8 Social Media Marketing Tricks For The Upcoming Holiday Season

Can you feel the cold winter air? Are the city streets illuminated by hundreds of lights and adorned by festive decorations already? Do you hear the heartwarming Christmas carols wherever you go? It’s official: the most wonderful time of the year is just around the corner.

Needless to say, Christmas is also the busiest time of the year. Customers are actively searching online for products, whether it’s for gifting or for feasting. Travellers are making the most of the season and booking hotels, tours, and airfares. So if you’re a business or a brand, looking to boost your sales this year, stepping up your digital marketing efforts during the Christmas season is the way to go.

Let’s start with the platform everyone is into these days: social media. If you’re planning to level up your social media marketing strategies, check out our tried and tested tips.

1. Get people into the holiday spirit through imagery

The same way you decorate your physical store with Christmas ornaments or make your packaging more “Christmasy”, your online platforms should also radiate the holiday spirit. A digital marketing agency recommends the following:

• Make your social media pages attractive
• Use Christmas fonts, colours, and distinctive patterns and layouts
• Update your brand’s social media profiles with Christmas-inspired visuals and text.
• Highlight special Christmas offers on your cover photo.
• Create a content calendar and fill your IG feed with holiday-themed imagery, highlighting your everyday products or seasonal products, and services. Support them with catchy captions, with the right hashtags.

2. Wish them a Merry Christmas through social media

Nothing beats the joy of receiving a nice Christmas greeting card. Thanks to today’s digital era, it’s easy to create attractive layouts for greeting your patrons, whether in the form of a private message or a social media post. Sending a Christmas card with warm wishes and greetings implies that you value them. You can even turn a follower into a loyal customer with your messaging.

3. Engage, engage, engage

Engagement isn’t limited to competitions. Every digital marketing agency can agree that even asking a question that resonates with your viewers gives amazing opportunities for engagement.

A little bit of personalisation can go a long way. If you’re running a restaurant, for example, you can have a chart of popular Christmas staples and ask “two has to stay, the rest will say goodbye. Which will you pick?” Posts like these invite tons of reactions, shares, and a surge of opinions in the comment section.

Social media is the perfect platform to engage with your audience. If you’re already doing great with engagement, just throw a bit of a Christmas twist into your campaign and you’re good to go.

4. Run a social media competition and offer giveaways 

This Christmas 2021, why not be your loyal patrons’ Santa Claus? As a part of your social media campaign, you may organize games, photo-sharing contests, and other competitions. In return, let them enjoy exciting giveaways and prizes. Here are some of the winning ideas:

Do something creative and win exclusive prizes

• “The best caption” contest
• “Guess or vote – and win!”
• “Share this with a hashtag, present proof, and get a discount”
• “Share Christmas photos and win”

The goal is to encourage them to like, share, and comment on your posts, boosting the overall engagement while giving them something in return.

5. Consider video marketing in social media

Video is the most shareable form of content. It may be time-consuming but an excellent video is a surefire way to have your campaigns spreading on social media like wildfire. It doesn’t need to be long — if you don’t have the time and budget, short, bite-sized videos (like those trending TikTok clips) would suffice.

Focus on your concept, and let visuals tell a story. While it needs to be promotional to build brand awareness, ditch the blatant advertising and focus on the festive spirit of the season. Make the content informative yet engaging, fun and humorous, or even tear-jerking and inspiring, tapping into the emotions of your viewers. In addition, don’t forget to leave your audience a strong message.

6. Use stories to your advantage 

While a well-crafted social media post that’s polished and planned ahead of time is important, engage your audience with authentic, daily posts. You can do this in a form of engaging social media stories.

On a daily basis, you can post stories about behind the scenes and Christmas preparation. Additionally, use user-generated content, from customers who tagged your business that day.

7. Use unique hashtags

Create specific, campaign-related hashtags and use them to your brand’s advantage. Choose a fun hashtag that reflects your brand’s identity and culture. Aside from helping you find leads and engage with your existing followers, hashtags also help to track the results of your campaign.

9. Have a Christmas countdown

In case you’re running out of social media marketing ideas, simply play the famous song, “12 days of Christmas” and go from there. Having a Christmas countdown gives an opportunity to market your products while giving your viewers something exciting to look forward to.

If you have a cafe, you can have a “12 drinks of Christmas” and have a featured product per day, on a discount. Sweeten the deal by allowing them to collect stickers and coupons, and prepare rewards for customers who can complete the 12.

Author Bio: Carmina Natividad is a web content writer during the day and a foodie, musician, coffee connoisseur, and plant mom when her day shift is over. She enjoys sharing her insights about blogging, web design, SEO, and other forms of digital marketing. To know more about digital marketing, check out the blogs of SPRINT DIGITAL Agency Dublin.