn’t enough. Since launching the “Sweetest Comeback In The History of Ever” Hostess has relied heavily on social channels to help build their brand awareness. April’s SMCKC Breakfast featured the Hostess team from Kansas City based agency Bernstein-Reindiscussing how they score touchdowns on Hostess Social.

Three big takeaways:

Opening Day Touchdown

The Story: Hostess knew they had an opportunity to engage with baseball’s opening day social conversation with their limited edition baseball cupcakes. But how do you make your tweet stand out in all of the chatter? Easy. A typo...kind of. Hostess took a simple image of their baseball themed cakes and simply added “Touchdown.” While you can hope for what followed you certainly can’t predict it.
The Results: While there were a few “you had one job” responses many saw the joke in it and other brands started to engage. In the first 4.5 hours after posting the team saw a 52,886% increase in retweets and 21,082% increase in favorites over their average. The tweet took off so much so that national morning programs discussed it: Good Morning America claimed Hostess received the most impressions for one tweet than anyone other than Major League Baseball on opening day.
The Lesson: If you have a story to tell, tell it but be aware if you’re entering a congested conversation you have to have something to make you stand out.

Recipe Videos

The Story: Quick format recipe videos are increasingly popular shareable content. The Hostess team wanted to insert their core products into the conversation.
The Results: The team garnered 4.7M video views with 37,000 total shares and an average cost per view of $0.003.
The Lesson: Keep it simple. Social is about quick bytes of information to get someone curious for more information. Videos can be easy ways to pique interest while educating consumers.

Event Activation

The Story: Hostess wanted to focus on cultural moments to both drive engagement and introduce their brand to a new audience. They choose South by Southwest as the perfect avenue to use influencers to drive engagement at the event and the conversation online.
The Results: Their SXSW presence helped drive 10.2M impressions and 96,000 fan engagements.
The Lesson: As people continue to engage in unique experiences look for opportunities to be part of events to connect you with your target audience.

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