How To Plan Your Holiday Social Media Marketing Strategy

Q4 is undoubtedly the busiest and most profitable time for small business owners. From Black Friday deals to Christmas end-of-year sales, seasonal holidays have a huge impact on consumer demand. 

Unfortunately for a lot of businesses, it’s also the most chaotic and stressful time of year. So, instead of letting opportunities fall to the wayside because of poor planning, get ahead and create your holiday social media marketing plan today. Here’s how to get started:

Here’s How To Plan Your Holiday Social Media Marketing Strategy

1. Take Note of All the Important Holidays Coming up

Because this quarter is so dependent on seasonal events, it’s important that your social media timeline matches up. Take note of the upcoming holidays and center your strategy around them. To make things a little easier, we’ve created a handy dandy list of important dates at the bottom of this article.

2. Identify Your Business Goals

As with any social media marketing strategy, we like to start with the big picture and then work our way down to the nitty gritty. So, what are your business goals for this last quarter? Identify the products and services that will sell the best this holiday season and calculate the specific number of units you’ll need to sell in order to hit your goals.

3. Create Your Sales Strategy

Once you’ve broken your overarching quarterly goals into smaller goals that you can hit more tangibly, brainstorm different sales strategies that can help you reach them. Here are some ideas to consider:

• Seasonal discounts & time-sensitive deals
• Free shipping or expedited shipping
• Freebies to put you ahead of competitors

4. Get Your Socials In Order

If things are looking a little inconsistent on your social accounts, we don’t blame you. You’re busy running an actual business… but if ever a time to get things in order, this is it. Clean up your social pages with new links, updated pinned posts, and highlights that showcase the products or services that you will be pushing. Running out of time and need some help? Reach out for an audit or consultation on how you can improve your social media pages.

5. Batch & Create Your Social Content

With your sales strategy in place, you know exactly what you have to create content around. We always recommend businesses to create at a sustainable pace but for this specific quarter, consider temporarily amping the frequency up to help you reach those goals.

Here are some quick tips on how to create a holiday social media strategy that converts:

• Content should be a mix of reels, carousels, and static posts
• Show up on stories every day
• Mix direct sales posts with UGC testimonials and reviews, discounts, and service/product details
• Always end with a clear CTA
• Analyze and adapt: every audience is different so make sure that you’re changing your content to align with what your audience is responding to
• Consider putting ad dollars behind it (this is a different conversation but if you need support here, we can help!)

For more specific tips on creating a social media strategy, check out this post.

6. Encourage Engagement

Offer incentives or freebies for followers who share their reviews and whitelist their content for UGC. This helps spread the word organically and gives you a sales strategy that runs itself.

7. Set Up Email Automations and Loyalty Programs

Think about social media as the top or middle of the funnel. Once a customer has made a purchase and joined your email list, you can target them more specifically with automations that incentivize them to continue purchasing from you and keep the sales running.

There you have it–the basics of how to plan a social media strategy for the holiday season.

Here’s A Quick Breakdown of Important Dates
To Watch Out For:

• November 23 – Thanksgiving
• November 24 – Black Friday
• November 25 – Small Business Saturday
• November 27 – Cyber Monday
• November 28 – Giving Tuesday
• December 7 – 15 – Hanukkah
• December 11 – Green Monday (typical cut-off point for shipping by Christmas)
• Mid December – Free Shipping Day
• December 23 – Super Saturday
• December 24 – Christmas Eve
• December 25 – Christmas
• December 26 – Day After Christmas
• December 31 – New Years Eve
• January 1 – New Years