Facebook IQ has recently released The Annual Topics & Trends Report. We are happy to find out some of our digital strategies and approaches in the past year, specifically celebration and empowerment marketing campaigns on social media, were among the report’s points of focus, with other ares of focus continuing to grow in strength in 2018.
Emotion has always played an essential role in shaping consumer behaviour. It is ultimately what guides consumers on making a purchasing decision. Creating digital content that triggers target audience’s positive emotions is a strategic way to facilitate confident purchase decisions.
Celebration is one such positive emotion. While many celebrate holidays like Christmas and New Years, marketers are eyeing more surprising moments online: Originated by a greeting-card business, Friendship Day now brings people together in the cyber world and through content about its celebration, connects a brand with its target audience as well; International Coffee Day is a time for the culinary community to rejoice with cappuccino art, and the perfect timing for the truism of “everything is better with coffee” went viral.
In 2016, China’s Single’s Day sales took in $17.8 billion in gross sales, compared with the $3.34 billion that consumers spent online during Black Friday in the United States that same month. No wonder international brands have started to adopt the tongue-in-cheek cultural “celebration” of single people from China in order to embrace new sales opportunity. Meanwhile, online conversations still grew during traditional festivals like Lunar New Year in the West. Every year, new specialty holidays gain in popularity. What new festivals can you come up with for your brand?
In the age of gender equality, marketers have started to infuse female empowerment messages into their digital content as well. In 2017, Wonder Woman, a movie about a female superhero broke box office records, while Dr. Who, a famed British television series cast the first woman (and the 13th actor) in the title role since the show’s launch in 1963. A 2017 Facebook IQ study found 51% of women and 45% of men surveyed prefer to shop from a brand that promotes gender equality. This proves that demand for gender positivity is expanding beyond pop culture and entertainment, and it is time for brands to voice out too.
Talk to us if you want to learn more about empowerment marketing, or online festivity and everything in between.