Christmas campaigns are a fantastic opportunity for social media marketers to go all-out on their channels, especially those working in eCommerce markets. Whatever your business model or industry, there’s a Christmas campaign to suit you, so we’re bringing you our top 5 ideas for creative Christmas-themed social media marketing campaigns.
1. An advent calendar or 12 Days of Christmas themed giveaway
The run-up to Christmas is arguably the most exciting part of the year for a lot of us, and an advent calendar-style or 12 Days of Christmas-themed giveaway is a great way to get your followers feeling festive. Whether you sell physical products in an online store or offer software/other services, a giveaway is a perfect method for your social media followers to sample your business offerings and drum-up hype for your company.
Instagram would be ideal for this advent calendar idea, but it will also work well on other platforms alongside your Instagram efforts or if your business doesn’t have Instagram. Whichever platform(s) you choose, the key is high-quality photos – and/or, for example, gifs/videos of an advent calendar door opening – to grab people’s attention.
Once you’ve reeled them in with Christmas-themed amazing artwork and creative copy, seal the deal with an awesome prize to get as many entries to your giveaway as possible (don’t forget to use the relevant hashtags). Giveaway entry rules usually require users to like and/or comment on the giveaway post and follow your profile – some take it further by asking users to share content using a hashtag specific to the company, which is a great way to boost brand awareness.
As with all marketing campaigns, specific implementation will depend on your business, target audience, and the product or service you offer (in this case, as the prize).
Running competitions on social media can be complicated but we’ve got you covered.
2. Christmas Shopping Gift Buying Guide
In a similar vein to the advent calendar countdown, a Christmas gift buying guide is a campaign idea that could be implemented in the lead-up to Christmas in a variety of ways to suit your business – though of course, this works best for eCommerce and retail companies.
You could post one article containing your gift guide, if your website has a news/blog section, and post each item individually on your social media throughout the Christmas season. High-quality festively-designed videos or carousel posts would be great for grabbing shoppers’ attention and directing traffic to your gift guide. However you do it, a gift buying guide can help promote your products or services within your industry and encourage sales before year-end. The recommendations should be relevant and intriguing to your target audience, so choose the gifts in your guide carefully.
3. ’Tis the season of giving: Christmas Charity Work
Christmas can be a special, particularly emotional time for a lot of people. The festive period centres around kindness, giving, and appreciating what you have. Launching a campaign in partnership with a charity during the Christmas season, if you are able to, could do wonders for brand awareness, increasing sales, and simply ‘doing good’ to spread some joy. Customers will also get an insight into your company’s values from the charity you choose, which helps to build trust and relationships.
Depending on your company and the budget you have, this could mean donating a percentage of profits from sales, creating a special line of products where all proceeds go to the charity or letting your customers give an optional donation when they make a purchase. In any case, you can help out a charity in need during the festive season of giving and encourage your followers to get involved.
4. A plan for festive real-time features
Real-time features, such as live videos and stories (on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and now even LinkedIn), allow you to keep your followers up to date several times per day with photos and videos, without clogging up your feed with permanent posts. The downside is that they ‘expire’, though you can save stories to “Highlights” on Instagram profiles. Although some or all of these real-time features should play a role in your social media marketing all year round, they’re especially useful and even necessary during the festive season.
Communicating and engaging with your followers and target audience during the Christmas season is key, as people are more receptive to marketing in this period, and like to feel that there is a real person behind every company post. Using real-time features to share office/staff festivities, Christmas decorations, and events, and more Christmas content alongside your regularly scheduled posts and promotions can be especially useful for helping the customer build trust, gain relationships and increase engagement with your business.
5. For paid social media marketing, use detailed targeting and remarketing tools for Christmas ads
For the retail businesses out there, you may notice that in most industries, customers are more likely to convert in the lead up to Christmas. Well, remarketing can make this likelihood even greater.
People do a lot of ‘shopping around’ in the run-up to Christmas, including price comparisons and adding items to baskets without making a purchase so they can hunt for deals. Targeting users who do this will increase your chances of making sales because the users have already shown that they’re in the market for what you’re offering. Creative, festive ad campaigns across social media channels target existing or almost-there customers may be just what your business needs this Christmas to bring in an influx of sales.
In the B2B sphere, you’ll need to take a slightly different approach. Remember, though, most companies are preparing for the next fiscal year in Quarter 4, so targeting social media accounts in your industry with Christmas ad campaigns could set you up nicely for post-Christmas profit.
Giraffe Social Media wishes you all a wonderful festive season and great success in your Christmas social media marketing campaigns.
