The Right Stuff

A number of organizations use social media to tell their brand story quite effectively. One of the best might surprise you – NASA.

The sheer number of social media tools NASA uses is mind-boggling – Google +, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Vine…and more. And various divisions within NASA all have their own social media accounts. And virtually everyone employed by NASA in a high-level position has at least a Twitter account that they update regularly. In short, NASA is basically everywhere.

More importantly, NASA uses these tools creatively and effectively, as this article describes in some detail. The organization has come up with all kinds of ways to tell a very simple story – one of ongoing exploration and learning. My favorite example is the NASA Social, in which people who engage with NASA on various social platforms are invited to an in-person behind-the-scenes look at the organization.

(NASA, of course, has a 50-year track record as a master marketer, back to the days of the Mercury program, as this new book details.)

Obviously, NASA has an advantage over most firms in that they are constantly doing new things and they produce content this is literally out of this world. But this blog post discusses how more “down to earth” firms can use some of NASA’s social media principles and apply them to their own marketing plans.