Start preparing for the holiday season
THE holiday season is rapidly approaching, and while you are focusing on stocking up and marketing deals, it would be prudent to implement a social media strategy. The tips and tools I have suggested so far are all useful for the upcoming season. The importance of social media on purchasing decisions, product exploration, and business opportunities cannot be ignored. Covering all your bases by preparing and fleshing out a strategy from now will ensure you can tweak it closer to the time and not miss out on any trends. Here is a reminder of some of the tips I’ve shared before that you should pay keen attention to as we enter this festive season:
1. Go where your audience is: Online traffic is very high during holidays. It is best to concentrate your efforts where your consumers already are. You can use the downtime to grow your presence on less-busy platforms. However, you want to go where there is already an interest and activity to help push your organic engagement and reach for the holidays.
2. Lock in influencers: Do not wait until peak season to lock in influencers as you will run the risk of them being already booked since many have a limit to jobs they’ll take so as not to oversaturate their pages or a competitor might scoop them up. Lock them into a contract from early on. This way, you can also strategise with them on how to run an effective influencer campaign.
3. Quality over quantity: I cannot overstress the need for high-quality images and videos. Start from now, and budget for a shoot so that everything will be ready.
4. Mix and match: Use different types of media. Use videos, images, gifs and carousel posts. These can help broaden your reach.
5. Make your pages inclusive: Something as simple as putting captions for the hearing impaired or audio for the visually impaired can reach a whole new demographic. Most modern smartphones have inclusivity features. Research, as these are often an ignored demographics.
Chelan Smith is CEO of Chelan Communications. With over 13 years of experience in social media she has worked with local and international companies to implement strategy as well as develop and solidify their digital brand voice.
