Steak-Umm - if you haven't heard of them yet - are a Pennsylvanian headquartered company that produce frozen beef sheets. Whether or not you've heard of Steak-Umm's meat products is irrelevant, because the genius of Steak-Umm comes down to their social media presence.
Get Steak-Umm Verified
The Twitter takeover began when Steak-Umm's Twitter account began asking Twitter kingpin @jack to become a verified account. They rallied support through a grassroots resistance and through humour and tongue-in-cheek meat puns, and eventually achieved it. The little engine that could, did, and through the campaign to become verified, upped their presence on social media.
Steak-Umm's Social Media Strategy
The Steak-Umm strategy is extremely clever and effective. Instead of posting corporate uses for their beef sheets or company bottom lines, they come across very human and as though they are extremely passionate about their product. The passion is shared and, through everyone's love of an 'underdog' a la Rocky, Steak-Umm have come through. The 'Steak-Umm bless' tweet sign off has become the catchphrase of the brand, and the diverse and genuinely interesting content they produce.
The Steak-Umm Moment-umm
From the Heart
As well as providing humour, faux feuds with other food providers, and memes galore, Steak-Umm also dole out pearls of wisdom and advice. As part of the all-compassing engagement, Steak-Umm aren't afraid to get real and speak directly to the Twitter user, without the veneer of polished brand image that result in other brands achieving so little social media engagement.
Steak-Umm are fun, know where they stand as a brand, and are tapping into their audience the best way they know their audience will listen. They use newsjacking and meme marketing (see above) and utilise the trends that are set each month. By tapping into the zeitgeist and crafting content that goes above and beyond a standard brand Twitter account and into the territory of social media marketing of the future: the brand as a living entity in a digital space. After following Steak-Umm for several months, and catching their content daily, I now see Steak-Umm as a person - perhaps a person made of dozens of boxes of frozen beef sheets hidden in a raincoat, but a person nonetheless. As a freelance copywriter, it is exciting to see that the world of marketing can be genuinely fun, and that content can be crafted with limitless bounds, while encapsulating fully the presence of a brand. Steak-Umm, we salute you.