Increase Sales Over the Holidays With Social Media

Social media marketing campaigns become especially important during the holidays—there is more money being spent during that time of year. And not unlike your average social media campaign, a holiday marketing campaign takes a lot of planning and preparation. It’s important (and helpful) to start your planning early to ensure your campaign runs smoothly and effectively, connecting with the audiences who can’t wait to scoop up your holiday deals! These are our top six tips to help you increase sales with social media over the holidays.

1. Plan Your Promotion: First, you need to consider what it is you’re actually offering. This may seem like an obvious tip, but it’s something many retailers fail to consider until the last-minute. What exactly are your offers? Will everything be on sale, or will you promote one specific product? Is there an item you sell that is especially popular year-round or that would be more aligned with a holiday theme? What would your customers be excited to snag at a lower price?
2. Know Your Timing: While yes, of course, you’ll be sharing these promotions during the holiday season, you also want to consider when exactly they’ll run and for how long. Will you do a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale? Will you have promotions the day after Christmas? How many promotions will you offer—and will you promote them all at once or spread them out? There’s a lot going on during the holidays—and you won’t be the only retailer running a promotion—so make sure your social media campaign is timed well to connect with your customers.
3. Consider Your Platform: As you probably well know by now, not all social media platforms are created equal. Facebook is a great choice if your target audience is moms in the United States. Instagram might be the platform you focus on if you want to reach male and female millennials. And Snapchat might be the winner if you’re looking to appeal to high school and college-aged students—who might share hot deals with their parents. There’s no right or wrong platform when it comes to social media campaigns during the holidays—and you may choose a combination of a few for different promotions—but there is a right platform for your campaign. Make sure you’re clear on the audience you’re targeting, and do some research to determine the best place to target your holiday marketing.
4. Update Your Calendar: Once you know what you’ll be promoting, when you’ll be promoting it, and where, it’s time to update your editorial calendar. The holidays are a more intense time of year in all aspects—professionally and personally—and it’s important to get ahead of the eight ball as you plan for your social media campaigns. Make sure there’s space in your ed cal for these new promotions and consider the different assets you’ll need: images (appropriately-sized for each platform), hashtags (new ones or ones you already use for your business), and the actual content you’ll share.
5. Prepare Your Posts: Speaking of content, you’ll want to write that ahead of time, too! (See how important it is to start early?) Consider the sequence and timing for each post. Will the post go live one week before your promotion? Will you first post the day the promotion goes live? Then, after you’ve written the content for each post, schedule them to go live. Use your editorial calendar and a tool such as Hootsuite, Buffer, or MeetEdgar to schedule your content and assets according to the dates and times you planned.
6. Engage Your Community: You’re almost there, but you’re not done yet! You can certainly breathe a sigh of relief going into the holidays, knowing that your social media campaign is properly planned and scheduled. But you’ll want to monitor everything as it goes live too. Make sure each post posts properly—and remember that on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, you’ll still need to push posts live in real-time. Continue to engage with your community throughout your holiday marketing—watching for any potential questions or concerns that may arise. Because while customers are always appreciative of good customer service, they’re especially grateful for it during the holiday season.

Have you run a successful social media campaign during the holidays before? Do you have any additional tips to share? We’d love to hear your insights in the comments below!

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