My father in-law has a pool and a jukebox. So gratefully my family and I get to spend much of our summers swimming and listening to rock from the 50s & 60s. One of our favorite tunes is “Those Lazy Crazy Days of Summer” by Nat King Cole.
“Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Dust off the sun and moon and sing a song of cheer.” Nat King Cole makes a great point. Summers are different and our social media plans should reflect that change.
Summer has some big time holidays and events. Nicole Karlis of Social Media Today says to plan your strategies around holidays like Wimbledon, Independence Day, World Cup, and Labor Day. This makes a lot of sense, because these will be trending topics during the summer as people search to plan holiday events or are searching for updates on the big sport competitions of the summer. Some have seen impressive results such as increasing organic search traffic by 20% in 2 months.
Summer moves at a different pace. Robin Neifield of ClickZ tells us that we should do more than connect to the summer holidays. We can also tap into the changes in behaviors and shifts in priorities. Consumers respond differently in summer when their priorities and schedules have shifted and this should impact the messaging and promotions you send out. In the summer people read more, socialize more, are outdoors more, eat out more, work less, and travel more. Your consumer is changing their searching, viewing, and surfing habits. Have you adjusted or are you running the same strategy year around?
Some brands and products go well with summer. These brands create campaigns around the season. Last summer Lays Potato Chips did this by celebrating “Making Summers Perfects for 75 Years.” The summer theme came with summer content of 75 models of summer imagery made from potato chip bags posted on Facebook and Twitter. It also came with a summer promotion encouraging fans to share their summer pictures for a chance to win a $75 gift card.
What is your social media summer strategy? Have you leveraged the main summer holidays and sporting events, shifted your messaging and promotions for summer search and schedules, or tied your brand into a summer themed campaign? Just because we’re “Rolling out the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” doesn’t mean your social media has to go on hiatus.