Creative ways to get into the Christmas spirit
It’s nearly Christmas time and that means it’s time to add some festive cheer to your brands' social media calendar!
Christmas is all around us and it’s important to adjust your online presence to reflect the season.
Give your profile some Christmas flare!
Now that December is here, everyone’s mind turns to Christmas, so go with the flow and spruce up your profile with some Christmas cheer. You don’t have to go overboard and flood your profile with Christmas themed tweaks, but think about giving your profile picture some snow flakes, or some festive baubles. Put a cheery Christmas greeting in your bio; adding a festive touch to your profile will make sure your audience is feeling the Christmas vibe from you.
Christmas Offers
Music to the ears of Christmas lovers! Christmas discounts, December offers, it’s all part of the festive season, and it is definitely something your brand should consider. Whether that is discounts, buy one get one free, contests or any sort of offer prompted by the festive season, it’s a great way to generate excitement and festivity over the Christmas period.
Embrace the spirit of giving
Christmas is about giving, and this should be embraced by brands wanting to celebrate this festive season. Christmas is a time where sales can sky rocket, where audience engagement will rise, but it is also important to embrace the spirit of giving back this Christmas, and doing so to your followers. Giving back to your loyal followers is an amazing way to embrace the spirit of Christmas.
Having the Christmas spirit present in your social media is so important. Christmas is such a big part of social (and shopping) culture of today that you would be foolish not to use this joyful time to your brands advantage!
Want to chat to our team about a seasonal promotional strategy? Get in touch today.
4 Successful Christmas Marketing Campaigns
Should I buy a dress for Aunty Kate from Country Road or Seed? Should I get a voucher for Pop from Bunnings or Mitre 10? Christmas is a super competitive time, so it's no wonder that brands are breaking creative barriers and doing everything they can to be more innovative when it comes to their digital marketing efforts over the silly season.
Here are a few examples of Christmas digital campaigns that we think were really effective.
One of our all time favourite campaigns is Ted Baker’s “TedsElfie” campaign from 2014. Ted Baker fans were encouraged to follow @TedsElfie on Instagram to participate in the game. Ted Baker created a number of Instagram accounts for the campaign, with each account featuring hand drawn images where users had to find the seven ‘missing’ elves, in return for prizes. The brand would drop hints on where to look and encourage their fans to watch the TedsElfie hashtag to be kept in the loop. Ted Baker had over 37 thousand interactions throughout the campaign and 14.5 thousand competition entries. Amazing right?!
Another campaign we loved was Topshop’s 2013 “Dear Topshop” campaign. Run purely on Pinterest, this campaign was amazing for engagement and exposure. The campaign asked fans to create a mood board on Pinterest dedicated to the perfect Christmas day. Users could pin things like decorations, dream outfits and food. All pins had to include #DearTopshop and the best boards received shopping sprees worth up to 500 pounds ($900). You’d be crazy not to enter really!
A campaign we’ve loved this year is Spotify’s “2017 Unwrapped” campaign.
The campaign showed users their top artists and songs of 2017, as well as how many minutes of music they listed to. The brand incorporated a fun little quiz into the campaign, which engages users. Spotify also gifts users with two playlists - one featuring their top songs of 2017 and another handpicked playlist based on what music they love. The brand also encourages users to share their “2017 Unwrapped” on their social media pages, with links to do so. Spotify’s campaign builds customer loyalty and makes users feel special. Interestingly, it makes users login to access the campaign so this could definitely be a tactic to re-engage lost customers. Seems pretty great to us!
If you’re new to Christmas campaigns, a popular one to start with is the ‘12 Days of Christmas’ campaign where each day features a new giveaway, discount code or offer. For example, Broadsheet in Melbourne is currently doing their 12 Trays of Christmas where they give away a new product each day. This is great for engagement and obtaining new customers.
Do you want to incorporate some amazing digital campaigns into your social plan for the New Year? Get in touch today to book in a consulting session with our team.
Managing social media over the holidays
Managing your social media presence over the holidays: what you can do now to plan ahead!
You’ve worked hard all year...you’re craving a holiday and can’t wait to take a break from corporate life. Phone on silent, cocktail in hand, feet dipped in the pool. Sounds like a dream...can we come?! But wait...what about your social media accounts? Who will look after them while you’re busy unwinding? Social media never sleeps and consistency is key. Correct! So, we’ve come up with some tips to help you manage your social media presence over the holiday season.
Plan, plan, plan. Planning ahead is key. Sure you’ll have to work your butt off up until your holiday break begins but you’ll definitely thank yourself later! Think of what you want to do and achieve over the holiday season. How many emails will you be sending out to subscribers? Are you launching a new product? Are you planning a huge sale? Write all this information down so you know what you’re striving for.
Create content now! Content creation takes time so set aside some one-on-one time with your camera and computer to put together some amazing content your followers will love. Having a bank of images ready to caption and schedule is invaluable come holiday time. Create some short, fun little videos to engage your audience. They’ll be sick of seeing ‘SALE’ images and baubles in every second photo on their social feeds, so grab their attention by giving them something new and exciting to look at.
Schedule away! Scheduling programs will be your godsend. They make life 110% easier. Facebook is great because it allows you to schedule content on the platform itself. For other social platforms like Instagram, you’ll need to use an external scheduling program to plan your content. Some examples include; Hootsuite, Later and Buffer. You will have to spend quite a bit of time adding each piece of content to the schedule, but your future self will forever be in debt when all you have to do is press ‘publish’.
Yes, a dream holiday would mean zero responsibilities and ever flowing cocktails but if you’re a business owner, you may have to succumb to checking your social accounts every now and then just to check in. Respond to comments, direct messages and do a bit of good ‘ol community management. 10-15 minutes out of your day isn’t so bad hey!
We hope these tips will help in the lead up to the Christmas period where all you want to do is relax!
Do you envisage this next month being a tough one? Do you think you’d prefer to have someone else manage your social accounts? Shoot us an email; we’d love to help!