PR professionals are always looking for ways to connect their clients with current, trending events – especially fun holidays like St. Patrick’s Day.
In 2018, more than 149 million Americans planned to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day and 83 percent of Americans planned to wear green, so there’s a huge opportunity to join in on the festive social media fun and engage with a wide audience. This St. Patrick’s Day, we’re breaking down some of our top tips that will give your content the luck of the Irish.
Be Creative with Your Visuals
Holiday posts give you an opportunity to grab audience attention with creative visuals and content.. Making sure your visuals are engaging is especially important since social posts with images receive 2.3 times the amount of traction.
With a holiday like St. Patrick’s Day, you can be especially creative since common imagery ranges from shamrocks and rainbows to pints of Guinness.
Krispy Kreme is once again selling a St. Patrick’s Day-themed donut, aptly named the O’riginal Glazed donut. Its customers can get lucky and win a “Golden Dozen Pass” of a dozen donuts every month until St. Patrick’s Day in 2020. Krispy Kreme has taken advantage of the wide range of visuals available on the holiday by posting short videos and carefully laid out photos featuring the donuts.
Create Authentic Content
What’s more authentically Irish than Guinness? While not every social media post can be rooted in hundreds of years of Irish history, it’s still important to keep your posts authentic.
Be vigilant when creating your copy and be sure to do your research. For example, check to see if you’re using the proper Irish flag rather than the very similar flag of Côte d’Ivoire and use imagery of shamrocks rather than clovers. It’s also best practice to spell out the holiday in full rather than risk mistakenly using “St. Patty’s Day” which refers to Patricia rather than Patrick.
Guinness is unsurprisingly amazing at promoting authentic content with a “Guinness Guide to St. Patrick’s Day” and blog posts about what the holiday means for Guinness brewers, which are both authentic ways of encouraging its followers to celebrate the holiday.
Before the #StPatricksDay celebrations begin at #GuinnessBreweryUS, I shared a pint with Todd, one of the brewers and a Maryland native. We chatted about what the holiday means to him and how he’s celebrating. Head to https://t.co/NL25AJ3F9I ^Heather, Guinness Correspondent pic.twitter.com/XcI2k96RIx
— Guinness US (@GuinnessUS) March 12, 2019
[bctt tweet=”This #StPatricksDay keep your content simple, authentic and visual ” username=”@StantonComm”]
Keep it Simple
When in doubt, keep it simple. If your brand doesn’t have a direct tie to the holiday, then a simple “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” might be all you need.
The Shamrock Shake at McDonald’s is so popular and widespread that it’s almost been disassociated with the holiday. On social media, McDonald’s has deemed March #ShamrockSZN and rarely mentions the actual holiday, but its bright green shake still screams St. Patrick’s Day.
This year, McDonald’s is keeping it simple by letting its followers know that the Shamrock Shake is available at select locations and to use #ShamrockSZN to be featured.
