Nancy White of the The Flower Bar in Larchmont, N.Y., plans to do most of her Petal It Forward messaging this month via her social media pages.
Concerns about virus transmission means Nancy White won’t hand out flowers on the streets of Larchmont, New York on October 21, but it won’t cancel one of her favorite celebrations. This year, the owner of The Flower Bar will observe Petal It Forward virtually, with a weeklong campaign to honor local heroes.
Mid-month, White plans to run an email marketing and social media campaign asking fans to nominate people in the community they consider a hero. “We’ll feature their stories on our social media accounts and we’ll send a bouquet to both the nominee and nominator,” she said. “We’re excited to see who’s nominated. It’s going to be fun!”
White got the idea from a past article she read in a Society of American Florists newsletter. (SAF has suggested a similar promotion for a variety of occasions, including Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduations/back to school and Veterans Day.)
White recently hired an outside professional to manage her social media and email marketing. “It’s not perfect, but it’s getting done,” she said. Overall, the shop’s become much more consistent, posting daily to Facebook and Instagram stories and twice a week to the platforms’ timelines. “It’s working well,” she said. “In just two months, we’ve grown followers and have tracked more visits to our website. I think celebrating Petal It Forward on social media will have a lot of impact.”
For more exposure for Petal It Forward, White intends to have her driver photograph the heroes and nominees when they pick the flowers up from their front door — with their permission, of course — so she can share their happy reactions online, with the #petalitforward hashtag. “We’ll be tagging SAF like crazy too,” she added.
Nearly 200 floral industry businesses from 35 states and two countries — the U.S. and Canada — have so far committed to participating in SAF’s Petal It Forward event on Oct. 21. Click here to register your business for this year’s event and find out more about SAF’s 2020 Petal It Forward initiative, including how to access updated tools and information that you can use to create and customize your own event.
Katie Vincent is the senior contributing writer and editor for the Society of American Florists.
