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Thursday, April 24, 2014

The Right Way to Celebrate a Birthday


Birthdays are a big moment in anyone's life. Friends and family come together to celebrate the special day. Unless you are an athlete, in which case you also celebrate with the multitude of fans you have on social media. Most fans will wish 'Happy Birthday' via a post or tweet and never hear back from the athlete personally.

Of course, it is unreasonable to assume an athlete has the time to look through or respond to each birthday wish. So how can athletes use their birthday to help build their online brand with their fans?

Take a look at soccer/fútbol star Ricardo Kakà for inspiration.

The athlete celebrated his 32nd birthday earlier this week, and of course the birthday wishes came rolling in from all corners of the globe. But, someone on his social media team came up with a genius idea: have fans create birthday cards and submit them to be posted on Facebook to surprise the star with.

The idea was spread on his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts and photos were posted in a Facebook album within minutes. As of this posting, there were more than 185 birthday cards wishing Kaka a happy birthday, varying from handwritten letters to various pieces of art.

Social media specialists can learn plenty from what the '#KKTeam' did. 

First off, post as many responses as possible. The more people involved in something like this, the greater the success. 

Second, and most importantly, make sure to monitor the responses before posting. As Mark Emmert and his team learned, such social media experiments can go downhill quickly. You need to make sure that you do not post anything negative and (preferably) avoid as many grammatical errors as possible. 

Finally, advertise as much as possible on as many venues as possible. Even if the event takes place on Facebook, try to find ways to spread the word on other social media sites as well. Talk about it on Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Reddit and everything in between. 

So, to summarize: monitor your responses, post or highlight as many as possible and advertise the event as much as you can. Thanks #KKTeam for the lesson. And a belated happy birthday to you Kakà.

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