wishpond EBOOK Easter: A Guide to

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1 Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses

2 Table of Contents Chapter 1 Content Marketing on Social Networks During Easter Holidays 6 Chapter 2 Which Industries Capitalize Most on the Easter? 10 Chapter 3 Easter Revenue from Consumers on Smartphones and Tablets 13 Chapter 4 Social Media Branding for Easter 17 Chapter 5 The Impact of Easter Photos on Consumer s Emotions 18 Chapter 6 Assist Your Target Market in Finding Solutions 21 Chapter 7 Campaigns and Promotions During Easter 24 Appendix A Sources 27

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4 introduction The average Easter celebrant is expected to dish out $ in apparel and food for the holiday this year. Most parents are willing to spend on this holiday to please their kids. If Easter is important to your consumers, shouldn t it be important to your business? 4 out of 5 Americans will celebrate Easter this year. Although Easter spending growth from 2012 to 2013 has been reported as stagnant, it doesn t mean you can t benefit from the multi-billion dollar holiday. Easter produces a great deal of revenue each year. The average annual spending last year was $16.8 billion in 2012 and is expected to rise to $17.2 billion this year. Not enough businesses take advantage of the opportunities of holiday seasons. The holidays are a time to grow your relationship with customers and clients via social networking. Do Easter like the pros in social media marketing. In this white paper you will learn: How to market your brand on Easter through various social networks How to run Easter campaigns and promotions The impact of photos on customer engagement The roles of tablets and smartphones in Easter purchases The top 7 most purchased items for the holiday and more!

5 Content Marketing on chapter 1 Social Networks During Easter Holidays

6 Understanding the tone of each social network especially during the holidays can be tricky for businesses. Create content for your marketing initiatives that is applicable to both your industry and Easter. Below we detail the major social networks and what types of posts are best for each. Facebook Posting about topics, holidays, and current events that Facebook users already have in mind tend to go more viral than other posts. For example, posts that mentioned Independence Day on July 4th created somewhere near 90% more engagement than all other types of posts published that day. What kind of content is best to post on Facebook? Below, London Drugs utilizes both a fill-in-the-blank post and an image. Photos on Facebook Pages receive 53% more likes than the average post. Photos attract 104% more comments than the average post Fill-in-the-blank posts generate about 90% more engagement than the average text post. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 6

7 Google+ Google+ is home to the tech-savvy. Which means outdated posts are not going to bode well with your audience. Relevant and trending topics are monitored and responded to. Keep track of when Easter is trending on Google+ so you can get on top of it. Keep thing fresh like E! Entertainment News by creating some content around Easter in a way that is somehow connected to your business. Includes interesting images and the occasional links to interesting content, promotions, and videos. Posting links to your original content will get indexed by Google and improve your SEO. E! Entertainment News makes Easter relevant by having celebrities talk about saving the chocolate bunnies from extinction this year. They executed a playful way to celebrate the holiday. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 7

8 Pinterest Pinterest is a powerful tool for social promotions. Yet as of October 2012, 71% of businesses were not on Pinterest. Pinterest users spend more money, more often on more items than any other of the top 5 social platforms. This makes Easter the perfect season to utilize Pinterest. Help your customers find Easter gifts, crafts, DIY, and more. How women (70% of all Pinterest accounts) use Pinterest for holiday shopping: 60% to find gift ideas 26% to create a wishlist to share 23% top in photos of gifts I ve bought/made for others 36% to do research on gifts for others that are already in consideration Twitter It s hard to get heard with all of the noise on Twitter. There are approximately 3,000 tweets sent per second! So make your tweets exciting. In less than 140 characters, you have to grab the attention of your audience. Giving followers a peek into behind-the-scenes can go a long way. To the audience, it feels exclusive. It s necessary to provide content that they feel is worth their time. Or give them ideas on something they are interested in. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 8

9 Which Industries chapter 2 Capitalize Most on Easter?

10 You probably aren t surprised that the industries that make the most off the Easter holidays are retailers and brands. Below we ll cover some of the numbers associated with goods bought during the Easter holidays. Here s a list of the 7 most popular goods bought for Easter: Candy Clothes Food Flowers Gifts Decorations Greeting cards Specifically, The Greeting Card Association 2010 reported 21.9 million Easter cards with a retail value of 14.8 million were sold in Easter is second to Halloween on the top chocolate consumption day of the year. The total annual spending on Easter candy is $2.1 billion. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 10

11 Here are a few lessons from Cadbury Celebrations online marketing: Don t be afraid to let loose and have a little fun. Create anticipation of the holiday by not only celebrating on the day, but days up until Easter as well. Incorporate your products into the holiday fun. Here are a few lessons from Walmart: Encourage your fans to interact and voice their opinion on your page. Do a product comparison - find out which product/service your fans prefer. Create a special Easter touch on your posts to create the holiday atmosphere on your page. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 11

12 Easter Revenue chapter 3 from Consumers on Smartphones and Tablets

13 The impact of tablets and smartphones on Easter purchases is immense. It is essential for your website to be optimized for such devices, so the users so they can easily browse and purchase products/services hassle-free. In general, it is important to include mobile into your marketing initiatives. Below are parts of an infographic by Smart Insights detailing how much of the world are on smartphones and how rapidly mobile internet usage is growing. The statistics on purchases planned on devices are overwhelming. Below, the statistics detail the research and actual planned purchases for the Easter holiday. 51% of tablet owners will use their device to research or buy this year 43.3% of smartphone owners will use their device to research or buy this year 22% of tablet owners plan to make an Easter-related purchase on their device 14.8% say they will do so on their smartphone These specifics make it almost comical to pass up these sales. If you miss out on the tablet users, that s more than one fifth of your Easter sales down the drain this year. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 13

