HASHTAG impact - drive social media engagement with corporate gifts

Whether you are trying to increase your social media following or generate engagement on social media for your product, service or event, promotional gifts can help you do it.

Did you know?

• 80% of companies think promotional gifts are effective at increasing social media engagement and your social media following.
• 90% of big brands rate promotional gifts as an effective strategy for generating word of mouth.

Reinforce your message

We all know that corporate gifts deliver incredible numbers of impressions - far greater than advertising online or in print. That calendar on the desk will be seen by every person in the office, every day, for a whole year. When it rains, your branded umbrella will be seen by the customer and everyone they walk past.

A branded umbrella costing just HK$80 will deliver, on average, 1,300 impressions. That is just 6 cents per impression!

4 tips for using gifts for social media engagement

1. Make it public
Products that are on display are excellent for boosting engagement. Umbrellas, t-shirts and caps are visible to lots of people and will carry your message to a wider audience. Particularly if they are unusual or unique.

2. Make it useful
A tweet lasts a second, but you want long term relationships with your customers. Customers keep promotional gifts because they are useful. A pen will be kept for (on average) around 9 months, putting your message on display thousands of times to your target audience.

3. Make it accessible
Social media engagement is about connecting to customers when they have the time and inclination to engage. Whilst sitting down to a cup of tea or coffee, a branded mug is ideal for reminding them about your hashtag. Your brand is there when they have time to think about it.

4. Keep up the momentum!

One of the most effective campaigns we have worked on was for a large membership organisation who held an annual event for their members. The organisation branded their merchandise with a new themed hashtag every year and got their members into the habit of engaging socially. BrandHK provided everything from eco conference bags to bespoke inflatable globes for their environmental-themed conference.

So choose your gifts to reinforce your message, print them up with your hashtag, and start growing your social engagement with customers.