Holiday Social Media Marketing Tips

It might feel like Spring in York Region & the GTA, but Winter is coming and the holidays are right around the corner.  In the marketing world, it’s always better to be a bit early than too late!

It’s time to start thinking about starting your holiday marketing campaigns. Whether it’s changing your website/social media banners, updating your profile pictures, creating content for themed blogs or newsletters, or communicating with clients in your store-front, here are some tips to help get your marketing through this holiday season.

1. Be Joyful!

I always aim to spread happiness and positivity and love that it’s such a celebrated emotion that comes along with the holidays.  The holiday season is about creating warmth (even when it feels like Ontario is freezing over).  Make sure your marketing shines this season; be warm, and welcoming and spread positivity.

2. Try Surprise Flash-Deals Through Social Media

This is a great way to test the effectiveness of your social media streams.  Try having a one-day flash sale on an item or service.  Announce it the night before, or the morning of!  See how many followers are paying attention to you on a daily basis.  This can also generate brand excitement as followers wait for the next flash sale!

3. Holiday Greetings Matter

I worked for many years in retail to help put myself through school, and the #1 thing we were taught was the importance of saying “Happy Holidays”.  We are fortunate to live in such a diverse country, but as such, you can’t guess which holidays people do or don’t celebrate.  Stick with a genuine “happy holidays” or “seasons greetings”.  And if they return with a “Merry Christmas”, “Happy Hanukkah”, etc. respond back with whatever you celebrate! There should be joy in sharing and connecting through our differences.

4. Bring “Warmth” to Your Advertisements

Whatever industry you’re in, try to avoid images that depict “cold”.  These images can subconsciously make people feel cold or uncomfortable.  Instead, try images of warm scenes, colours, or welcoming facial expressions and images of happy people.  (Check out the picture I chose for this blog).

5. Develop a Promotional Schedule

This tip comes from MailChimp: Map out your sales and promotions for the entire holiday shopping season, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Don’t leave it to the last minute.

6. Start a Holiday Themed Contest on Social Media

The holidays are a great time to start a social media contest to engage your followers.  There are many ways to run a holiday-themed promotion on Facebook or Instagram.  You can do a GIVEAWAY where followers need to like the image, share or tag a friend and then finish registering. Not only does this generate brand excitement, but you may gain a few extra followers.

7. Share a Great Story

The holidays are a time of giving and sharing.  If you have a great story about your business, or a client testimonial, the holidays are a great time to share.  Why not up the ante and create a short video?  There are many tools available to help turn a simple iPhone/Android filmed video into a work of art.

What are your go-to holiday marketing strategies?  Is there anything you’ve tried that hasn’t worked for you?  We’d love to hear about it!

We would love to connect with you and invite you to contact us by telephone or email, or through Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.  I’m now on Instagram and you can sign up for our exclusive monthly newsletter for even more tips!

Until next time,

Deanna