Social Media Marketing Strategy for the Holidays

How can your business create a social media marketing strategy for the holidays that will increase engagement, reach, and create sales?

December is an incredibly busy time of year both online and offline.  This is especially true for business owners trying to maximize the revenue potential of the holiday season, while balancing time with friends and family.  And if you are a busy mompreneur like myself, well then there is additional responsibilities too.

Marketing during December needs to take on a completely different strategy.  Just focusing on boring sales posts is not only going to get lost in the noise, those posts will not be effective.  Here are a few tips to create an effective social media marketing strategy for Christmas, New Years and all of the other joyous holidays that December brings.

Use Emotion

The holidays are an emotional time, hopefully for more this is a joyous time of year and your marketing can speak to these emotions.  Joy, family, love, friendship, hope, giving.  Use images and text that spark these positive emotions for a greater engagement from your audience.  The more your audience can "feel" what you are posting about, the more connected they will be with your company or brand.

Remember too that there are other emotions that your audience might also be feeling during the holidays.  Stress, overwhelmed, many struggle with grief and loss this time of year.  Can you offer them any solutions to these emotions and help them feel just a little better?  What an incredible opportunity you have to use your social media to make someones day better.  Or even just to acknowledge and relate to those people.  i.e. "We know that at this time of year many people struggle with all of the additional stress of the holidays.  We do too.  And that is why our team created ______, a tool that can help you through the busy holiday season"

Connecting with your audience on an emotional level on social media will result in a deeper connection and help with your know / like / trust factor.  These posts will get more reach, more engagement, and better results for your company.

Have Fun

The holiday season offers a wonderful opportunity to have some fun with your social media marketing strategy!  You can be more creative, share more humour, be a little silly.  Some examples of how you can have more fun with your social media in December include:

• Host a holiday giveaway
• Show photos of your team dressed up in ugly Christmas sweaters
• Take a video of you decorating your Christmas tree, or hiding your Elf on the Shelf
• Share holiday comics / jokes / videos
• Use fun emojis such as 😜 😂☃️🎄🎅
• Post about fun National Days such as National Cookie Day or National Ugly Sweater Day

Less Sales More Social

At Dufferin Media we usually create social media content using the 30/30/30 rule.  30% of the posts each week are "sales" related, 30% are "informative" and 30% are "social".  It is in fact called social for a reason.  The entire point of social media is to be human, open up conversations, build relationships, engage with others, collaborate, have fun, and BE SOCIAL.  So during the holidays and especially during the month of December I personally think it is fair to suggest that this marketing mix can be adjusted slightly to post less sales, and more social related posts.  Let's be honest - you probably mentally check out from work related tasks by about December 15th, because the majority of the population do too.  So your sales posts are probably going to be completely lost in the noise.  And that's okay.  To be top of mind to your customers this month and all months, you can use other types of social media content to get the same results.

Types of social posts that will work really well in December include:

• Community posts - what is happening in the community i.e Santa Claus Parades, Christmas in the Park etc
• Sharing information on local charities, such as Food Banks and shelters
• Behind the scenes photos or videos of you or your business, or team members
• Ask questions to generate engagement from your audience
• Collaborate with other fellow business owners / feature local businesses, share their posts
• Do a poll (also great for research)
• Show gratitude, thank customers, thank followers, show appreciation
• Share a story or memory
• Share an inspirational quote, poem, or piece of art (bonus for holiday related!)

In closing I think the most important thing to remember when planning out your December social media content strategy to adjust the mixture of posts so they are no heavily sales related. Showing your brand or company is human, and using emotion in your holiday marketing will allow you a deeper connection with your audience that will result in better long term relationships.  If you have any other suggestions or examples of marketing that has worked for you please comment below.

If you are looking for assistance with creating your social media content, why not consider outsourcing this task to the experts at Dufferin Media.  We have been servicing businesses since 2012 with social media marketing, website design, seo and more.

If you are looking for assistance with your overall marketing strategy, I offer consulting in this area and would love to discuss this.  Please contact me to set up a call!