Communication changes with time and adapting can prove to be advantageous for marketing professionals.
We live in a time where typing a full sentence is replaced by emojis, gifs and videos.
Hashtags, puns, similes and metaphors carry the power to trend, and brands are using these tools more every day.
The City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ) Twitter account is a prime example of how well marketers use colloquial language on their social media currently.
The CoJ social media officer, Gugulethu Bukhali, spoke more on the account and how the strategy is helping their brand.
“Our people on Twitter use this language every day and our social media has grown since we started using the language.”
According to the social media officer, the CoJ team realised they needed to engage and disseminate information to the people of Johannesburg, in their language of communication.
“For example, when responding to direct queries, if someone uses isiZulu, we will respond in that language.”
The benefits of using colloquial language on CoJ’s social media have proven to be positive.
“We are able to distribute municipal information and promote campaigns in the vacuum where people are already having conversations. This language technique helped increase engagement for CoJ,” said Gugulethu.
Although slang is incorporated in CoJ’s media messaging, they still abide to standard writing guidelines.
“We have a quality assurer within our team who ensures our content adheres to editorial rules and does not offend anyone or infringe on human rights.”
Gugulethu said marketing is ever-changing; CoJ aims to continue to move with the times.
“Marketing is moving in the direction of following trends. People set the tone of how marketing is done now. You need to speak to customers at the level they are at, which is what we do on our social media platforms.”
Gugulethu said there have been no negative effects on CoJ, due to using this type of language thus far.
“We pride ourselves in how we communicate on social media.
“We have identified that government institutions have been stereotyped as boring and too serious, so we have changed that narrative and we have given our municipality character and a personality that resembles Johannesburg as a city.”
