What’s Your Holiday Social Media Strategy?

Holidays are fast approaching, y’all. Have you thought about what that means for your social media strategy?

There’s so many things you can do here. Creating a strategy across different social media platforms is great for brand awareness, increasing your following, and even boosting sales. First step? Plan your campaigns. This means you have to know your discounts and sales, special offers, and even big prizes for contests. Your graphic designer should then provide you with some eye-catching images to use, and then you’re ready to get started. Create a unique hashtag that you can use across all your social media platforms. Be careful though! Make sure no one else is using it first. Easy, peasy. Whatever.

Hashtag It

When using Twitter and Facebook, be sure to incorporate your new holiday hashtag in with your posts and tweets depending on if it is relevant to the post. You might also want to consider using holiday keywords in these posts, such as “Christmas,” “Happy Holidays,” or “Hanukkah.” You get the idea. Another cool thing to do would be to use hashtagify.me to see what those popular hashtags are. Increased posting schedules are pretty normal this time of year. On Twitter, I recommend sending out 8-14 tweets a day, and for Facebook, 1-2 posts a day.

Offers and Contests

Social channels are perfect for introducing special offers and contests. The more outrageous the discount or prize, the more your followers will share, comment, and like. Be sure the rules are clear from the start and then watch your brand reach a whole new audience as news of the goodies spreads.

Be sure you’re posting 1-2 weeks in advance about any holiday specials or sales you might be doing, whether on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Remember that Twitter has a shorter half life than Facebook and even Instagram, so you’ll want to repeat your offers more there. Don’t forget your hashtag when you post!

Start Relationships

Mix up your content as much as possible so you can reach all of your different buyer personas. Remember that a lot of your customers during this time of year will be first-timers. Hey, they’re shopping for someone else, right? Give them some info to help them make decisions, whether you’re sharing videos, blogs, pictures, gift guides, or whatever. Then, keeping those same buyers in mind, post to the social platforms where they’re most likely to hang out during the day.

One thing you absolutely can’t forget, even if you leave out some of the steps mentioned above, is listening. No one likes that guy at the holiday party who’s always talking about himself but never listening to what others have to say. If your followers are reaching out to you through social media channels, talk back. Acknowledge their questions and concerns, and then tell them how you plan to fix things.

Pretty easy, right? Those would be my top 3 platforms to run a holiday campaign on, but don’t forget about other platforms! Snapchat is fun for short videos. Promote your products there. Perhaps feature your staff members or office, too. Videos are great material, so don’t discount that. We love social marketing, so we’re always here to help. Even if you just need a nudge to get started, reach out.