14 Social Media chapter 4 Branding for Easter

15 Incorporating Easter into your social media branding is easy. The hardest part is remembering to do so! Easter is associated with a lot of different things, other than occasions such as St. Patrick s Day. Pastel colours, eggs, bunnies, and flowers all convey that certain Easter atmosphere. Here s how you do it on Facebook and Google+: On Facebook, consider making a seasonal cover photo for the occasion. Reese s has made their image both relative to their product and the holiday, which is best. This way people s positive energy around the holiday will be tied to your brand. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 15

16 On Google+, you could do the same with your cover photo as well. Fortunately, cover photos on the site have expanded so there s more room to play with! Cadbury UK features their eggs in a crispy, chocolate nest. Like Reese s, they have successfully related their brand to the holiday. One of the goals of doing any sort of branding for Easter is starting ahead of time. Large businesses (especially retailers) start posting about the holiday three weeks ahead of time. This will make your business appear organized and put-together. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 16

17 The Impact of chapter 5 Easter Photos on Consumer s Emotions

18 Excitement and anticipation created around Easter, as well as many other emotions such as happiness and content. So how do you get in touch with these emotions? Provide content that taps into your reader s hearts and deeper emotions. Cause your target market to feel emotional engagement between themselves, your business, and the holiday. Many marketers believe that evoking emotion through content marketing is essential to make posts go viral. Examples of such emotions are created through relating the holiday and your business to something that means a lot to them - such as parenthood. If you show a few baby bunnies and their mother snuggling, the mother will likely either consciously or subconsciously associate the photo with themselves. In a study regarding the shareability of articles at the New York Times, it was discovered that: Awe was the second most viral type of content to be shared Conversational posts receive twice as many comments on average Posts filled with emotion are typically shared more Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 18

19 According to a study conducted by the University of Indiana, there are 6 primary emotions that humans have that you can tap into with your content. 1. Surprise 2. Joy 3. Sadness 4. Fear 5. Anger 6. Disgust For Easter, it s most likely easier to stick to the first two; surprise and joy. Anything unexpected or positive in an inspirational or humourous manner will lead people to share your content. The below Anne Geddes-esque photo of the baby in the bunny uniform in an egg is sure to evoke some joy from someone. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 19

20 Assist Your chapter 6 Target Market in Finding Solutions

21 Isn t it great when you know exactly what you re getting before you head to the store? People are going to listen to what you have to say if it s going to help them. Providing Easter ideas not only helps them, but helps your business create trust with consumers. Easter related promotional posts with a solution don t seem as pushy as the regular ones without a purpose. It s more about suggesting as opposed to telling. The buyer will come to a natural yes and feel confident about purchasing the product. It s essential to think about what your target market wants to see from you, and what kind of post they re going to enjoy most. What are their favorite aspects of your business? Walmart suggests gifts for the kids, and even creates an Easter-themed graphic for them. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 21

22 Oh hey, you don t have anything to do this weekend? Downtown Burlington suggests an Easter party for kids. Being specific about who the products/services grab the attention of your target market. Answering a question (either directly or indirectly) helps people realize their needs. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 22

23 Campaigns and chapter 7 Promotions for Easter

24 Create online campaigns that get fans involved. Take advantage of Easter and use contests to acquire more followers, likes, engagement, or whatever your goal may be. Another important aspect of you contest is mobile compatibility. Remember the importance of mobile marketing in Chapter 3? Make sure your campaign/promotion is mobile compatible. Here are a few more statistics to convince you: There are over 1.2 Billion people accessing the web from their mobiles 32% of people ages use social networking in the bathroom. Yeah... 38% of smartphone owners use their device in front of the TV every day Create your own hashtags to be used on either Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or Google+. Making up your own hashtag can be fun and helps your brand go viral. If the hashtag goes over well enough, people will recognize the certain hashtag you create as yours. You can also utilize generic hashtags applicable to your campaign such as #giveaway or #easter. These already have a defined virality, but are more generalized and apply to a lot more businesses. Below, Cadbury UK features submissions from their entrants. This gives their brand an added touch of humanity and gains respect from their audience. Their unique hashtag is also being used for the contest, spreading their brand s name effectively. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 24

25 Entice fans to comment on your posts by giving them an incentive, whether it be big or small. Comments, shares and likes all attribute to the increase in virality of your posts. Cadbury UK does a great job of holding regular contests and campaigns to engage their target market. In this example, Cadbury UK collaborates with UK Photography Community to generate a creative photo contest. Again, they feature the popular entries to make sure they recognize their audience. Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 25

26 Appendix A Sources

27 Intro: Chapter 1: Chapter 2: Chapter 3: Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 27

28 Chapter 5: Chapter 7: Easter: A Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses I 28

29 contact us Thanks for reading! We would love to give you the advantage of our learnings. Book a Personal Consultation Written by: Cara Tarbaj Content Marketing Manager Wishpond

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