When it comes to social media, too many brands are focused on the SOCIAL side of the equation, with a single-minded focus on maximizing likes, shares, and other popularity metrics. However, too often this comes at the expense of the MEDIA component of social media. Brands are struggling to tell their story on social media, viewing it as a series of one-off posts instead of an opportunity to construct a long-term social brand narrative.

Social media represents a critically important media channel for e-cig and vapor brands. There is considerable social media activity in the category and we will leverage our research and analysis of brand posts to share success stories and highlight opportunities for e-cig vapor brands.

During ECRM’s E-Cigarette, Vapor, and E-Cigar event, to be held February 10 to 12, 2016 in Las Vegas, Martyn Tipping, Principal of TippingGardner, a New York-based boutique branding firm and its social media intelligence division Brand Chorus, will discuss the importance of storytelling for e-cig and vapor brands on social media. Specifically, attendees will learn:

• Why stories are more important than facts
• How to construct a social brand narrative over time
• Identifying brand themes and buckets on social media 
• Strategic measuring of social media content
• Advantage of teaming with retailers

“Harnessing social media’s potential to tell stories can create enormous opportunities to reach customers, influence retail partners and gain a competitive advantage over larger players,” says Tipping. “Social media is the great equalizer if you know how to use it advantageously. Your customers are already online and fully engaged – more often than not they are online AND in the store—at the same time!”

Presentation time and date: Feb 11, from 8 to 9am

About Martyn Tipping
Since founding the company that is now TippingGardner in 2000, Martyn has been fortunate enough to work with clients including Procter & Gamble, Altria, Colgate-Palmolive, Comcast, MillerCoors, GORE-TEX®, American Express, Amnesty International, Rainforest Alliance, Verizon, GE, Intel, Goldman Sachs, and Eli Lilly.

Prior to TippingGardner, Martyn was director of verbal branding at Landor Associates, New York where he led branding programs for a wide array of clients, including Delta Air Lines, Lego, Motorola, Xerox, AT&T, and Ford Motor Company.

Martyn holds an MA in modern languages and social psychology from the University of Cambridge, England. He is a former faculty member at Georgetown University, where he taught brand strategy in the MBA program. He had a (very) short-lived stand-up comedy career which ended after he opened for Chris Rock in New York.

TippingGardner is a boutique branding firm established in 2000 and based in New York. Its services include brand strategy, brand story workshops, brand architecture, messaging and copywriting, naming, identity design, print and digital design, and social media content strategy and development.

StoryScore is TippingGardner’s proprietary methodology that combines best-in-class social monitoring with human intelligence and technology. The metric gives brands a quantitative diagnosis of social content based on strategy, creativity, and personality.