Did you catch the presidential debate this week? It was of the more intense events from any recent election. The candidates appeared as though they might drop the mics and go for blood any second. Luckily, it didn’t come to that, but there was another group waiting in the wings, poised to pounce at the first opportunity. Of course we’re talking about the cyber-snipers, the people who watch national events just waiting for phrases with viral potential to drop, so they can exploit it for marketing with Facebook and Twitter. They got lucky this debate, because when Romney said “They brought us whole binders full of women,” a star was born.
The phrase was used innocuously, but it was taken out of context and spread around the web like wildfire. Grabbing this kind of phrase while it’s hot is a marketing dream, beneficial to pretty much any business. Don’t believe it? Let us show you a couple examples.
The first is the Binders Full of Women group on Facebook. It was snatched up quickly last night and it flourished while imitators failed. The page already has 346 THOUSAND likes and is using it’s reach to shed light on issues relating to women’s’ rights. It must have a noble owner, as most people would use that intensive reach for personal gain, which brings us to…
BindersFullOfWomen.com (now inactive). The domain was purchased by a Democratic super PAC roughly two minutes after it was uttered in TV. As you can see, the site is already very active and very anti-Romney.
Whoever won the debate, the democrats won the viral-marketing battle (as they so often seem to) and they’re using Romney’s strange phrasing against him, to great effect.
Is there a lesson in this? We think so. Sure, you probably couldn’t have grabbed the binders domain or Facebook because you don’t have a team of guys standing by, but you CAN monitor for opportunities to jump on in your own industry. It just shows that paying attention to what’s trending is important, and figuring out what’s trending BEFORE it trends is money in the bank.
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