Don’t know what to post on your business’s social media during the festive season? SME South Africa asked two experts for holiday-themed social media ideas to help you market your business online.
Jason Kubheka, social media manager at VMLY&R South Africa, says it’s important to make use of pre-existing data from your platforms’ analytics and insights.
“If you don’t have the media budget to compete with the bigger corporations then your best bet is taking your learnings from previous years and looking at mastering them.
“This information will assist you to identify previous years’ sentiment and conversations and give you direction on how to steer this year’s content and conversations. Basically, what has worked for you in the past? Do more of that because it gives your current and loyal audience what they want before throwing tons of budget in lead generation ads or festive campaigns that will likely be in the shadows of your bigger competitors.”
Look at your website, marketing materials, social media platforms and sales brochure and make a concerted effort to improve them
Kubheka advises that business owners focus on the basics first. “Ensure that your social media account information is checked and everything has been set up correctly – there’s no point doing any kind of promotion if your telephone number or email address is incorrect and you can’t be reached.”
In addition to social media, business owners can also use the downtime to up other their online efforts, such as their website and email marketing. Bernard Jansen, marketing consultant and founder of Firejuice, says it’s important for business owners to take a look at their business with a fresh pair of eyes. “Look at your website, marketing materials, social media platforms and sales brochure and make a concerted effort to improve them.”
Jansen and Kubheka share ideas for holiday-themed content to help you with your online marketing efforts.
Jason Kubheka
Get your message right – Remember, your content and messaging needs to resonate with your target market. Well-timed and brave work usually does well. Your content must measure up with the customer experience to live up to the brand’s promise delivery. A simple idea executed well can do well. There is no full-proof recipe for success, therefore, keep shaking things up and most importantly, have fun.
Showcase the positive impact your business has achieved throughout the year – Your audience will appreciate the reassurance that they are associated with your brand which achieved great results during the year. This is not a strong push to sell, it’s just showing off your achievements or successes.
Share tips for the festive season – These are tips for your audience to follow and enjoy their holidays. Make sure these tips include your brand and demonstrate how they can use your product or service to benefit their holiday.
Support a CSI project – Showing that your company is willing to help and give back to the community, and better the lives of others, can shape consumers’ perceptions of your brand. It doesn’t take a big budget to ensure that your brand has a big and positive impact.
Invest in a sponsorship campaign – Your small business can partner with a larger corporate with a bigger social footprint to host a festive event that is aligned with your brand beliefs and responsibilities.
Host a competition and give back to your audience – You can generate high engagement and conversation by hosting a competition on your social media pages. The prizes can be linked to the joy of giving over the festive season and a way to give back to your loyal supporters.
Bernard Jansen
Prepare a customer survey – Do this annually to understand your customers better and improve the way you serve them. It is also a brilliant tool to generate valuable content for the website and social media platforms.
– Keep the survey short and ask questions that are relevant to the industry and the customer base.
– An easy tool to use is Google Forms – send the survey out to all your customers and prospects from last year and ask them to complete it.
– Tell them you will share the results and insights with them and offer a free follow-up consultation if they want to know more.
Review and analyse your content – Business owners don’t take their company websites seriously, meaning the content is often outdated. Use this holiday break to read through the site and use your judgement, based on your latest understanding of what customers want, to identify things that should be scrapped, updated or added.
After you have analysed your content, decide whether you can replace content on the website, social media platforms or sales materials.
See also: Social Media Marketing – Winners, Up-and-Comers and the Overrated
