Get the Christmas Party Started
Your Website is an Invitation to be Social
Getting your potential customers excited to visit your store to make their holiday purchases can be tricky. We’ve talked about using your business website to be found on mobile searches and help customers see what you carry. This is very important and while your site should not be set-it-and-forget-it, keeping it updated as often as changes happen in your store is all but impossible, at best, and not good practice, at worst. Customers come to rely on the features of your site being where they were the last time they visited. Search engines reward fresh content, but too much of a good thing is still a good thing. Using your website as an invitation to your social media sites is a great way to create familiarity for the customers (and search engines) and keep them updated with the most recent holiday happenings.
Social is the Life of the Party
The chances of a customer finding you on social media are higher than them finding you in an online search. Facebook influences more than half of purchases which makes sense when you consider that people go to Facebook, not your website.
Because this is the first place many customers will engage with you, you need to know how to play by the rules, that is, the best practices for social media use. Think of your social media channels as the news for your store. It should have fresh content to keep readers interested. Aim to post at least once a day, no more than 5 times a day, and certainly no less than 3-5 times per week during the busy holiday season.
What Do I Say?
If you aim for 3 posts a day, that’s 21 pieces of content to share. Keep reading! You’ve got this—with some help. Don’t let content gaps stop you from being social. There are a lot of great ideas for creating content and the good news (for you) is that once you start creating content, new ideas come faster and easier.
Here are some tips about different types of content you can create:
FB live
People love to get a behind the scenes look at, anything really. Facebook has made it easy to make live videos—just click, point, and broadcast!
Promos
It’s a party, right? Give out party favors in the form of online discount codes. Also, post content about your specials—and always remember that posts with pictures perform better so put the best side of that bottle forward.
Events
Why not use your online party to talk about an in-store party? People are looking for recipes, nights out, and other holiday helping events. If you’re hosting one, it only makes sense to talk about it on social media.
New in store
You know you get excited when you see a new item come into your store. Share that excitement with the other people who will be excited—your customers.
Employee reviews
Who better than your own employees to talk about products they love? Throw a Santa hat on the first person to clock in, snap a picture, and post it with a review of their favorite item in the store. They will love the attention so they will share it with their friends and family for extra reach.
Extra points
All of these play well together so mix and match; Facebook like your in-store event, have an employee review a new product in the store. The point of social media is to share your personality with your customers. Enjoy the process!
Social Media Standout
The holidays get us all in a festive mood. Your social media channels are the perfect place to play up the excitement that is happening in your store. Remember to keep it fresh, especially through the holidays, with all the happenings you have going on. Don’t take social too seriously, have some holiday fun with it!
Learn more about how to target your social media marketing channels. Our Marketing Professionals are here to help.
Renee Clare-Kovacs is the Content Marketing Strategist at Sellr. She is passionate about creating digital marketing strategies that help business owners develop successful relationships with customers and vendors.
