It’s crunch time. The Christmas music is playing and everyone is trying to get a handle on their work for the remainder of 2019. With Christmas right around the corner and New Years the following week, it’s time to start prepping your social media for the holidays.
Here are a few tips for getting prepped and staying organized throughout the holiday season, so you can sit back and sip on your eggnog in peace.
Put Together Your Holiday Strategy
What is your goal over the holidays? Is it to stay top of mind? To sell product? Do you have special holiday offers or incentives to boost? Or is it to simply provide value or entertain your audience while they are avoiding their Aunt Edna?
Putting together a strategy is essential before you start content planning, so you and your team will have an idea of what types of messaging needs to go out to your audience and when.
Tip: Keep in mind final shipping deadlines if you are selling products online or promoting products via holiday social ads. Here are the shipping deadlines for 2019. Note: some have already passed, so make sure to let your customers know what shipping method to choose for delivery by Christmas.
Plan
As social media marketers here at The Modern Connection, it’s in our innate nature to be planners. However, if by nature you’re not a planner, no worries. We got you.
Take a look at the calendar and plan out your social media posts through January 2nd. This way, your marketing is taken care of throughout this busy time.
Tip: Get festive! Add special touches to your graphics or page to get in the holiday spirit!
Schedule
Once your strategy is in place and your posts are planned, it’s time to schedule. We recommend scheduling Facebook posts within your own Facebook page, as third-party schedulers don’t always receive the same reach as you would if you posted directly within the platform. For other platforms: Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin; we like Buffer. Don’t forget your hashtags!
Tip: We recommend taking a look at your social analytics to determine what times are best to post to reach your audience.
Platform Run-Through
Make sure to run-through each platform to ensure that your information is up-to-date. Are your cover photos relevant? Is your website link correct? Are your holiday hours updated? Are your Facebook applications working properly? This is just a quick check to make sure that everything is in working order before you hit the holiday road.
Tip: Don’t forget to make sure your credit card is properly entered for any holiday ads running over the holiday break.
Engagement and Monitoring
Scheduling is great for posts, but you will still want to check in with your social media pages daily. We recommend twice a day if you can sneak away from the fruitcake. ;) Take a few minutes each day to engage with your followers on any comments your posts and ads are receiving.
Tip: Make sure you have access to all of your applications via your smartphone. Log into your business social media accounts, install your scheduling platform on your phone and monitor for any potential snafus.
Reputation Management
Along with engagement and monitoring, you’ll want to check all of your review sites, making sure to take the time to respond to all reviews within 12 hours of the original post. Make sure to plan out a couple of responses in advance, so you don’t have to think too hard if you’ve had a little too much eggnog.
Tip: Install all of your review sites to your smartphone as well, so you can check for any customer reviews on-the-go! We also recommend using your notes feature in your smartphone to jot down a few pre-planned review responses. Make sure to tweak and personalize for each review so they remain genuine.
While social media can be a lot of work, pre-planning before the holidays can allow you to sit back and enjoy the season. If you are wishing you had help, let’s chat! We can get your 2020 marketing off the right start. Simply fill out our free consultation form here and we will be in touch. Happy Holidays!
