Running social media campaigns for a gift shop should be a no brainer. Ever since the first virtual sheep was given on Facebook, gifting and social media have gone hand in hand.

As a gift shop owner though, you want your to encourage customers to be giving more than a virtual sheep!

The first place to start is to make sure you’ve planned your social media campaigns to coincide with run up to the major events of the calendar. You can do this by running campaigns in the 2 or 3 weeks leading up to the day itself. Any of  these can be triggers for people to choose and give a gift.

It doesn’t matter which channel you use but I’m assuming that Facebook and Twitter are your primary ones.

Burns Night (25 Jan)

Scot yourself.

This isn’t traditionally a gift giving day but it might become so in the future. For now it’s fun to get your community to recognise their inner Scot.

Ask your community to post the best photos of themselves on Facebook wearing Scottish tartan or similar.

Valentine’s Day (14 Feb)

Best valentine bundle.

Ideally you want valentine’s to be a day of many gifts not just a card. Encourage some creativity in what the ideal gift list would be.

Ask your community to create and post what would be their best valentine bundle ever – card + chocs +++

Mother’s Day (15 Mar)

Me and My Mum.

Get people thinking about their mum a few weeks before the day itself. Don’t let it sneak up on them.

Ask people to post a photo of themselves and their mum looking as similar as possible. Chat and discuss the results.

Easter Sunday (4 Apr)

Renew  a friendship

While easter eggs are fun, maybe it’s time we started giving each other something that doesn’t add to the hip-line. How can we encourage alternative gifts at Easter?

For me, Easter’s core message isn’t about bunnies and eggs, it is about ‘resurrection’ – Jesus coming back from the dead.

Why not run a campaign around  ‘renewal’ of old friendship. Ask people to re-post old photos of friends they haven’t seen in a while, post a photo of meeting up with an old friend for coffee.

Father’s Day (21 Jun)

My dad’s so smart he…

Dad’s are often forgotten in the gifting process. Why not remind children of what their dad is best at.

Ask people to post examples of what their dad does better than any other dad. Maybe even share a photo of his Hornby train set in the attic (or similar)

Christmas (25 Dec)

Online advent calendar

In the run up to Christmas you need to be top of mind for the flurry of present buying that goes on. A good way to do this is to run an advent calendar campaign from the 1st of December.

Why not post a photo of your top community member and reveal it each day. Encourage other members of the community to cheer and congratulate them each time a new member is revealed.

(if you’re interested in this idea then please tweet to me directly as I think this could make a nice template on Rise)

Epiphany (6 Jan)

Wise Sayings

Epiphany isn’t a traditional present giving time in the UK, but it is in other cultures.

Why not get people thinking about the 12 days of Christmas and the arrival of the Wise men by asking people to post their best wise saying they’ve heard from relatives over the Christmas period. (You will get a few Cracker jokes too…)