It’s become common knowledge that if your Twitter, Facebook and webpage aren’t constantly updated with the latest information, you are missing out on a huge amount of potential interaction with your consumer base; but even more than that, brands have recently been implementing an even more high-speed social media marketing strategy—reactive social marketing.

Reactive social marketing is on the rise, and it’s drawing in attention at an exponential speed. Some brands are taking note of viral trends and breaking news pop-culture, and turning it into a marketing campaign on the spot.

The earliest I took note of a reactive social marketing campaign, and actually spent the time to interact with the tweet myself, was back during the power outage of SuperBowl XLVII:

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

Within minutes of the infamous power outage, Oreo had a tweet posted that referenced the upset and fit their brand. The tweet has been referenced as one of the most memorable tweets of the year repeatedly since, and isn’t soon forgotten.

In more recent news, “#TheDress”, made waves through arguments on Twitter, Facebook, iMessage (and every other mode of communication that you can imagine). Black and blue, white and gold, this photo of a dress had the entire Internet torn over what they were seeing.

 Big brands got in on the great color debate, and took this opportunity for thousands of re-tweets and favorites from all over the globe. Here were a few of my favorite tweets:

#whiteandgold or #blackandblue? We found a way around science- you can have both! #TheDress #dressgate pic.twitter.com/5oj3ZTqOWk — LEGO (@LEGO_Group) February 27, 2015

Trust us, #TheDress is white.

— Clorox (@Clorox) February 27, 2015

idk what color that dress is but pancakes are definitely gold and butter is definitely white — IHOP (@IHOP) February 27, 2015

A day late to post this one, but Oreo struck again with their witty reply to current events in the social media stratosphere:

Fashionably late? #TheDress pic.twitter.com/qGVecgt4mz

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 27, 2015

Why is this trend so important? Consumers don’t retweet product ads for fun, they need a reason to share your content. When you take these huge trending topics and turn them into a witty tweet or image about your product, you encourage them to share. It’s a form a content marketing that focuses on real-time trends rather than general topics– This is a revolutionary way to interact with an audience in a way that makes them laugh, or provokes a reply.

While these reactive social marketing tweets may not have insanely high rates of conversion to sales, it drives large amounts of interaction with the brand and gets the brands’ channels attention. The brands that have been utilizing this new marketing strategy have had significant improvements in their Twitter followings since their posts. Reactive marketing has been growing significantly over the past few months, and I expect to see the strategy used by more and more brands in the future.