Brands, it’s Time to Talk About Holidays

It’s been a busy last few months for brands in social media. First we saw record levels of interaction during the Super Bowl, only to watch those records be shattered during awards season in Hollywood weeks later. Arby’s hit a real-time home run with a quip about Pharell’s hat during the Grammys. Ellen DeGeneres managed to break Twitter weeks later with a selfie that was product placement gold for Samsung. It seems like the real-time social ecosystem, as a whole, couldn’t be healthier right now.

But, brands, we need to talk. I’m seeing a troublesome trend emerge with regard to your content planning. The good news is that we can easily fix it, but the bad news is that it’s getting worse by the day:

It’s time to tone it down with the holiday content.

This past week we saw not one, but two instances of massive over-sharing by brands striving for relevancy: The always-lively St. Patricks’ Day, and…sigh…let’s just start there.

Going Green

The first rule of thumb when evaluating whether or not your brand should be participating in a real-time discussion is to ask: “Who do I want to reach, and are they going to find this relevant?” If they are, then there’s probably an opportunity to subtly join the conversation. Otherwise, it’s going to look awkward or forced, like a guest showing up to a party he or she wasn’t invited to.

Adweek has a recap with some examples of what they call “branded banality” from this year’s St. Patrick’s Day. Among the worst: DiGiorno with a nonsensical take on the “Kiss me, I’m Irish” phrase, and Charmin with a cringe-worthy #tweetfromtheseat. Sure, none of these are necessarily reputation suicide. They’re just examples of lazy, vapid content.

Last year, there were a number of Irish brands that took the opportunity to launch larger, more detailed campaigns. Bailey’s and Jameson, the largest and third-largest brands (respectively) in Ireland at that time, used Facebook applications to interact with their fans in a more memorable and meaningful way. Granted these are higher-profile brands in their marketplace, it still goes to show that quality trumps quantity when the opportunity is there.

Sometimes, even relevant holidays may not warrant jumping into a conversation because of extenuating circumstances. Take Guinness, for example. This year, the brand was silent during a day it’s more popular than ever. It’s likely this was due to the controversy surrounding this year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York City. Guinness made it clear, using traditional, media that it didn’t appreciate organizers’ exclusion of the LGBT community, pulled its event sponsorship, and respectfully remained quiet on social channels while the media cycle ran its course. I found it to be a well-thought-out response to a situation that didn’t warrant the silliness shown by other brands.

Life of Pi

Three days before St. Patrick’s Day was March 14^th, otherwise regarded as “Pi Day.” You know, that one-day a year when we show our appreciation for everyone’s favorite irrational number. I myself have always been more of an Euler’s number fan, so you could say it snuck up on me this year.

I hadn’t heard of someone acknowledging Pi Day since my high school chemistry class, when we got out of a day of lecturing to – you guessed it – enjoy some pie. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Pecan pie as much as anyone, but even then it seemed like a bit of a stretch to make a whole day out of it.

This year, brands flocked en masse to make seemingly every mathematical and/or baking pun imaginable. Some were on brand with their messaging, some a bit irreverent, some just plain bizarre. I found AT&T had the best take on the day, using a clever image to remind us about getting kids interested in STEM courses. For a brand only months removed from a major social media faux pas, it was a clear move in the right direction.

All in all, it wasn’t terrible that brands decided to nerd out for a day. It just got repetitive and, again, didn’t seem totally necessary. When deciding whether or not to participate in the conversation surrounding a holiday, Engagor has a helpful framework to follow:

1. Don’t force a sales pitch: Be subtle; your users don’t want ads shoehorned into a social channel
2. Be straightforward in your messaging: Give a small reminder to keep your brand top-of-mind amidst the shuffle
3. Don’t stick to every holiday: Practice moderation
4. Mix things up with a brand experience: When applicable, go above and beyond a singular piece of content (i.e. Facebook cover photo, Twitter background, etc.)
5. Add gamification when possible: Get fans to relive the experience

Following these simple rules should give a solid strategic basis for brands insisting on joining a conversation, not just around the holidays, but any time. As we flock online to converse at record rates, it will become crucial for brands to serve as accurate and engaging content as possible. So don’t worry, there’s still a whole month to go back and revise that Easter post.