Ding dong merrily on PR it’s that time of year again! The festive season is officially upon us and it’s time for us to share some social media marketing tips for startups as an early Christmas present.
The festive season presents a chance for you to get really creative with your social media marketing to grow your business
So put the egg nog on ice, and tell Rudolph to take his shiny nose elsewhere. You’ve got a social media campaign to execute – and with our handy tips – you can make the holiday’s the most wonderful of the year (for a bit of exposure).
Get organized on social media
This first point is something you should be doing from the get-go.
It’s good practice to use some kind of social media management system to plan the content you’re going to upload to your social media channels in advance.
There are a few reasons you do this:
- It ensures you’re consistent
- It allows you to schedule posts when your audience is most active
- It stops you from posting duplicate content on different social media channels
- It means you’re ready for big events ahead of time
This last point is especially true for the holidays. When you miss significant dates, your business runs the risk of looking foolish and out of the loop. It can be particularly damaging if all your competitors have something special planned for them.
For example, if you’re a B2C tech company who sells the latest gadgets and electronic devices, you’d look pretty out of touch if you didn’t post anything on social media during Christmas.
Offer (or promote) a promotion
I know what you’re probably thinking… “We’re obviously going to run a promotion over the festive period… Why is this point in here?”
Yes, it’s more likely than not that you’ll offer a promotion for your product or service during retail holidays. However, why stop there?
This is when your marketing team can really get creative.
Can you think of an offer to tie in with the specific holiday?
For instance, say you’re a SaaS company that offers email marketing software, you could run a promotion over the beginning of December along the theme of 12 days of Christmas – like we did! “On the first day of Christmas, get 20% off our software for the first six months. Hurry, this offer is only valid till the next day of Christmas!”
This kind of holiday offer is a powerful tool for promoting your startup on social media and landing new leads and sales.
Reward your existing customers
On top of chasing up some new business, the holidays are also a great time for you to reward your current customers and followers.
How you do this largely depends on the kind of business you’re in. However, here are some ideas on how to promote your startup:
- A free piece of gated content – if your business has some gated content on your site (an ebook or a white paper) you could email this out to your mailing list or send it to your Facebook followers.
- A social media competition – This effectively kills two birds with one stone. Not only is it a great way to give back to your loyal customers but it’s also effective in increasing social media engagement and gathering user-generated content. For example, around Christmas you could start a collaboration with some relevant social media tech influencers and do a competition related to your product or service.
- A free gift – This only really works if the leads you’ve gathered have entered their address. However, a free holiday-themed gift is a great bit of marketing and to be honest, who doesn’t like receiving free stuff?
Theme your messaging and content around the holidays
The holidays are great for working on your brand image.
Why?
The wackiness and universal themes surrounding them are instantly recognizable to your target audience.
Therefore, the social media content you share and your messaging can be more creative and light-hearted around the holiday season. After all, tis the season to be jolly.
Here are a few things your team could do during different holidays:
- Christmas – Post a photo album of your team to Facebook – but one where they are all wearing ugly Xmas sweaters.
- New Years – Run a competition where the winner gets a free hamper from your business if they sign up to your newsletter.
PRO TIP: Update your iconography so it’s holiday-themed. E.g. At Christmas, put a Santa hat on your logo.
Analyze the results of previous years
Have you ever dabbled in social media marketing during the holiday season?
If so, it may be worth going over past performance.
This will help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your past efforts.
These are some of the questions you might ask yourself:
- What content worked?
- What content didn’t work?
- What was the best time of day to post?
- What gave you the biggest amount of engagement?
- What marketing tools did you use last time? Is there something better available now?
It’s good social media marketing practice to constantly evolve and tweak your strategy month-by-month. The holiday season is no different.
It’s around about now we’re putting our feet up safe in the knowledge that Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day have just arrived. However, for you to be a success on social media, you can’t pop on your Ugg Boots just yet!
Follow these startup social media strategy tips for the holidays and a pair of socks isn’t the only gift you’ll receive this year.
