10 Nov Spreading Holiday Cheer With Thoughtfully Planned Content
The holidays are quickly approaching, which means that before you know it, your timeline will be sprinkled with the spirit of the season! As social media marketing professionals, it is our job to create content that performs well and stands out among all the other festive, holiday-themed content. So, before you get those jolly old wheels turning in your head, consider these tips for planning your holiday content.
#1: Make a List, Check it Twice
When planning holiday content, it’s important to make a list of dates. This list acts as your general overview of the season and includes not only holidays but shopping days as well. Some of the most popular include:
- Thanksgiving
- Black Friday
- Cyber Monday
- Hanukkah
- Christmas Eve
- Christmas
To help your brand keep track of important dates, try creating a digital spreadsheet to act as a calendar. This helpful tool can help you keep track of important dates along with the content that you plan to produce. Highlight those dates and figure out how you want to handle them. As a content producer, it is your job to figure out which dates are important to the brands that you represent.
#2: Think Outside of the Gift Box
The holiday season holds two of the biggest shopping days of the year: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Many brands heavily promote their sales through social media campaigns during this time, which means that their audiences receive an influx of brand advertisements across their social platforms. So, when planning your holiday content, it is important to be very thoughtful and strategic about what you post so that you stand out in the sea of social media campaigns promoting sales, discounts, and savings. In order to stand out, showcase something different. Rather than posting the typical, straight-to-the-point sales post that reads something like “Save 70% plus Free Shipping,” try to find another approach to reach your audience.
One way to do that is to think outside the box. Many brands will be posting about the discounts that they offer, but you can make your messaging stand out by approaching it in a unique, creative way.
One example of a holiday social media campaign done right is Starbucks. Last year, Starbucks promoted the #RedCupContest, where they gathered user-generated content and showcased their customer’s originality by offering a limited edition plain red cup. Customers were prompted to use the plain cups as canvases for their artwork and share their unique creations with Starbucks on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #RedCupArt for the chance to win a cash prize.
Starbucks shared some of the designs on their pages. This ended up being a very successful campaign, prompting thousands of user-generated contest entries across multiple social media platforms.
#3: All the Holiday “Feels”
As mentioned, a lot of brand’s holiday content is sales driven. Instead of strictly promoting sales, focus on sharing the joy of the holidays through thoughtful, heartwarming posts that remind your audience of their favorite holiday memories. This will give you the opportunity to make a connection with them.
One of our clients, Altar’d State, does a great job of engaging their audience by sharing a nostalgic post with an engaging CTA (Call to Action) for their audience to share their favorite holiday memory. The call to action encourages people to interact, it clearly asks the reader to share their memories creating a positive and heartwarming socially-driven discussion amongst members of their audience while also tugging at their heartstrings. In the long run, this helps promote the brand’s positive message by incorporating memories of holiday cheer into their daily content.
#4: Learn from Holidays Past
Finally, one of the simplest ways to ensure successful holiday content is to look back at what you did in the previous year. Browse through last year’s content to see what worked and what didn’t work for the brand. This will help provide inspiration for what to do in the present year. You can refresh content that had high engagement rates to inspire new content. Since this content was successful with your audience it in the past, odds are it will be successful again.
Also knowing what did not work in the past will prevent you from making the same mistake twice. You should aim to have very strong content during the holiday season because the cost of boosting is higher during this time.
Overall campaigns, connections, and creativity are essential when planning holiday social content. If you need more ways to spread holiday cheer through thoughtfully-planned social media content, contact us.
