7 Top Tips for Social Media over the Holidays Season
It probably seems crazy that we’re already talking about it, however the silly season is creeping closer every day, so make sure you’re thinking about your social media plan for the holiday season!
Here are a few of our top tips to consider when planning for the holiday season on your social channels.
1. Integrate the festive season into your content plans
It sounds like a no brainer, but Christmas is obviously a peak time for all retailers, and should top of mind for your business, regardless of industry. Even if you’re not selling a gift-type product, Christmas generally affects most industries, so find a way to incorporate it into your messaging. Are you a HR business? Perhaps you can talk about the obvious effects of Christmas trading hours on a business’s employees. Do you have a cafe? Make sure you’re clearly communicating your trading hours over the holiday period, or promoting your venue as a perfect place for holiday drinks or staff Christmas parties.
2. Let’s get personal
People begin to reflect on the personal things in life over the holiday season. Whether it’s being thankful for their friends and family, or making ‘new year, new you’ plans for the new year looming. It’s the perfect time of year to start communicating a more personal and reflective side of your brand. If you have a great brand story to tell, the holidays can often be a wonderful time to start sharing it.
3. Have an ‘out of office’ plan
Social media never sleeps. But sometimes we need to! If your office or business is planning to be closed over the Christmas and New Years period, ensure you have a plan for community management and customer service. If your customers are used to receiving answers to their queries on your Facebook page daily, make sure you have decided how you’re going to tackle this while your customer service elves are taking a well earned break. Facebook has the ability to send an auto-response to direct messages, perhaps you may want to switch these on, letting your customers know when they can expect a response from you, or other methods of getting in touch over the festive period.
4. Treat your customers
Christmas is also the perfect time for treating your customers and loyal fans. Take advantage of this by running giveaways or competitions, to show your customers the ‘generous’ side of your brand. Or spoil your top spenders with a surprise gift. It’s often the little things that can have the biggest effect.
5. Be aware of the costs of Facebook Advertising
Don’t be alarmed if the cost of your social media advertising go up over the festive period. Remember, it’s peak time for advertisers across marketing as a whole, and social media is not excluded. Most brands will be upp-ing their social media advertising spend at this time of year, so keep that in mind when you’re planning out your budget. January is a well known time of year when advertising costs are a little lower – so perhaps you might want to take full advantage of this!
6. Plan ahead
With many offices and businesses closing early for the year, it’s important that you are planning well ahead and into the new year. Ensure you and your business have clear goals for what you’re communicating over the holidays and how, and try to have as much signed off and approved by the relevant stakeholders in advance. As things wind up for the year, it’s often hard to get a hold of the right people, and stress levels will definitely be reduced if you have everything sorted in advance.
7. Mobile first
With much of your audience closing down their work computers or laptops for the year, it’s never been a more important time to be thinking about ‘mobile first’. This applies for all aspects of your social media marketing plan – whether it’s creating mobile-optimised video content, or ensuring your website landing pages are designed for mobile viewing. Your audience will be on the go, on holidays, shopping with their phone, so ensure that this is not just a box you’re ticking, but a strategic part of your content marketing plan.
What is your business planning on doing this Christmas? Do you have any extra holiday campaigns planned?
Milkbar Digital is a Melbourne social media and digital marketing agency here to help business small and large. If you need help planning your holiday season, be sure to get in touch.
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