Who says chivalry is dead? At least it’s not on Twitter ‘ according to the top tweet on Boston’s trending topic ‘valentinesday’? on the 14th:
What more could a girl ask for on Valentine’s Day?! A perfect gentleman and a Big Mac ‘ check.
It is true, social media has even changed Valentine’s Day. On February 14 Valentine’s Day dominated many news feeds as Twitter erupted with tweets of love as well as tweets of contempt for what many dubbed yesterday on the Twittosphere as the ‘Hallmark Holiday.’?
Who needs Cupid when there’s Twitter?
In 2008, Twitter added a new feature especially for the holiday of love ‘ Valentine tweets. Each time a user sent a message directed at someone (@username), and added a <3 symbol, the person hearted would be asked if they ‘heart’ back via a giant ‘YES’ button.
Valentine’s Day: Not just for Hallmark anymore
Of course, you do not have to be Hallmark to benefit from Valentine’s Day. Regardless of the diverse reactions to Valentine’s Day on Twitter, many companies, such as Hershey’s, Macy’s and AT&T to name just a few, took advantage of the Holiday to promote their products through Twitter this year. Even Coca Cola didn’t miss the chance to send out some V-day love with a sponsored top tweet.
Here are just a few highlights of this year’s V-day Twitter promotions:
AT&T: ‘Shout your love from the mountaintop.’? The campaign began Thursday and encouraged users to post declarations of love to AT&T’s Facebook page. In turn, on Valentine’s Day AT&T’s mountain men would pick some posts to ‘shout’? from the top of Mount Baldy in Southern California using HTC Inspire 4G phones. The hashtag #LoveShout was also paid for on Twitter as a promoted trend.
My M&M’s: Promoted personalized M&M’s as a way to get a message across that may be hard to say using the M&M character Red, who has trouble showing his emotional side.
Along with a variety of digital and traditional media used in the promotion, M&M used the Twitter handle MyMMscom as a way for users to share gift ideas and get discount codes for the candies.
Macy’s: The Sweetest Tweets Contest (Macy’s first promotional contest through Twitter) prompted users to interact with the brand by tweeting love notes using the #sweetesttweets hashtag. The winner receives a three-stone diamond ring.
Pizza Hut: Using the hashtag #iluvPH, users tweeted their best pick-up lines for a chance to win a free order of Pizza Hut’s Hershey chocolate dunkers.
Hershey’s: Hershey’s Valentine’s Day Twitter Party. Using the #Hersheys tag on Twitter on February 3 users followed hostess @ResourcefulMom who was joined by representatives from The Hershey Company to chat about Hershey’s Valentine’s Day gifts and give away prizes. The grand prize being a Blu-ray player, two romantic comedies and, of course, a variety of Hershey’s Valentine’s treats.
Hallmark (UK): Repeated last year’s Twittermantic competition: By following @HallmarkUK and tweeting a romantic verse to them using the hashtag #TM for a chance to win a romantic weekend break.
