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Nowadays, social media has become powerful enough to drive users to your storefront in mass. A little less than the half global population of around 3.6 billion uses one or another social media platform. Thus, it has achieved a commendable position and effectively penetrated across the globe. Seeing its rising potential, many eCommerce brands have started to reap the benefits of it for their business.
And when it comes to holidays, shoppers want to get entertain and engage with your brand more and more. Consumers have a soft corner for holiday in their hearts. And brands have learned how to leverage that soft corner effectively for their brands.
Social media allows you to inform, educate, entertain, and interact directly with your audience. But to reap the proper benefits of social media, you have to make your marketing plans & schedule them well in advance. And with this article, we want to elaborate on an eCommerce social media plan for the holiday season. But first, let’s understand why to use social media.
Why Use Social Media?
Social media platforms can help you drive traffic to your website, capture & nurture leads, and sell products as well. They allow you to go the extra mile to entice holiday shoppers to come to your eCommerce store. Also, you can allow users to select products, provide customer service, and run unique holiday shopping campaigns. Below are a few social media campaigns you could run during the holiday season.
- To Drive Traffic: Post content in the form of an image or video which encourages shoppers to visit your web store. Also, you can run ad campaigns that could reach more audiences interested to buy your products.
- Capture & Nurture Leads: With the help of social media, you can capture leads and nurture them by bringing them into your automated marketing flow. For example, you can offer a free gift guide or discount in exchange for email IDs which you can use to nurture them later.
- Sell Products: Social Media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp allow you to sell products directly from there. Or you can share product purchase links on platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and others to boost sales.
What Content to Publish on Social Media?
You can post any type of content on social media however, the content you post should align with your goals for that holiday. Suppose you have a footwear brand and want to increase sales during holidays, then posting funny and entertaining content won’t get the job done. Prepare text content, images, videos, etc. well in advance to post on your social media handles.
Also read: The Incredible Effect of Social Media on Black Friday Sales
If your goal is for users to subscribe to your newsletter to get regular updates on your promotional campaign, consider publishing posts that encourage them to do so. You can also link your social media post with a blog having a newsletter popup. Here’re a few ideas of content you should publish to accomplish various goals.
- Post images with the date of upcoming holiday sales and special offers to increase website traffic.
- Publish a blog where users can subscribe to your newsletter and post an update for the same in social handles.
- Make a video describing how the holiday sale will work.
- Carousal posts showing top items to buy during a holiday sale.
Where Should You Run Your Holiday Campaigns?
Today, there are so many social media networks available and each offers a distinct advantage over the other. Out of all, Instagram is a key social media platform to run all your promotional campaigns. If the major part of your target audience lies in the age bracket of 16 to 35, then Instagram is the best channel.
Also read: How to Use Instagram Video for Online eCommerce Stores
Facebook is the father of all social media channels. You can do all sorts of things to make users engage with your brand. You can create a group to allow users to join for the most generous holiday promotional campaigns. If your target audience lies in the group of over 35 years, then Facebook is the best place to get holiday shoppers out of the closet.
Pinterest not only works as a social media platform but also works as a search engine which accounts for 5% of referral traffic. YouTube will allow you to leverage the video content to increase the reach of the brand. Twitter on the other hand supports text content. So, if want to share holiday-related blog posts or gift guides, then Twitter is the platform to go to.
Who will Craft Content?
To craft the compelling image, video, and text posts to publish on the social media handles, you’ll need a professional writer, graphic designer, and maybe video editor too if you plan to make videos. You can hire the whole team in-house or you can outsource the job to external resources. Outsourcing will be a more viable option if you can’t manage the in-house team for the long-term.
How to Automate Social Media Posting?
You have taken care of every part from planning to creating content well in advance and now it’s time to publish. ‘Tis also essential for brands to schedule the posting in advance and many tools, such as Hootsuite, are available to help you do that. These tools support all the major social media platforms and help you to schedule content posting for a whole month or two. You can also schedule multiple posts for a day. Such tools make you tension-free after you have scheduled the content posting because it’s now their headache.
Summing Up
As the holiday season is going on, every eCommerce brand should utilize the potential social media platforms hold. Make an effective plan to engage users through your social media handles to boost sales and conversion rates. Plan out what content to post and where to post it. Also, consider who your target audience is and choose the platform accordingly. Hire an in-house team or outsource the content creation to craft compelling content that’s aligned with your goal for the holiday season.
We have listed everything that eCommerce store owners need to know to create a plan to leverage the power of social media during holidays. Consult our eCommerce experts if you need help with planning an effective promotional strategy for holidays or anything else.
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June 3, 2016
