The holiday season is upon us. And so is the time to revamp our marketing strategies. This year, social media is going to be the primary marketing channel for most brands. And rightfully so! Social media has made its mark in the marketing world. It’s effective, cheap and brings about great results.
Wondering what to do with your social media accounts this holiday season? Don’t worry, we’ve got you! Following this is a definitive guide to your problems. How to strategize and post on your social media during the holiday season.
So let’s get right into it!
Table of contents
Step 1: Create Holiday-themed Content
The first step of your social media strategy is to create new content for the holidays. The tone of holiday content will be much different from regular posts. Holiday posts are celebratory in nature and need an emotional touchpoint to be a success. To truly connect with your followers during the holidays, you need to target their emotional sides. It’s best to incorporate a sense of community in your content.
Holiday-themed content is very easy to create. The theme is already set. And all you have to do is add stunning visuals to your content. Visuals are an important aspect when it comes to social media content. It’s human nature to forget most of what you read, but still remember most of what you see. Eye-catching visuals are hard to forget. So you need to take advantage of them.
Step 2: Create a Holiday Calendar
When it comes to the holiday season, one of the biggest challenges marketers face is getting content out on time. The holidays are busy for everyone. So it’s tricky to deliver the right content to the right person at the right time. An easy tip to overcome this challenge is to create a holiday calendar.
Before the holiday season begins, you need to create a thorough plan. This would include all your social media accounts, any holiday campaigns you’re planning, and how you’re going to execute them. A vital part of this plan is your holiday calendar. This calendar dictates which posts will be uploaded when. It contains every important date during the season and a link to which content must be posted on these dates.
When you create a calendar according to each important date, you must also include what marketing activities will be carried out. It must also include who you’re trying to target then. This increases your chances of sales for those dates. A holiday calendar makes it much easier to tackle the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.
Step 3: Run a Hashtag Campaign
With the advent of social media and influencer marketing, hashtags have become a core part of social media marketing. Hashtags can be used with every kind of campaign. And the holidays are the perfect time to whip some of those hashtags out and use them. A good hashtag increases the reach and shareability of your content. Your posts get listed under those hashtags and anyone who clicks on them will be able to see your posts. This means you can reach out to a much larger audience without doing much. It doesn’t require any capital or resources, so it’s a very cost-effective technique.
All you have to do is choose the right hashtags for your campaign. But picking the right ones can be challenging. Some hashtags have a high volume but completely irrelevant content. It won’t benefit you at all if your posts end up under such hashtags.
Before you select a hashtag search for it on the social media platform. Assess its volume. Are enough people talking about this hashtag? Next, review the content that pops up under this hashtag. This content must be relevant to you, your business and your current campaign. Additionally, you’d want to avoid content that you don’t want associated with your brand. Once you have the right hashtags, plug them into your posts. And watch your posts go viral!
Step 4: Engage With Your Followers
The biggest advantage of social media is that you can interact with your followers in real-time. So why wouldn’t you? Community, family and relationships are at the essence of the holiday season. So it’s important to interact with your followers and engage them. It helps build a relationship with your audience. Brands that consistently engage with their followers have a much deeper relationship that is based on trust.
Engagement must be at the heart of your holiday social media marketing strategy. Log on to Twitter, Instagram or TikTok and talk to your followers. Reply to their comments. Retweet their mentions. Share Stories your brand is tagged in. Ask questions in your posts or start a poll. Live streams are also a great way to interact with your audience on a more personal level. The more you engage with your followers, the more successful your holiday campaign will be.
Step 5: Ramp Up Your Customer Support
The last step of this guide is more a mistake you need to absolutely avoid making. And that is ignoring the importance of customer support. Sales are always at a high during the holiday season. And that means more queries, problems and complaints. If you don’t handle these well, your customers will start leaving. Retaining customers you attract during the holiday season is very important. And excellent customer support is the key to that.
Chatbots are your best friend if you’re looking to ramp up your customer support game. There are a lot of chatbot solutions out there that integrate well with social media platforms. These bots engage in continuous conversation with your customers. Every query and question is addressed by these bots and your customers don’t have to wait in line to be connected to an agent. When you provide good post-purchase services, your followers will trust your brand and return to buy more.
Got Your Holiday Social Media Plan Ready?
Our holiday guide to social media marketing is complete and thorough. After following these steps, there’s nothing more you need to do. Plan a holiday calendar, create great content, run hashtags, and engage with your followers. These should be the core of your holiday marketing strategy.
Do you have some great insight about social media marketing during the holidays? Let us know in the comments below!
