Here are some tips to help you achieve a Merry Social Media Christmas over the coming festive season.
- Update Your Information
Social Media has become the first point of call for people to find out information about your business, so don’t forget to update offers, new developments and most importantly, opening times. To ensure this information isn’t missed, you could share posts across all social platforms with your hours.
- Organise a Social Media Calendar
Before you dive straight in, devise a clear plan regarding the content you want to post over the festive period and to which social platforms.
A social media calendar will help you plan and organize all the posts you want to share over the coming weeks.
It’s never too early to start planning and creating your content!
- Schedule Content
We all want time off over the Christmas season, this includes social media managers, but no one wants ‘dead air’ on their feeds. This is where scheduling content comes in very handy.
Many businesses are extra busy in the run up to Christmas and this can leave social feeds neglected, running the risk of your followers losing interest. Scheduling a few posts a week will provide your customers the content they enjoy.
- Embrace ‘Real Time’ Stories
Story features on social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, allow users to upload images and short videos that disappear after a few hours. This limited view will make your content appear current and allows your followers to enjoy content in ‘real time’.
Doing this will help your followers feel included in your business, at the same time building anticipations of things to come, if you provide followers with a preview of what you’re planning. With restaurants, this could be a sneak peak at the festive menu that you are working on!
- Festive Competition
Competitions can generate a lot of engagement on social media. It can be worth running a Christmas competition, or two!
Perhaps a ’12 days of Christmas’?!
A restaurant may start by offering a free drink, increasing the value as the days go on, a meal for two, a meal for a family, or perhaps a gift voucher. This also encourages people to come back each day for a chance to win one of your prizes.
- Encourage Interaction and Connection
Not all content should be promotion based. Mix it up to keep interest levels high. Therefore, some of your planned posts should be there to simply entertain or inspire your followers to engage.
Perhaps run a poll? ‘Have you been naughty or nice?’, ‘What is your favourite Christmas tune?’
- Don’t Forget to Add Festive Cheer to Your Pages
Take time to update your cover photos and profile images to reflect the festive period. This will help get followers in the Christmas spirit.
- Customer Service
Customers will turn to social media to ask questions and sometimes complaints. This makes customer service a priority over the Christmas season. People will become stressed when gifts don’t arrive in time or arrive damaged, so they need to know when you are open and how their issues can be resolved quickly.
- Get Involved In A Community Charity
As well as receiving gifts at this time of the year, it is also a time of giving. Charity is a big part of Christmas, remembering those that are less fortunate than yourself, or perhaps have fallen on hard times. This year has been particularly hard for some families!
Perhaps donate to The Foodbank Project. Not only does this show that your business is getting involved in a charitable activity, but it may also push your customers to join the cause.
- Share!
It’s awesome when your following engages with your content and creates user-generated content. Perhaps if you’re the owner of a boutique clothing store and a photo of a customer wearing a Christmas party outfit purchased from your store that will potentially send more customers your way. Ensure that your handle (@name) and maybe a personalised #hashtag are included to make it easier to track and enable you to share posts.
At Sprout, we understand the benefits of having someone committed to creating a Content Calendar, scheduling posts, posting content and making your channels look amazing is well worth the investment.