The Love Fest is on its way. In the next week, you will have plenty to talk about in your newsfeed – ask questions, tell inspirational stories, share fun, interactive posts and promotions that make your customers LOVE you more. And we’ve got you covered as usual in time for the sweetest day of the year.
Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest days of the year. To connect with customers, you need to use all marketing channels to attract customers, including social media, email marketing, content marketing, advertisements and more.
And if you ask yourself what Valentine’s Day has to do with social media, the answer is simple. What they have in common is relationships. Social media is about building relationships. Valentine’s Day is about paying attention to relationships and strengthening relationship bonds. So here are some ideas that will help you celebrate the holiday with your customers. If you only make it seem like you are interested in a customer’s wallet, it will kill the romance of the holiday and they probably will not buy from you.
Post Your Valentine’s Day Wishes
It goes without saying, but acknowledging Valentine’s Day is a way to make your business more personal. Poems, love quotes and inspirational words for both singles and attached can do miracles. They create lots of positive engagement and shares while boosting your overall online presence. There is no better moment than special events and holidays to loosen up a bit and show the fun side of your brand.
Offer Promotional Deals
Valentine’s Day is a big deal, but there is a lot of competition. You need to give your customers a compelling reason why they should choose you over another business. So putting some love into your visuals/graphics would go a long way in distinguishing your offer among your competitors .
What’s more, if a deal or discount is offered on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, it has the potential to become viral and reach a larger audience to participate. There is no doubt, the exposure on social media sites is perfect for offering your best Valentine’s Deals and target your most loyal customers.
Create Meaningful and Lasting Relationships
Consider sharing your knowledge. This could be in a form of some sweet statistics or insightful advice related to the holiday.
Interesting content is one of the top three reasons why people follow brands on social media. By simply putting out engaging content that sparks your customers’ interest on a regular basis can generate more followers and engagement.
You can create lists for inspiration – from unusual gift ideas, romantic restaurants to the best deals on local leisure activities.
Create posts with open ended questions that allow for conversations and engagements or find a topic that resonates with your audience.
Engage Your Customers with Valentine’s Day Questions
It’s getting harder and harder to engage your customers with questions about their Valentine’s Day plans or what they did on Valentine’s Day. You may need to come up with some original questions. After they answer back, encourage customers to share their responses with their special someone.
If you are the owner, you might also give a bit of personal information to relate to customers. In the process, you can draw attention to your Valentine’s Day offerings at your restaurant for example.
Use Social Media to Feature Your Employees
Your employees are the human face behind your brand. They can share their own Valentine’s Day stories or you might make a photo collage of all the staff and their significant others. This is a great way to boost your social media (think about all your staff member’s friends) and improve customer relationships through social media.
Thank them
Let your customers know how important they are and how much you appreciate them. A simple post thanking them on Facebook or wishing them a Happy Valentine’s day will go a long way in your customers’ eyes. Go out of your way to show your appreciation.
Freebies and Contests
If you’re a business-to-consumer (B2C) company, consider hosting a giveaway on social media. A great example is the krill oil supplement MegaRed that offered to send free samples to help “the heart of someone you love” and if they reached 100,000 samples, they would donate £100,000 to the National Coalition for Women With Heart Disease. This was a huge campaign spanning across all social media networks.
As a small business it would be hard to run such a huge campaign but giving back to community is always a win strategy that will help you build trust and credibility for your local business.
Start a Valentine’s Day Hashtag
Hashtags are another great way to promote your business. But as with everything else, you can’t just throw the hashtag out there and expect it to get spread like fire. On Instagram, you might ask your customers to post images of an awesome Valentine’s Day menu with your hashtag to take part in a contest. Or on Twitter, you can ask for a short (280 symbols) description of the best Valentine’s Day they have ever experienced.
The best part of the hashtags is that you can easily track how many people are tweeting and sharing your campaign based on who’s using the hashtag.
With so much to-do around this day, I am sure you will come up with some unexpected and witty campaigns that will help you get the most out of Valentine’s Day fever.