How a branded hashtag is turning into an official holiday

Happy #FriendsDay I guess.

I woke up this morning and when I checked my Facebook feed, I noticed that many of my Facebook friends were celebrating something I’d never heard of before: #FriendsDay.

My first thought was, “aaww, that’s sweet” but then within a few seconds I came to the realization that #FriendsDay was simply a marketing campaign for Facebook’s 12th birthday.

So while everyone was sharing their Friends Day videos on Facebook oblivious to the fact that this special day, that nobody had ever heard of before, is actually #HappyBirthdayFacebook day, #FriendsDay was trending on Twitter.

People were actually tweeting their love and appreciation for their friends which is definitely sweet but still. The ‘non social media geek’ in me was contemplating the somehow superficiality of social media and how quickly we jump on the trending bandwagon without really knowing why, the community manager in me thought “Damn, this is a brilliant campaign.”

First of all, it was personal and heartfelt. Watching my video, I caught myself smiling seeing pictures or my friends’ comments on my (generally ridiculous) posts.

Second of all, this campaign while was spot on Facebook’s identity as a brand, at the same time it was subtle enough. In fact, it was such a subtle brand promotion that people though it was an actual holiday, which helped spread the hashtag like crazy.

Third of all, it spoke to Facebook’s community and perhaps helped expand it even more.

But of course, there’s always the flip side. It’s the Internet. And people really went to town tweeting about how creepy this campaign was, which I understand.

At the end of the day, regardless of the pretext, we got reminded to show some love to our close friends. And that’s what I call a successful campaign.