“A strong writing background is great experience for anyone to have,” says Carrie Bratcher of Hallmark.
“You have to be able to think on your feet, respond quickly, and often do it in 140 characters or less,” she says.
Carrie started on Hallmark’s editorial and product development side nine years ago. She says that experience has given her an upper hand on judging what their audience might be looking for. She’s also worked in their “Greetings Innovations” area which focused on bringing Hallmark’s content into digital spaces, like sharing ecards and mobile apps.
Now, as the Social Media Community Specialist, she leads the strategy for social media content and audience engagement. Her days are spent working with teams across the company to come up with new and engaging content for social and to listen to their over one million fans and followers.
“Hallmark is in a unique space as such an iconic brand.”
“We’ve been around for over 100 years, and now, we’re in a space that’s constantly changing,” she says. “That makes social media a challenging and exciting place for us.”
Carrie says social media has opened up an avenue for Hallmark to surprise and delight people and to share even more of their creative talent directly with their audience. For example, each of Hallmark’s greeting card lines has a presence on Instagram.
Finding out what to do in between holidays is also an important part of Carrie’s job.
“We’re more than just Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Valentine’s Day.”
Carrie and her team are learning how people are connecting between those times so they can create engaging, shareable content. That includes how-to’s, stories from their blog, and inspirational quotes. For example, this post earned 1.9 million organic views, all unpaid:
“Our writers are an important part of keeping our content alive in between those big peak seasons.”
“Social media is a critical part of how we connect with and attract new consumers.”
Currently, she’s looking into ways to expand Hallmark’s employee advocacy and engagement by refreshing existing programs and finding better ways to measure them against business goals.
She explains that Hallmark’s vision is “to be the company that creates a more emotionally connected world and make a genuine difference in every life, every day.”
This article first appeared in www.socialmedia.com
