top-articles-2015AdAge is the heartbeat of understanding how marketers are engaging with consumers online, and a great place to keep track of trends.

I was attracted to this article that talked about the top 10 posts on Facebook in 2015. My intrigue was to understand if there was something that real estate could learn by looking backwards.

  1. Robert Plant Breaks Down into Tears When Ann Wilson Covers “Stairway to Heaven” – My conjecture is that a sincere emotional reaction (tears) combined with a recognized celebrity (Plant) that we can relate to (everyone knows the words to Stairway to Heaven).
  2. Optimistic People All Have One Thing In Common: They’re Always Late – My conjecture is that everyone either hates being late, or hates it when other people are late, or both. In some small way, this post turns hate into something good – optimism.
  3. Zombie-themed “Walking Dead” cruise setting sail in January – no conjecture.
  4. 15 hilarious parenting comics that are almost too real – conjecture is that humor always attracts people, especially clean humor that we can all relate to in some way.
  5. Fast Food Workers: You Don’t Deserve $15 an Hour to Flip Burgers, and That’s OK – lots of dynamic conjecture here.  This touches the familiar body of emotion that people manifest around fast food restaurants and minimum wages.
  6. This Moving Company Helps Women Leave Abusive Homes At No Cost – WOW! In a way, this is the only advertising related post in the top 10.  This one also hits home in a significant way because the moving company is in our town of San Luis Obispo. It is the story of Meathead Movers. The company was started by some local Cal Poly college kids trying to make some extra money. It has become a very successful company around the mantra that athletic college students come and move your stuff. The students also run back to the truck after they set down each box to show you how hard they work. http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/meathead-movers-helps-women-leave-abusive-homes/

The conjecture here is that the company is dong something that is really good. I know that real estate companies are constantly doing things that are really good. As an industry, we “pay it forward.” As you set down your strategy for social media in 2016, think about what you can do that is Good, Family Orientated, Emotional, Includes a Celebrity, is familiar, and that people have opinions about. Add in a Zombie and your message is sure to go viral in 2016.

You can continue to look at the list and arrive at your own conjecture on the others.