The 12 Days of Social Media | Your Go-To For Holiday Campaign Success

There’s a good chance that Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is playing on the radio while you read this, which means the holiday season is fast approaching. I know, I know, it feels like March and April of this year each lasted six months and then we just hit the fast-forward button together. If you’re scrambling to piece together a social media campaign to close out the year, we’ve got you covered with 12 tips for a successful holiday campaign.

#1: Decorate Your Social Profiles

Make sure your account looks the part! Start by uploading a new holiday-themed profile and cover photos to really kickstart the seasonal spirit. However, ensure they aren’t so busy that they make your brand unrecognizable. You’ll want a sprinkle of holiday magic, not a deluge! Think about adding a Santa hat, altering colors to red, green, and white, or ringing your logo with string lights. Get creative!

#2: Launch A Giveaway Campaign

People like free stuff. It’s just science. They’re also likely on the hunt for gifts for loved ones (or themselves) in December. Consider launching a giveaway to generate some excitement and help your audience check off their gift lists! Make sure to add a step where entries must tag their friends in order for your brand to get in front of more eyes and follow your profiles in the process.

#3: Promote With A Discount

During the holiday months, customers are going to hone in on anything that’s on sale. To rise above the noise of your competitors, provide discounts on your catalog, yes, even beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday! Speaking from personal experience (no judgment), folks will be shopping down to the wire so offering a discount as long as possible will benefit in the long run.

#4: Connect With Your Audience

It’s not all about closing deals and selling products. Take this opportunity to spread a little cheer by actively connecting with your audience on their favorite traditions. Run polls on the best holiday movies, share your favorite recipes, or provide some printable crafts for them to enjoy with the family. This is a great opportunity to advance your audience from passive to engaged customers.

#5: Spread Some Goodwill

Have a charitable organization or cause that’s close to you or encapsulates the core tenets of your business? Use the holiday season when people are feeling generous to spotlight a worthy cause! You may even think about doing a profit share or just creating a fund to support that charity as well. Consumers love making a purchase when they know even a part of that purchase will benefit someone else in need.

#6: Spotlight Your Best Customers

Do you have those 5-star clients or customers that you’ve been working with for years? Make them feel special by giving them a special shoutout as a way to show your appreciation for their support! It’ll make them feel warm on a cold winter day as well as show other customers that you’re a business that values its base.

#7: Celebrate Your Employees

Let your audience take a peek behind the curtain and show them how you and your employees celebrate the holiday season. It’s a great way to humanize your brand and show off the smiling faces of your team!

#8: Make A Consistent Aesthetic

You may be tempted to populate your pages with all sorts of wildly festive fonts and colors. Before you go overboard, try and keep your whole holiday campaign consistent from a design angle. Choose fonts, colors, and design elements that can visually coexist and look like they’re all coming from the same brand.

#9: Kick Community Management Into Overdrive

This month, make it a point to be more proactive and less reactive when it comes to community management. For instance, look up relevant hashtags and leave comments on appropriate posts! It’s a great way to directly introduce your company to those who may not have stumbled across it yet.

#10: Get Retrospective

(Thankfully) 2020 is coming to a close at the end of the month. There have been a LOT of lessons learned this year. Hardships, pivots, new strategies, and successes from the past twelve months. Use this time to share some of the lessons your brand learned and how they’ve made you better prepared for 2021.

#11: Provide Solutions To Holiday Problems

Are your customer’s last-minute shoppers? Are they unsure what to get specific family members? Build out some handy gift guides with your best offers suited for everyone on their lists, and consider launching some last-minute sales!

#12: Make Your Products Available In-Platform

Is your catalog uploaded to Instagram and Facebook’s Shop feature? Make sure your offerings are up to date to take advantage of social media “window shoppers” who are likely to be hopping all over the platform in the search for great gifts.

By following these simple steps, you can feel more prepared to celebrate a holly jolly holiday and see better sales. It’s all about positioning your brand as a fun-loving company that shares the same values and traditions as its customers! I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how far that goes with your target market.