Now that the winter holidays are here, it’s time to start planning out your final strategies for leveraging social media. Here are some suggestions to make sure you get the absolute most out of your holiday social media plan.
Create a timeline for your targeted social pushes.
The more targeted your campaigns are, the better your chances of success will be. So plan on developing different messages, one for each of your target audiences on social. Focus on niche interests and encourage engagement by offering carefully chosen gifts, rewards, and specials.
Once you’ve identified your target audiences on each social platform, build out the timing and copy of your posts to stay organized. Be sure to space these promotional posts out so your followers have time to engage with them, and consider aligning posts with the timing of your email campaigns. Need a place to start with the timing of your social posts during the winter holidays? Check out this helpful research and infographic from AddThis.
Leverage coupons and discount codes.
Everyone loves a discount no matter what time of year it might be, but discounts and coupon codes become even more powerful around the holidays. They’re a great way to upsell, reclaim potentially lost sales related to abandoned shopping carts, attract new customers, and encourage lapsed customers to make another purchase.
When sharing coupon codes through social, make sure you are taking the needs and preferences of your consumers into consideration.
If you’re sending coupons to be used at a brick and mortar shop, make sure you go with mobile as well as printable options. For online coupon codes, keep track of them in a central location in order to monitor their ROI, to see which social channels are more effective for driving sales through coupon codes, and more.
Plan your social media marketing budget around important dates.
An important part of the planning process is deciding where (and when) your holiday marketing budget would best be applied. Make sure you dedicate the bulk of your funds and schedule the majority of your efforts to fall around important dates.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are particularly important, as those are the busiest shopping days of the year, both of which account for 11% of holiday revenue (according to our data). The second week of December is also an important time to focus on, as that’s when traffic and “shopper’s mentality” skyrocket again. Remember not to underestimate the importance of sponsoring posts that are performing well, especially on Facebook.
Keep engagement levels high with timeline contests.
One of the best ways to generate interest and encourage follower engagement is with carefully planned social contests on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Use these contests as platforms to generate engagement through contests (and also capture email addresses), but make sure you research contest guidelines for each platform to see what contest rules are before posting. For example, it’s forbidden on Facebook to ask your audience to share the post on their timelines as part of their entry. See this page on Facebook for more information.
Be sure your contests are holiday-oriented and designed to appeal to your target demographic. Short on ideas? Try asking a question and offering something free to a random participant. Set a time limit by which those interested need to participate. Alternatively, you could hold a caption contest and promise a discount or gift to the person with the best answer. Be creative!
Again, plan several contests or events and run them separately for best results. You can make the scheduling process even easier by using automation to take the guesswork out of the process as well.
Looking for more social media tips? Check out the rest of our social articles here!