4 Things Social Media Followers Really Want From You This Summer

Summer is an ideal time to kickoff new marketing campaigns. After all, consumers tend to be more adventurous this time of year. They’re active, social, and eager to celebrate the good things in life.

Smart marketers capitalize on the joys of summer by giving people opportunities to share their experiences. And when that involves favorite products, destinations, and services, the result is social proof that lasts the whole year long.

Let’s take a look at four strategies that work particularly well.

1. Keep it lighthearted.

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday may be the holy grail for retailers, summer should always be the most fun for marketers. It’s playtime, after all. Now is your chance to experiment, shrug off the doldrums, and tie into the carefree pleasures of the season.

Pantene did this well a few years ago, when partnering with The Weather Channel. Together, they created an app that recommended the ideal hair care solution for the day’s predicted weather. In 2019, Coca-Cola bottled summer fun by wrapping soft drinks in removable wristbands that consumers could scan daily for prizes. Interactive campaigns like these spark curiosity and conversions, simply by creating a feel-good, fun connection with customers.

Our advice? Save the drama for winter. Summer is for fun and games.

2. Plug in to seasonal events.

In warmer months, people are out and about, so an easy way to capture more digital traffic is by plugging into “real life” activities. Connecting your brand to sporting events, local festivals, and national holidays shows consumers you’re tuned in to what interests them.

Focus on engagement during these months, advises Canadian marketing and PR expert Candace Huntly. “The idea is that you need to focus on brand recall through positive interactions rather than a hard sales technique,” she explains.

You can easily do this at live events by hosting streaming social media walls. The fact is that guests love to share happy moments, whether it’s a hometown parade or a large event (like our work with the Indianapolis 500 Festival). By inviting attendees to upload hashtagged photos, comments, or videos to social media while they’re on-site, your brand can be the hero that publishes their posts on big screen displays for all to see.

Live social walls are fun for attendees and also give your brand an awesome opportunity to build visibility beyond event day. As positive user-generated content rolls in, plan to collect and repurpose that material into web displays, official social media posts, and virtually any form of advertising you can dream up. UGC is the gift that just keeps on giving!

3. Focus on mobile-friendly, mobile-driven campaigns.

Capturing attention in the summer months can be tougher -- since web browsing and TV time plummet as people head outdoors – but there is a bright spot. Mobile phones travel with us, whether to the beach or across the globe! That means brands can still easily maintain connections with consumers through social media marketing. In fact, the research is exciting.

Put it all together, and that means running promotional campaigns on social media this season is a brilliant move. Just ensure posts are short, with attractive, appropriately-sized images.

Even better, ask your followers to share their own on-the-go content, like Booking.com did with the #WingItYeah advertising campaign. As fans submitted their favorite summer activity photos, the brand gained access to a library of highly influential UGC. By repurposing fan content into humorous GIFs, the company made a huge splash online, and social media aggregation and display engines now make it possible for other brands to harness the power of UGC, too.

4. Say it better with smiling faces.

Pictures really are worth a thousand words. A recent study by Harris Poll revealed 80% of consumers ages 18–34 believe emojis and GIFs communicate thoughts and feelings better than words alone. And regardless of age, most respondents agreed that the images make people laugh, lighten the mood, and make conversations more fun. If an emoji works for your brand this summer, go for it!

Other visuals – like fan photos and videos – can be a real gamechanger, too. (Check out: “UGC Stats Every Marketer Needs to Know”.) Since people are especially enthusiastic about uploading content to social media in the summer, LinkedIn’s Ali Taylor encourages brands to host seasonally-themed hashtag contests. “By getting your followers to submit content for a chance to win a prize or promotional discount,” she writes, “you’re engaging with your audience and building up a library of content that can be curated and used later on.”

In other words: have fun, play games, run contests, and embrace the spirit of summer! Of course, social media marketing should get people talking about your hot brand or cool products year-round. The best way to do that is by featuring candid UGC across all of your brand’s digital properties. To see what’s involved in collecting and showcasing UGC, try TwineSocial’s tools for free today.

For more ideas on how to promote shared enthusiasm around an idea, product, or community, check out our solutions gallery. Then, kick off your own success story with a free 7-day trial of TwineSocial. Let us know how we can help!

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