Valentine’s Day – an annual celebration of love and commercialism, love it or hate it. It is coming and it’s going to be commercialized by every possible business out there, be it in retail or services it is no doubt one of the busiest days of the year. Forget New Year, Easter, 4th of July and Superbowl. Consumer worldwide are expected to spend over USD14 billion on candies, chocolates and soft toys not including the lavish dinner and a night in luxury hotel that comes along.
With the emerging online businesses, many opt to make purchases online rather than driving out stuck in traffic, going through the busy malls to make purchases for their love ones. Online businesses are generally cheaper and malls moreover you are shopping at the convenience of your home. This is proved by Alibaba Group, an internet based e-commerce company. Alibaba have recorded a total transaction of USD170 billion in 2012, more than eBay and Amazon combined. The only drawback by far from Alibaba group is that almost all of its content is written in Chinese.
However there is a smaller yet significant market that have quickly becoming a trend worldwide. Many have turned their businesses or start a business without going through country’s legality by turning to social media, example; through Facebook.
Social Media have no doubt transformed the conventional of retail, advertising, marketing and promotion in businesses nowadays, especially in the younger generations who prefer to surf the net for information. Managing your social media activity is crucial to the success of any online strategy – Sendible’s social media management tool can lend a helping hand by posting out content to multiple channels at once, monitoring brand sentiment and tracking that all important ROI. Here we listed 10 ways your business can boost engagement on social Media this valentine’s;
1. Giving away free Valentines must have!
Poems, love quotes or inspirational words for both singles and attached works like a miracle. It will not just boost your company presence in the market; it will also no doubt create backlinks and references from the market.
2. Freebies
If you are a business-to-consumer company that offers giveaways via social media, tweak your freebies to reflect the holiday. For instance, last year krill oil supplement MegaRed offered to send free samples to help “the heart of someone you love.” It was an easy adjustment and fit naturally with the theme of Valentine’s Day. MegaRed also posted a short heart-themed video on YouTube that got nearly 139,000 hits.
3. Start a Valentine Hashtag
Hashtags are a great way to promote any business on social media. You can easily track how many people are tweeting and sharing about your campaign based on who’s using the hashtag. Pick something that’s singular to your company.
Don’t just throw1 the hashtag out there haphazardly. Have a greater theme that you invite people to weigh in on. On Instagram you might ask them to post images of a great Valentine’s Day dessert. On Twitter you might request a short description of the best Valentine’s Day a person has ever experienced.
4. Organizing Social Media Contest
Big brands are finding competitions a great way to get to the top of the Facebook numbers game. On December 17, 2010 The UK’s Independent newspaper reported that Kit Kat’s Break by Break competition “in combination with the advertising campaign around the brand 75th birthday has led to fans flocking to the brand Facebook page. 20,000 new users ‘liked’ the brand on December 15, as of 12:00 GMT on December 16 Kit Kat has attracted nearly a further 2,000 unique likes and jumped straight to number 8 in the daily fan charts.
5. Share Ideas
By sharing cute statistics, or unusual and unique gifts ideas will capture readers and increase engagements. Some may not know, by having as much words or visitor searching for the word that is related to Valentine’s on search engine, you might improve your organic ratings. It is a common SEO tactics.
6. Advertise On Social Media
This is literally paying for ads to be place on social media page, like facebook or blogsphere, for example, get your ultra-size bear soft toy for $2.00 will certainly create a need even though one might not have the intention of getting one.
7. Organize Valentine’s Themed Events
Online Matchmaking events are exceptionally popular practice during valentines, a match and off they go on a date on valentines. By sponsoring or organizing such events, it will capture and create a presence on that special day!
8. Create a Facebook App
Interactive apps specially for Valentine’s Day, enhance both experience and also popular way to crowdsource.
Heineken created a Facebook app with Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, called ‘The Seranade’, allowing consumers to create a personalised serenade to their potential partner. A total of 640 different serenades asking a partner on a date were available.
9. Create a microsite
Create a microsite for this valentines if budget allows, it works for Starbucks in the year 2011 by attracting more than 2 million unique visits on their website, facebook and twitter.
10. Create an interactive commercial specially for social media e.g. facebook
Create an interactive and engaging video which only available on certain platform will attract viewers in an instant creating awareness, market and increasing popularity e.g branding.