Every year it seems to come around a bit quicker. Decorations are pulled out of storage, festive cards start landing on your doorstep and you’ve got an unusually busy social calendar. But as you pop open another door on your advent calendar and organise the staff Christmas lunch, have you taken care to plan your social media campaign to meet the December rush?
Whatever the aim of your social media campaign, whether to increase sales, improve traffic or boost brand awareness, Christmas is the time to get social. Create a fun, friendly campaign to draw in your target audience and spread some festive cheer.
If you’re running behind on your Santa-focused social media plan, don’t panic! Here are some helpful tips to get you up to speed and ready for a creative Crimbo campaign.
Give your patients a gift
Discount codes, money-saving deals, buy one get one free….this season is all about generosity, so offering your customer a way to save money and boost sales is not only sensible, it’s a social media must!
Make your offer big and bold, so customers know what you’re offering and how long for. Create festive Facebook ads by choosing appropriately themed images and traditional colours (red, green) before boosting your advert and targeting potential buyers. Adorn your Instagram feed with Christmas imagery and create hype with appropriately festive live videos.
If you sell products, a tried and tested way to increase sales is to offer free delivery for a limited time period. Tap into the buying mood by adding an option of a gift-wrapping service or free Christmas message.
Decorate your social media profile
Your social media platform should reflect the season. Think of those beautiful decorations adorning department store windows and try to translate that feeling to your social media profile. Add some digital decoration to your profile pictures and social media posts, or, if you can adapt your logo to add a Santa hat or a mini Christmas tree, make sure you do it. The Christmas spirit is infectious and even if you’re a scrooge in your personal life, your business needs to embrace the season.
Don’t forget to make sure the emails that are landing in your customer’s inboxes feel festive and promote any special offers. You might also consider creating a Christmas landing page – so as soon as your customer clicks onto the page they feel like they’re getting something special.
Tis the season to be jolly, and if your brand reflects this, you’re more likely to tap into your customer’s frame of mind.
Countdown to Christmas
One way to add some anticipation is by setting up a Christmas countdown. For example, use snippets from the 12 Days of Christmas song by making it relevant to your brand or offer helpful holiday tips on a daily post. This is a great way to engage your audience and encourage people to share your posts. Create consistently designed posts in seasonal colours – perhaps with some traditional Christmas cracker jokes or seasonal recipes.
Remember, it’s easy to schedule your posts beforehand so plan ahead and use sites such as Hootsuite that automatically post for you.
Christmas Competitions
Boost traffic to your website or social media platform by offering a seasonal prize with a winter-themed competition. You could ask followers to share your post, caption a picture or refer a friend and reward them for their efforts. An extra special touch is to ask followers to send their personal pictures to you so they can feature on your social media page. Make sure you pick a winner at random and set a time limit to fit in with the holiday season.
New Year, New Offers
If you’ve planned your Christmas offers accordingly you should already be thinking about offers for the New Year. The downtime between Christmas and New Year is notorious for people eager to find a bargain in the sales and also, lots of people will be at home with free time on their hands which gives them more opportunity to browse your site.
Hone in on the post-Christmas lull. When it’s cold outside, people want to stay cosy and shop online. It’s a time to think about new beginnings and New Year resolutions so target your social media posts accordingly.
There are still a few weeks of Christmas shopping ahead of us, so make sure your social media campaign is spreading the love and boosting your brand.
Merry Christmas campaigning!