3 Helpful Social Media Lessons from “My Cousin Vinny”

What do you do on a lazy weekend afternoon? If you’re like me, you search for a good movie to kick back and watch. Most recently I was searching for something to strike my interest and I found it: “My Cousin Vinny.”

Per an IMDB plot synopsis, “Bill Gambini and Stanley Rothenstein are two friends from New York University who just received scholarships to UCLA. They decide to drive through the South. Once they arrive in Alabama, they stop at a local convenience store to pick up a few snacks. But, no sooner than they leave the store, they are arrested. They had thought that they were arrested for shoplifting, but they were arrested for murder and robbery. Worse, they are facing execution for this crime. Bill and Stan do not have enough money for a lawyer, so the good news is that Bill has a lawyer in his family, his cousin, Vincent Laguardia Gambini. The bad news is that Vinny is an inexperienced lawyer who has not been at a trial. So, Vinny has to defend his clients and battle an uncompromising judge, some tough locals, and even his fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito, who just does not know when to shut up, to prove his clients’ innocence.”

After watching this movie, I started to think about all the ways Vinny and Mona Lisa used their wits and skills to get the boys out of murder chargers and compared it to the work social media managers do. Keep reading for three interesting connections between “My Cousin Vinny” and social media management.

Be an Expert in Your Field

If there is one thing Mona Lisa Vito knows, it’s cars. In one of the most famous scenes of the movie, Vinny’s fiancé is called to the stands as an expert witness to explain tire marks in question. Through her vast knowledge of car models, years that cars were made and more, she was able to prove the boys’ innocence. Regardless of your industry, it is important to prove your expertise in your field. One great way to do so is to write how-to blog posts.

Here’s a tip from Senior Publicist & Graphic Designer, Beth Adan, in her blog post on customer service. She explains why writing how-to posts are important and what to include:

“It may seem counterintuitive to write a ‘how-to’ article when you are driving customers to seek out your services, but giving away some of your secrets can have a positive impact not only on your customers’ perception, but also when blogging for SEO. Search engines give preference to sites that offer high-quality consumer-friendly content, so it can be beneficial to write some articles in this style. Just be sure to do these three things:

1. Identify and Write to Your Readers’ Needs

Writing to your customers’ needs is important when blogging for customer care; the first thing you should do after picking a topic is assess the needs of your readers. As the expert in the field, you likely know much more information than the average consumer. Think about information you would be most interested in learning if you had no knowledge on the topic. If you aren’t sure what customers are asking for since you don’t deal with them directly, try collaborating with your social media or sales teams to gain insight into common questions, concerns or complaints.

2. Include Relevant Keywords

Blogging for SEO depends on knowing and using the main keywords to make sure your topic gets ranked high in search results; this is also important for customer care since you’ll want to identify what keywords and phrases your customers are searching for when they’re looking for answers online. To determine what the main keywords and phrases are, all it takes is a simple Google search; this is an easy way to get started and see what others in your field are writing about.

3. Offer a Compelling Headline

If you spend precious time writing an article for your customers, it’s important to make sure you entice them to read it! Take time to craft a headline that will make them click and urge them to read more by using a noteworthy statistic or surprising new spin on the topic. Try using a headline tool that can help you score your chosen title; at Three Girls, we use this great one from CoSchedule.”

You can find more insights from Beth in her blog post, How to Leverage Blogging for Stellar Customer Care.

If you are able to share quality information that is helpful for people to use, they will come back to you and trust your opinion. Like Mona Lisa, providing detailed answers to questions can make you a valuable commodity.

Know When to Prioritize Certain Items

A running joke throughout the movie was the sounds that went off early in the morning, waking Vinny and Mona Lisa up. No matter where they moved (and they relocated a lot), alarms, trains and animal sounds always occurred extremely early in the morning. Not knowing the early morning alarms would go off caused problems and tired days for Vinny and Mona Lisa. When they asked a local about one whistle that went off, he said it was to let the workers know it was time to get up and start their day and like social media managers, it is important to know when to post content.

Knowing what time to post on social media is important to creating a loyal following and establishing yourself as a valuable player in your field. Follow this guide to learn when to post on each social media platform to reach and engage with your audience.

Facebook: The best days and times to post on Facebook are Thursdays and Fridays between 1 pm and 3 pm; of course, people love to burn time before the weekend on Facebook!

Twitter: The half-life of a tweet is just about 24 minutes (that’s short!). For best chances of likes and retweets, post at 12pm, 5pm and 6pm Monday to Friday. Since the life of a tweet is so short, you can share the same content multiple times a week or so later without looking like you’re repeating yourself. Just make sure you introduce the blog post, infographic or meme in a new way.

LinkedIn: Surprisingly, the most effective time to post on LinkedIn is on weekday evenings; the best time to post is between 7pm and 10pm. It may be tempting to post during business hours because of the professional nature of LinkedIn, but users are generally busy working during the day.

Pinterest: The two best days of the week to post on Pinterest are Saturday and Sunday, with 8pm and 11pm being the most popular times for engagement. It is also important to spread your pins out so as to not flood your followers’ feeds.

Instagram: This platform has a wide-open timeframe for posting; anytime on weekdays expect from 3pm to 4pm are good for engagement. This gives busy business owners plenty of time to get a post in during the day. 

Tools to Help Your Social Media Efforts

Not only did the alarms and whistles tell Vinny it was time to get up, the loud noise helped him get up. It shouldn’t be expected you are sitting at the computer right at each time you want your social media posts to go live; that’s what tools are for. Two great resources to help you schedule are Hootsuite and SproutSocial.

Hootsuite and SproutSocial allow business owners to connect their social media accounts all together in one place, and enables users to post content, links, images and videos directly to their page. This can greatly save time and is one way to ensure that you will be consistently posting and improving the SEO ranking of your business. Each tool also allows you to pick what time of day you want your post to go live to ensure maximum visibility and interaction. SproutSocial also sends you weekly page analyses so you can view customer engagement and the effectiveness of your content.

Get Out There!

Vinny may not have been the best lawyer around, but he tried his best and through the help of Mona Lisa and waking up he got the job done! If you need help creating a stellar social media campaign, we are happy to be your Mona Lisa! Contact us today for a free complimentary consultation with our CEO and be sure to check out these additional blog posts that center around our favorite movies and TV shows:

• 3 Social Media Lessons from “Gone Girl”
• 3 Social Media Lessons from “Bonnie and Clyde” 
• 3 Lessons from “Taken 3’s” Social Media Contest 

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