Running a successful social media marketing plan for the holidays, now is the time to start. The holiday season is a big deal for every business. Americans spend an average of $998 on gifts during the holiday season. With so many people out shopping, modifying a marketing strategy is important to capitalize on the spending is a great way to boost your business.

Why Social Media?

A social media strategy is one of the most important parts of a marketing plan for businesses. In 2020, over 3.6 billion people were using social media around the world. By 2025, it is estimated that there will be 4.41 billion users. Having a reach within social media is a great way to establish your brand, share promotions, and educate your audience.

The key to running a successful social media strategy is to include two important elements- social selling and social media marketing.

No, they are not the same thing.

Social selling is a strategy used to eventually lead to sales, not direct selling. For example, establishing brand awareness is about getting your name out in the world so people will recognize it. Typically, buyers are exposed to a name 7 times before buying from them. This is called the marketing rule of 7 for obvious reasons.

Social media is a great place to get leads and nurture them, which also falls under the social selling umbrella. Why? Because leads are not always direct sales. Usually, it is about building that recognition and establishing a relationship.

Social media marketing is specifically about conversion. This means getting someone to click a link and visit your site, hopefully making a sale.

These two goals of a social media strategy are related and equally important. Creating a holiday marketing plan that leverages both parties can increase potential holiday sales and provide important business-boosting power.

Creating a Social Media Holiday Strategy

Before you can implement a strategy, you must plan one out. There are four basic steps we recommend using to create your strategy.

Step 1: Review What You Have Already Done.

Unless you are a brand new company, you should never go into the holiday season blind. Dig up any information from last year for a better idea on how to pivot this year. Ask yourself some basic questions:

  • Which strategies did you use?
  • What worked?
  • What did not work?
  • How often did you post?
  • Which images did you use?

Using this data can help guide you in planning your marketing strategy. Knowing which pages are most highly visited can help you know if there are search engine optimization tactics you can try.

Step 2: Set Realistic Goals.

Before a company can be successful, it must determine what success will look like. Are you looking to sell an amount of a certain product? Is your goal an overall number in profits? Or is your focus building up followers for the next year to push upcoming products?

Keep your goals realistic so you can achieve them, but also stretch yourself. Knowing what your goals are can help drive decisions and help teams focus. Setting them too low is unmotivating but setting them too high sets everyone up for failure. Use your goals to know what direction you want to go and help clear up your strategy.

Step 3: Make a Calendar with Your Strategic Content

Timing is everything when it comes to content and a great strategy. Take time to plan out when you will do specific posts. Are you scheduling a deal for Black Friday? What about Cyber Monday?

Other things to consider include offering a last-minute holiday discount, highlighting the last day to get free or on-time shipping, feature specific products each day, or posting an informational post on how to use your products in various ways.

Another important step to your calendar is knowing where you will post your content. Utilizing all the social media platforms is a great way to spread the word during the holidays.  Here are some reasons to consider each platform:

Knowing that your audience is likely on all social media venues means your business should be there too. Adapt your strategy to each platform to use each one most effectively.

Most companies struggle with what to post outside of deals or features. Get creative- use holiday-themed or holiday-inspired themes. Know your customers and try to get their attention. Try ads of all kinds. Use graphics and jokes, just be clever and think outside the box.

Step 4: Track Your Metrics

Tracking the metrics on your strategy helps you know what is working and what isn’t. If you notice that some social media posts are working better than others, or one platform is performing better, you can adapt your strategy. Some key metrics to watch can be:

  • Impressions and comments
  • Shares, follows, and mentions
  • Reach of each post
  • Click-through rates from each platform
  • Total purchases
  • New visits
  • Referral traffic and total leads
  • Landing page views

Not only can these help you adapt your strategy during the holiday season, but they can also help guide all future strategies going forward.

Getting Professional Help

If you are still unsure of how to get started or want someone to run your holiday strategy for you, contact us today for a proposal. Our SEO services include social media marketing and website optimization, which means we are SEO experts that can help optimize your site and strategy for optimal strategic results.

Just don’t wait too long- the sooner the better when it comes to creating a successful social media holiday strategy.