As technology continues to infiltrate every aspect of our lives, it’s important for businesses to find natural ways of fitting seamlessly into their customers’ lives without being intrusive. It’s easier than ever for businesses to interrupt and disrupt people throughout their day, but this shouldn’t be the goal of marketing.

Companies need to find ways to integrate their brand and message in a useful way, because marketing isn’t about interrupting customers anymore; it’s about complementing their lives with useful or entertaining content.

Marketers have to step into their customers’ shoes and understand first – what content people want – and then second – where and when delivering that content makes the most sense.

The Instagram Hotel

The 1888 Hotel in Sydney, Australia, is known as the Instagram hotel, and it’s a perfect example of how to deeply embed social media and customer habits into marketing efforts. The hotel has a designated “selfie space” where guests can snap photos, they display guests’ photos on large screens in the lobby, and offer people with 10,000+ Instagram followers a free stay at the hotel.

You might not own a hotel, but in technology marketing it’s still possible to find ways to integrate naturally into people’s lives. Create a dedicated hashtag for your brand, product or event and incorporate it into every aspect of your communications with customers.

Flash Tattoos has done a great job of incorporating a hashtag to assist in grouping together customer-submitted photos. This makes it possible for them to find their loyal customers and feature real people using their products on their social media accounts. These types of tactics create opportunities for engagement and build the brand into your customers’ daily experiences.

Reach Out to the Influencers

Another way to fit into people’s lives more seamlessly is by associating your brand with the online personalities that your customers already trust and follow. Start a conversation with influencers who are popular with your customers and find out how you might assist their efforts. Offer the influencer free content in exchange for a mention or tie-in through his or her channels. Infographics and videos work well here because they are visual and easily shareable across multiple platforms.

Produce a video featuring the influencer and your brand – the influencer receives free video content for their own promotion and use on their site and your brand is boosted by the halo effect of association with the influencer while being naturally integrated into the customer’s everyday life. Intel recently teamed up with Harley Streten, a popular electronic musician, to create this incredible piece of branded content that reaches Intel’s customers through a musician they already relate to and follow.

Finding ways to integrate your marketing in a natural way is a challenge, but with the right technology marketing partner the results can be phenomenal.