Social media sees a spike in the amount of users it receives during the holiday season. Users tend to flock to social networks to look for gift ideas, connect with friends and post pictures of their Christmas and New Year experiences. The increased presence of potential customers is something brands can play to their advantage, particularly considering that social media has the potential to influence up to half of all holiday shoppers.
With more people tweeting and using Facebook over the holiday period, it’s important that brands take advantage of this trend and turn those extra eyeballs into sales.
Here are some last minute tips that could help increase profits for the Christmas and New Year season:
1) Create Christmas / New Year Offers
If you haven’t already created special offers for you brand, you need to do so now. Chances are, your competitors have already rolled their best offers out and are most likely benefiting from it. Here are some examples of special offers, commonly used by large brands:
- Save up to X% on selected products this Christmas
- Buy 1 get one free this Holiday season
- X/free shipping if purchased before x/x/xxxx
It is important to calculate how much of a discount you can afford to give, as you need to make the offer attractive without incurring a net loss. A discount combined with a free bonus and money back guarantee will generate more responses rather than just a simple discount alone.
While reducing the overall price of your product is a great example of a special offer, research has shown that free/discount shipping receives positive responses from consumers.
Once you have decided on your offers, tweet, share and advertise them everywhere.
Get help from our social media marketing experts to boost your campaign results to the next level
2) Let Users Promote Your Brand For You
A quick and easy way to promote your brand is to engage consumers via user generated content. It is especially effective during the holiday period due to the fact that many people are already posting pictures to social media.
An easy way to encourage sharing is: “Tweet/Post us a picture of you and your favourite (your brand) to win X% off your next {your product} purchase!”
Be creative!
This is a chance for you to reach out to your audience. Most people appreciate creativity and if you can display this through innovative campaigns, consumers will notice your product.
Tailoring the content of your posts to reflect your products is one way to be creative. For example, if your brand sells ski jackets, a great way to reach out to your audience would be “Share a picture of you skiing with your {your product} and tag a friend you wish could have joined you to win a free ski holiday for you and that friend!”
Engaging users is a great method of directly communicating with your customers while simultaneously increasing brand awareness. A recent study found that 30% of online shoppers said that they have made a purchases as a result of seeing a social media message from a brand.
3) Identify Your Target Market and Advertise on the Best Platform
Advertising on social networks is a great way to promote brand awareness and will be especially effective during the holiday season.
However, you need to ensure you’re advertising on the social media platform that best suits your target audience. It is important to understand the demographics of each social media site before spending your budget on advertising. While this information rings true for the whole year, it is especially important during the holiday season.
Social network demographic data has shown that Pinterest is mostly used by females, so if your target audience is mostly women, perhaps advertising there is a good idea. Studies have also shown that YouTube is more widely used by males.
