Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tips for Holiday Season

 

It is the time of the year when everyone feels inspired and eager to make their beloved ones happy with unique gifts or pleasant surprises. It is the time of the year everyone’s been saving for since last holiday season.

Finally, it is the time of the year that’s perfect for grand gestures and great marketing campaigns! Use the holiday season to boost your sales and to promote your brand by preparing a good marketing strategy and creating an exciting and attractive campaign that will bring you more followers and customers than ever. Be smart, show your emotions, and be generous!

1. Holiday looks for social media

Clothes don’t make the man, but still, on social media, you have to look like you can’t wait for Christmas! Well, we don’t mean you, really, what we mean is your social media platforms. Dress up! Give your accounts a nice little holiday makeover, and make sure they look cheerful and bright. Don’t worry. You don’t have to be a talented graphic designer to do it. Today, there are many programs and websites where you can create cute-looking posts in no time and in a straightforward way (such as Canva!). It’s good to start on time, as usual, and help people get into a holiday mood. Why is this so important? We all spend a lot of time online. Social media will be the first place to notice the decoration: the trees, the lights, and so on. So here we’re talking about new profile pictures, cover photos, emojis in your bio. Basically, decorate everything – you can never overdo it when it comes to the winter holidays.

Also, you want to give people options and let them choose what they like best! Post a couple of photos optimized for covers on Facebook or LinkedIn. Share a couple of Instagram photos with holiday hashtags. Create great holiday-themed Pinterest boards and remind people that the holidays are coming and that you’re already celebrating! These can be inspiring and make your audience want to decorate their homes and wrap their presents as soon as possible. People will enjoy looking at lovely interiors, snowy landscapes, and cozy rooms with stockings hanging over the fireplace. They will share the photos and give you many likes – even if the picture is a secret ad for your products. If you’re smart enough, they might not even notice, and you’ll know you have given your followers great sharing material. It will be all over social media!

2. Interactivity

It’s a great idea to examine the past year and see how much you’ve done and seen in 365 days. Ask your followers if they have kept up with their last year’s resolutions if they have reached their goals or achieved something worth sharing in 2018. There are plenty of questions you can come up with to boost the interaction in your holiday posts, which is excellent for broadening your network! Also, you can ask your audience to share their holiday selfies, pictures of their Christmas trees or cute holiday outfits for their children or pets and vote for the best ones.

Some researches have shown that many people feel the happiest during the holiday season and most of all, on Christmas day! Use it to get to know your audience because this feeling of happiness makes people kind and talkative. They will want to write about the pleasant experiences they’ve had and say beautiful things to each other. The holidays are mostly about family and love. Give an emotional touch to each one of your posts and invite your followers to tag their friends with questions such as Whom are you going to spend Christmas Eve with? Who will help you decorate the tree this year? Who prepares the best Christmas dinner? Who has been your greatest support in 2019?

We are sure there are friends, moms, dads, siblings, and significant others who will be happy to see their names in these comments. We live in a time where you can hardly keep a secret. Especially when it comes to social networks, have in mind that sometimes people do appreciate when they get a public „thank you“ for something they have done. If they can share it on their home page so their friends and family can see – even better! 

3. Be a Social Media Santa Claus

Your holiday campaign can’t be complete without giveaways and surprises for your followers. It is the time of the year when you should reward their loyalty and prepare something special for them so they would stay with you in the following year as well. Social networks are the best way to let them know when and how they can participate.

If you want to do it online, use your social media platforms to organize contests or challenges. That will bring your audience some early Christmas presents. Why not be the first Santa they will meet this year? This is a moment to get as creative as one can be. Have your followers click on a stocking or a Santa’s bag and reveal their little present or play a short online game to get the best result and a prize. Photo challenges are also an excellent idea. What do you wish for others in 2019? What are your New year’s resolutions for 2019? The best, the most original, or the cutest answers to these questions can also be rewarded in some way. It doesn’t cost too much, but it sure attracts new likes, shares, and online traffic to your pages.

If you’d like to meet your followers in person and have a real party, use your social media to promote your event and invite people to come and join you in welcoming the upcoming year! It can be a party, a charity event, or a simple gathering in a park if it’s not too cold. What can you do? Draw Christmas cards with kids and give them to their parents. Have a photo session with Santa Claus. Decorate a big Christmas tree in your main office. Wrap up some presents and decorate name tags. Put together a big list of lovely New year’s resolutions – think of all the ways you can be better in 2020. You can quickly turn your social media games and contests into real-life games that people will enjoy. You want to have your brand associated with something that made them laugh, right? And it is the best way to say bye to 2018 – laughing, singing and having fun!

4. Tips & Tops

You know that everyone is busy planning their Christmas dinners and New Year’s parties and, of course, they want everything to be just perfect. So, help them! No matter what your products or services are, you will be able to create some relatable posts and tips that everyone can find useful. Are you cooking for ten people for the first time? Here’s a piece of advice – how not to burn your food if you’re trying to prepare five dishes at the same time. And you can use this post to promote your baking recipes, too! People like this type of posts, especially if it’s a real life-saver or, at least, a time-saver. You can use them as ads for your products or services, but remember that it’s crucial to keep your tips short – not many people have enough time to read long articles. One brief (and funny) sentence is much more effective.

Lists! Everyone is making some lists right before the Christmas holidays – resolutions, things to do or, gifts to buy. It is why the „top 10“ kind of posts are also prevalent at this time of the year. You can use these lists to summarize the past 365 days in a way that will be related to your business. If you own a traveling agency, put together a list of top 10 vacation destinations in 2020. If you’re a makeup artist, tell people about the top 10 products you fell in love this year. If you’re a fitness instructor, make a list of the best tips for a healthy lifestyle for next year. You can also ask your followers for their opinion on the subject and boost the interaction on your social media platforms. And, if you’re summarizing 2019, don’t forget to give your followers a teaser – what will be trendy in 2020? 

5. Use videos for social media promotions

Finally, don’t forget to use video marketing. In videos, you have everything – pictures, music, text. They are perfect for your holiday marketing, and that is why you should film at least one video ad. Videos build trust among your audience because they can see rather than read the simple text, but they can also bring you more followers on social media if you’re able to collaborate with popular YouTubers. After posting a couple of well-done videos with the right timing, you will see the engagement on your pages increases dramatically! There are a million smart ways to use videos for marketing. If you hosted an event or held a party, you can share highlights and save some material for next year’s invitations. If you’re in charge of promoting your clients’ products, you can present or review them in a video instead of doing it in an article. It’s more engaging than a simple post, and more people will pay attention to it. Also, it is more probable that they will share it with their friends. Video editing tools are not as expensive as they used to be. You can find some that are easy to use, such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Lightworks, or Hitfilm Express. It pays off big time to invest a part of your resources in mastering your video editing skills to boost your social media marketing.

There are many more ways in which you can boost your marketing and sales during the holiday season, but these are the most useful tips one can give you. If you follow them, success is inevitable, and you will be able to sit back and watch your social media pages explode with likes, shares, and follows. Decorate your profiles, host a couple of events, play games, film videos – it’s easy, enjoyable, and it will pay off at the end. You will give yourself the greatest Christmas gift you have hoped for – a successful business and a happy start of 2020!