Unlock Brand Love this Valentine’s Day in Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Whilst it’s no secret that the nation’s romantic options are somewhat limited this year, it won’t stop thousands of people showering their loved ones with gifts from afar. Consumers these days don’t just spend money celebrating Valentine’s Day on their other half. No, people have now expanded their gift-giving to their kids, friends and even pets. Valentine's Day is a big shopping event, and one brands don’t want to miss out on. 

Like most national holidays, Valentine’s Day is a great time to bring your customers fresh, relevant content on social media. It's the perfect time to get the people who love your brand to share it across their channels to help engage and drive seasonal sales to potential customers.

Generation Z has overtaken millennials as the UK’s highest-spending age group this Valentine’s Day, planning to fork out a whopping £41 on average for their loved ones. Followed by  millennials (£32) as the next highest spenders

With Generation Z and millennials being the highest users on social media, using creators to share your message across their channels is a no brainer. Whatever you sell, or whoever your customers are, you can win their love this Valentine's Day by collaborating with the people that love your brand. 

LOVE is a strategy that can reveal opportunities

Most people think of love as something shared between their partner, friends and family. But love can be so much more than that. Love is diverse and can be expressed in multiple ways. So let’s look at brand love. This is love for the brands that you take an interest in, the ones you identify with and the ones you want to know more about. Brand love isn’t just a list of features, it’s an emotional connection that leads to brand loyalty and keeps consumers coming back and spreading the word. The power of brand love can be endless, so getting it right is critical. Brand love can come in many forms; referrals to friends and family, sharing content across social channels, press-worthy testimonials, positive online reviews and customer retention and loyalty. Whatever it may be, finding your brand lovers will ultimately generate business success.  

And, as 75% of buying experience is based on emotion, it is imperative for brands to effectively reach their consumers with people who can translate their love in an authentic and genuine way. The best way to reach and capture the hearts and minds of consumers is through effective storytelling. People love a good love story, so getting the ones that love your brand to share their stories is an automatic win. The authentic connections advocates have with their following, make them the best storytellers to showcase a brand's offering. Giving them the power to share their love story incorporating your brand product or service is an effective way to build brand awareness and sales.

With more people seeing past paid sponsored posts, and a need for more authentic and real content, brands need to be more aware of who and how they work with people of influence. Instead of paying someone to talk about your brand, why not find the ones that actually love your brand and want to shout it from the rooftop. These people are more likely to create real and authentic content that consumers are going to relate to and engage with. 

You can’t make customers fall in love overnight, but you can take a series of proactive steps to make your brand more lovable and memorable. So how they become aware of your brand, and their initial engagement with it, can have a big impact on their purchasing decision. That means connecting with the right people who align with your brand values is crucial to engaging customers from the start. Once this is done effectively and customers fall in love with your brand, the benefits are endless, and they don't just start and end with sales. 

When customers are making a purchasing decision, they are looking for brands that they can build a loyal relationship with and continue to keep purchasing with. They want something deeper than that, they want brands that act in a personal way. Customers are looking for companies and brands to love.  So why shouldn’t brands do the same? 

We talk about people discovering the brands they love, but never about brands discovering their people. Brands these days are looking to be seen, not searching for love. However, now more than ever there is a huge disconnect in the way brands attempt to reach out and discover new customers. The only way to survive the ad apocalypse is for brands to have more creative and interactive experiences. Brands see customers as “targets” to be constantly pursued with a flurry of ads, missing the opportunity to understand who their people really are and the role they play in their lives. As a result, brands need to celebrate and engage with the ones who truly love them. It needs to be more than a transaction between brands and influencers, but an interaction between brands and advocates in a way to release passion. 

How brands utilise brand love to generate success 

Brands can find and uncover the ones who love them and we can help empower that love. By giving brands back the power to be themselves, and allowing influential people to power the passion economy through being themselves, it creates authentic and genuine partnerships. Authenticity creates love, which unlocks opportunity and diversity for brands. We see this as an exchange in kind, not currency. It is a way for brands to be kind and a way for advocates to repay in kind. Ultimately the more you give, the more you get. 

Many brands on our platform have seen the true value of advocates and just how powerful brand lovers can be when trying to amplify their campaigns. They are now seeing the extensive benefits that not only come in the form of reach and engagement but through a greater volume of content and higher earned-media-value and return-on-investment. To see the full impact brand love brings, see how brands on our platform have collaborated with advocates on their Valentine’s day campaigns. 

M&Ms

'All you need is love...and some personalised M&M’s'