Love, Social Media, and You.

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Why don’t we all get a day off to pause, reflect, and hug the ones we love? Isn’t February 14th important enough?

Not going to dwell on the origins of Valentine’s Day; there’s plenty of information out there about it. Sadly, in this day and age, this lovely day of celebration seems more like a manufactured event. Products and promotions seem to overshadow the meaning of it.

Do we have to buy cards, candy, roses, stuffed animals and blow a $100 on a dinner?

No. However, we all feel pressured to do so, don’t we?

Today’s promotions go far beyond traditional methods. If you want to read about some of the more out-of-box ideas, click here. For our purposes today, let’s just take a look at social media:

Surprisingly, Hallmark’s Facebook page, with close to 442,000 fans, is pretty quiet on the subject. They can afford to be because the page is driven by questions posed by the fans; one gent asked an intelligent question about same-sex valentine cards, and Hallmark replied with a broad-scoped but smart answer that stated they have cards for all consumers.

I haven’t been to a Hallmark Crown store but assume that they are well stocked with cards and tchotchkes to suit everyone’s needs. This is likely one of their most profitable times of the year and perhaps they don’t need to aggressively promote it.

Next stop. Big box stores. Target posted about Valentine’s Day on February 8th. Missed opportunity there! Their post WAS great though; here’s part of it: “Treat every day like Valentine's Day and show some love.” About 1,400 likes on that post but no shares. Their Facebook page, for the most part, is a complaint board, rather than a promotional one.

Walmart is doing better than Target on the Valentine’s Day front. Yesterday they posted about gifts under $10 and had a photo with four items. And over 50 shares for that post signifies that it was most compelling one. While their page is also a place to express complaints, there’s more of a blend of value-oriented posts happening there, but not much action for Valentine’s Day.

And shame on you Walmart; no posts on Google+ since December 19th?  Target has a limited presence there as well; are these stores so huge that they don’t think this audience would like to hear from them?

Kmart is doing the best job on Facebook with plenty of promotional posts for Valentine’s Day.
Too bad their audience is about a tenth of what Target and Walmart’s are. And their posts on Google+ are current too! Thumbs up!

Where are the photos of tempting boxes of candy?  Russell Stover, Whitman’s Sampler, where are you? See’s Candies Facebook page is offering coupons and a poetry writing contest on Facebook. Great!

So, are you overwhelmed by it all? As long as you’re not stepping into retail stores, Valentine’s Day appears to be out of sight, out of mind. It seems that there could be more creativity and volume as far as promotion via social media; bring on the contests, coupons, and conversation.

Have you seen any promotion for Valentine’s Day via social media? From what brands and what were they saying? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.