Ok, ok, we know that Don Draper wasn\u2019t real\u2026..but the insights he had on Mad Men about how to create powerful marketing campaigns certainly were. But while his character was based in an era where social media didn\u2019t even exist (at least not in the form it does today), we kind of get the impression that Don would have been as brilliant as a social media manager as he was a creative account executive.<\/p>\n

Here are the top 5 ways Don Draper\u2019s beliefs and utterances can teach us about effective social media marketing today:<\/p>\n

1. Tap into Consumers\u2019 Emotions<\/strong><\/p>\n

A key takeaway from Don Draper\u2019s role as Madison Avenue\u2019s most successful ad man is that the most effective marketing forges an emotional connection between the consumer and the brand<\/strong>. You\u2019re selling emotions<\/em>, not products.<\/p>\n

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Image source: http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/gypsybandito\/sex-trust-transparency-what-would-donald-draper-blog<\/em><\/p>\n

Nowhere is this more powerfully demonstrated than the scene where Don sells a campaign to Kodak based on a slideshow of his own family photographs. His pitch taps into the deep-rooted nostalgia we all have for our childhood and our parents. The Kodak execs look as stunned as we (the audience) feel when the Kodak reel finishes.<\/p>\n

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Image source: http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tv-and-radio\/gallery\/2014\/apr\/04\/10-best-mad-men-moments-in-pictures<\/em><\/p>\n

In his powerful pitch to the Kodak execs, Don talks about what his first boss taught him about nostalgia: \u201cWe also talked about a deeper bond with the product \u2014 nostalgia. It’s delicate but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means ‘the pain from an old wound.’ It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The product Kodak wants to sell is a wheel mechanism that loads slides and operates in a loop. The execs are apologetic about how difficult the product is to sell, as it seems rather boring and technical to customers.<\/p>\n

But Don corrects them. \u201cThis device isn’t a spaceship; it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called ‘the wheel’; it’s called ‘the carousel.’ It lets us travel the way a child travels, around and around, and back home again to a place where we know we are loved<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

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Image source: http:\/\/vordik.com\/digital-branding-trends-infinite-scroll\/<\/em><\/p>\n

Lesson: If you can use your product or service to connect with powerful, deep-seated emotions of your market, then you are onto a winning strategy. Social media streams are the perfect platforms for emotions marketing<\/strong>, because they\u2019re where people come to connect, be entertained, and share posts, images, and snippets of information that rouse them in some form or another.<\/p>\n

More and more companies are beginning to understand the sheer power of emotions marketing. Strike upon the right chord and you can blow your competition out of the water.<\/p>\n

The Canadian low-cost airline company West Jet<\/strong>, for example, organized a great event where they asked 250 fliers (kids and their parents mostly) what they wanted for Christmas and then organized for Santa Claus to actually deliver those presents to them at the end of their flight. Watch the video below, and tell us honestly that your eyes didn\u2019t well up\u2026..the company expected 800,000 views on YouTube: they got more than 41 million.<\/p>\n