Where has the time gone? It’s almost Christmas!
We know you are looking forward to switching off from your day-to-day work during the festive break, but don’t forget about your audience, who will be on social media more than ever!
We recently surveyed business owners to discover that social media marketing is the most popular marketing tactic amongst UK companies, with over a third (34%) utilising it. Interestingly, there are 1.3K monthly searches for “What is social media marketing?” revealing a desire for more advice around the topic.
To help you make the most of your social media channels and boost your engagement between Christmas and New Year, we have compiled an easy-to-follow ten-step guide to help you plan your social media content. Keep reading to create your own festive social strategy!
1. Organise your internal dates
The first and most important step behind your Christmas social media planning is deciding whether or not your company will stay open during the festive period. This can differ for each industry, and there is no right or wrong way to plan the length of your company shutdown.
Your customers will want to know precisely when you close and reopen, so ensure you decide on these dates as soon as possible to give your customers ample notice. While it is essential to let your audience know this in the week before you close, there is no harm in first sharing this ahead of time, for example, at the end of November, to kick-start your festive posts.
2. Create a customer engagement strategy
Next, ask yourself, ‘Will anyone be available to answer our social media enquiries or comments between Christmas and New Year?’.
If the answer is yes, you are free to encourage as much audience engagement as possible – after all, many people have time off between Christmas and New Year and have more time to enjoy scrolling through their social media.
Some great tactics to speak to your audience are to run a poll, launch a competition, or ask your customers to fill in a short survey. Regular social media community engagement, including interacting with your audience, following relevant accounts, and sharing industry news will also help boost your online presence.
However, if nobody will be working on your social media during Christmas week, clarify when your team will return. Keep all content easy to digest to avoid confusion, and add a reminder of your opening dates at the bottom of your social media posts. If your phone lines are closed, include an email address so the customer can get any concerns off their chest.
3. Competitor research:
If you feel stuck with content ideas, check out your competitors’ and favourite brands Christmas campaigns from recent years and analyse if this resonates well with their audience. Looking at likes, comments, and shares will help you see if their chosen forms of content will likely resonate with your audience, too!
Once you understand what type of content might work for you, for example, 2023 showreel videos, images on the team Christmas night out, or a simple graphic to wish a Happy New Year with a caption thanking your customers and team, you can start thinking about personalising them to match your brand.
4. Check out social media trends, but make it relevant!
In the run-up to Christmas, there are always trending videos and audio that your team can take part in to showcase the fun side of your company. Whether your industry is high fashion or construction, there will be a fun trend that you can jump on to add Christmas cheer to your social media.
Your use of trends doesn’t have to be complicated. For example, you could utilise trending audios to showcase the before and after of your office decorated for Christmas, share images of your Elf on the Shelf misbehaving around your workplace or share short clips asking your team what’s on their wishlist!
Trending hashtags are also a great way to reach a wider audience during the festive period. You can discover high search-volume hashtags using tools like Tiktok’s Trend Discovery or AI-generated hashtag platforms like Copy.ai.
5. Get creative with your assets
Christmas is the best time to show some creative flair on your social media, particularly visual channels such as Instagram and TikTok.
You can even update your branding and profile pictures with festive designs and any other company assets to include Christmassy imagery (including email signatures, newsletters and website graphics).
In the same way, don’t be afraid to lean into creative Christmas puns if they feel appropriate for your business.
Above all, maintain a consistent brand presence across all social media platforms despite the festive season. To do so, always use the standard font, brand colours and tone of voice to ensure your social media channels look professional.
6. Remember the 80/20 rule
Overloading your channels with informal social media trends consistently may seem tempting, but won’t be the best move for your brand. Meanwhile, you don’t want to focus too much on your company’s products and services, as ‘salesly’ content can deter people from visiting your website.
This is where the 80/20 rule comes into play; 80% of your content should be informative, engaging or educational to your audience, whereas 20% can be promotional content focusing explicitly on your goods and services. The 80/20 rule is designed to strike the perfect balance for any industry and will help inform the creation of your festive content calendar.
7. Tie in social media with other marketing tactics
Social media is a great tool within multi-channel Christmas marketing campaigns, where you use other marketing channels to share your company’s festive messaging.
For example, if you run a monthly email campaign to a mailing list of potential customers, direct your readers through links to your social media channels and tell them about the fun content you plan on sharing.
Alternatively, you can link to your channels on your most popular SEO-optimised blog posts to direct any website visitors between Christmas and New Year to the engaging content on your channels. This will increase the chance of your customers clicking through to your social media and seeing your 2023 wins roundup or your team working together in a hilarious TikTok challenge.
8. Create a calendar of what and when you will post
Now that you have a clear understanding of which social media trends you will participate in, how to maintain a consistent brand image and how to strike a balance between informal and advice-led content, a calendar will help you stay organised.
Here is a quick reminder of key festive dates for 2023:
- Christmas Eve – 24th of December
- Christmas Day – 25th of December
- Boxing Day – 26th of December
- New Year’s Eve – 31st of December
- New Year’s Day – 1st of January
Consider which dates might align with your brand best – you don’t have to post every day!
For example, if you are an eCommerce business that has launched new Christmas products for 2023, consider promoting a Boxing Day sale across your social media channel to sell off any spare stock. Communicating these products’ limited availability will create a sense of urgency among your audience and help you stand out amongst your competitors.
Suppose you are a fashion or beauty retailer. In that case, you may want to post promotional content on the run-up to New Year’s Eve, resharing UGC (User Generated Content) to showcase how your products are perfect for a party look. This tactic can encourage customers already in the sales funnel to convert via your website or target existing customers to make seasonal purchases.
On the other hand, if you are an industrial business (manufacturing, construction, engineering), consider creating a showreel of your 2023 projects to share on the day you close to thank everyone involved in your business in the past year.
9. Schedule your content
Nobody wants to post content in the middle of Christmas dinner, so schedule your posts beforehand. Most social media platforms now allow you to schedule posts, and you can choose your desired time of day to set your post live.
Alternatively, you could invest in scheduling platforms like Sprout Social or Social Pilot to schedule across multiple platforms at once or expedite these costs by working with a marketing and social media agency with access to these tools.
Don’t forget to look at the times your audience is most active, as this will give you a clue as to the best times to post each day of the week. You should also take into account the unique holiday dates. For example, posting your ‘Happy New Year’ post on New Year’s Eve is unlikely to reach your audience celebrating with family and friends, so opt for midday New Year’s Day instead.
10. Review your performance in the New Year
When you return to work, analyse the reach and engagement for each of your posts to see how successful you were in reaching your audience across the Christmas period.
There are various ways to analyse the success of your social media posts, including looking at conversion rates from social media traffic on Google Analytics or finding out the reach and engagement of each post in each platform’s analytics.
Note down which posts did exceptionally well this year so you can refer back to them next year when deciding what to post across Christmas week!
How a marketing agency can support your social media marketing
If you are looking to optimise your social media year-round, working with an experienced PR and marketing agency whowill regularly analyse the success of your social media campaigns and work to continually improve the content based on what your unique audience responds well to.
We have worked with companies across industries, from eCommerce to professional services and manufacturing, to raise their social media following and boost their brand awareness.
Get in touch today, or book a 30-minute consultation with our Managing Director Katrina Cliffe to find out how we can raise your brand awareness through social media management.