Leveraging Social Media for the Holidays

As Christmas decorations take over every grocery and department store, it’s time again to add holiday flare to your marketing efforts. One of the best ways to show your holiday spirit is through a social media strategy that allows your audience to follow and engage with your brand. Setting up a festive and impactful holiday social strategy can be segmented into six key areas:

6 Focus Areas for Holiday Social Media Strategy

Content

With numerous companies trying to capitalize on the buying power of the holiday season, it can get pretty crowded on social media. Your audience is constantly bombarded with content and holiday offers. So how can your brand stand out and be the figurative star at the top of the Christmas tree? Choose to dig deeper into what your brand represents and align that with the specific holiday. Showcase your brand tone in ways other than the standard “happy holidays” social post. Telling a holiday story through social is a great way to encourage customers to follow along and engage with the content.

Create Conversations

During this winter season, take the time to engage more personally with your social audience. This allows the users to push through the overwhelming amount of content and see your brand as more authentic. Instagram polls and questions help your audiences feel like they are being truly acknowledged during this time of year, and not just sold to. The Instagram Questions feature is an amazing way to be creative with content and see what users really want to know about the brand.

Highlight A Cause

Many brands work with non-profit and sustainability-focused organizations year-round, and there is no better time than the holidays to talk about these initiatives. Use the holidays as an opportunity to run good-will campaigns that loyal followers and customers can engage with and help to give back. If your company works hard to prevent food waste, for example, partner with a series of food banks for an incentive-based contest that will give several lucky winners gift cards—and then donate money back to the organizations.

Giveaways & Contests

It’s the season of giving, so what better time to show customer appreciation than by hosting a giveaway on social media? Use this as a tool to grow your engagement and social communities by offering product or other types of prizes. For example, ask your audience to post pictures of how they are getting ready for the holidays with a branded contest hashtag. Online offers, such as exclusive content and e-books, also can serve as prizes.

Holiday Hashtags

Take more ownership of the holiday when using a hashtag. Branded hashtags are something you can encourage customers to incorporate to enter your giveaways while cooking or baking with your produce. #AVeryBerryChristmas or #GiveTomatoes are fun examples of ways to play on the standard hashtags that will certainly be overrun by posts, which makes yours harder to find unless you stand out!

Have other fun ways to engage consumers during the holiday season? Leave us a comment or tweet us at @TheCoreBlog!

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