Getting Social on St. Patrick’s Day
Tips & Tricks to Get Your Brand Noticed This St. Patrick’s Weekend
You can never go wrong with playing up the holidays. Create a buzz on your Social Platforms this St. Patrick’s weekend and bring the hype of the holiday to your business. What is great about doing this is that it is simple and definitely worth it for your business.
Let’s take a look at what some big brands out there have done to create a buzz around their brand on St. Patrick’s Day.
#IrelandInspires
Fáilte Ireland released a video on the 13th of March this year that soon went viral. The video was developed by Fáilte Ireland in association with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as a means of of promoting Ireland this St. Patrick’s Day. They have described this video as their ‘Animated postcard to the world- showcasing Ireland in the best possible way and highlighting the strengths and qualities which make this country a great place to be’.
Take a look at the video here #IrelandInspires:
Guinness Set A New Guinness World Record
In 2012 Guinness set a new world record,
Fergal Murray, the Guinness Master Brewer, officially launched the friendliness campaign by making the first pledge to be friendly to everyone and anyone he meets on St Patrick’s Day, Saturday 17th March 2012.
The online pledge, asked fans of Guinness the world over to make a pledge to commit to friendliness on St Patrick’s Day in 2012 , and in the process achieve a Guinness World Records title for Most pledges for a campaign. 
Did you know that about 13 million pints of Guinness beer are consumed on St. Patrick´s Day every year? I bet you didn´t know that that’s enough to fill 60 percent of the Empire State Building! And you probably wouldn´t guess that 1 in 161 Americans is named Patrick! (socialbakers)
Guinness Fans could share each of these factoids on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or email, connecting with more and more people along the way.
Hints & Tips to Bring The Hype to Your Social Media
Facebook:
The best way to bring a buzz to your Facebook page is to be as interactive with your followers as you can.
Include your followers in your celebrations, invite them to send in their St. Patrick’s Day pictures to your page with the chance of winning a prize for best picture. Another way to include fans is to post a fill in the blanks sentence on the page, for example: ‘This St. Patrick’s Day I will be……………….’ Doing this attracts followers to your page and gives you the chance to interact with them too.
Or even simply change your cover photo to fit into the St. Patrick’s Day theme.
Twitter:
On Twitter you need to post something that will capture your followers attention as they scroll through their newsfeed.
A photo is the best way to catch immediate attention as tweets with images get two times more engagement than those without. Think of a good key word to draw attention to the photo such as ‘St. Patrick’s Photoshoot’ or ‘Galway Celebrations’, naming a location will attract followers to engage in the tweet as they are more than likely going to be interested in seeing what is going on in different parts of the country/world.
And don’t forget to use hashtags, these will allow your tweet to reach a wider number of people than just your followers, but don’t over do it, two will suffice.
Instagram:
Everyone loves to share quirky pictures on instagram, so this St. Patrick’s Day if you have an Instagram account do make sure you share a St. Patrick’s Day related picture so that you can engage with people across that world that are celebrating the day like you too. Share a picture of the Parade or the St. Patrick’s Day themed lunch you made.
On Instagram you can also get away with more than two hashtags, each hashtags allows your picture to fall into each of those categories allowing your picture to reach more and more users. Use the hashtags #stpatrick #shamrock #parade #green #clover and anymore St. Patrick’s Day related hashtags you can think of.
Jillian O’Toole,
University of Limerick,
Digital Marketing Intern,
Digital Training Institute.
