Holidays can be a useful tool to use in social media marketing campaigns for a number of reasons. It helps personalize a campaign, makes it easy-to-share and uses trending topics in the online sphere. In fact, a lot of marketers plan major campaigns specifically around major holidays. In the spirit of Valentine’s Day coming up, we thought it would be fun to take a look at different types of marketing campaigns and how they are applied to Valentine’s Day. Here’s what we found.

Tell A Story

Building a campaign around a story is a great way to connect with your customers and create something that’s a little more personal. A lot of storytelling campaigns around Valentine’s Day focus on relationships and love. Here are a couple great examples of social media campaigns that used storytelling:

– West Jet: #WestJetLove
West Jet is known for bringing their ‘A’ game when it comes to holiday marketing campaigns. Their Christmas Miracle campaign got over 44 million views. It certainly didn’t get as many views but, for Valentine’s Day last year West Jet launched the #WestJetLove campaign that built upon the story of two couples.

– Sweethearts: Share Your Sweet Story
The classic Valentine’s Day candy, Sweethearts, celebrates their 150th anniversary by allowing anyone to share a story about love, friendship, and other words from the heart. Sweethearts then chose a few submitted stories to feature and share across social media platforms.This type of storytelling is a great way to engage and interact with your audience and has the added bonus of more website views!

Be Bold

Sour Patch Kids: #SinglesAwarenessDay 

Any good social media marketing campaign is willing to take risks. That’s why you often times see proactive holiday marketing campaigns that are willing to go against the grain. Marketers know that not everyone is in a happy relationship and excited for Valentine’s Day, so they target their campaign to connect with this type of audience. For example, Sour Patch Kids uses humor to connect with people that aren’t celebrating Valentine’s Day but instead #SinglesAwarenessDay.

When All Else Fails, Be Quirky and Cute

Of course there is always the cute route. Last February Oreo released a special edition Red Velvet Oreo in the spirit of Valentine’s Day. What came along with it was a super quirky social media campaign that like Sour Patch Kids was targeted to people who aren’t psyched about Valentine’s Day. See for yourself!

Creating online marketing campaigns around a holiday is a great way to make your brand relevant to a large audience. If you’re looking for online marketing services that can create holiday campaigns, contact Ruby Porter today!