Social Media and the Silly Season
A survival guide to taking holidays and staying social
It’s Christmas time! A time most small businesses wrap up work and look forward to some well-deserved downtime with our loved ones.
But it’s also a time that causes business anxiety.
What am I going to do about emails? What am I going to do about phone calls? What am I going to do with new enquiries? What am I going to do with my social media?
Honestly, if you’ve given everyone enough warning about your office closures, no one will be expecting email or phone call responses over the Christmas/New Year period. Or you could get a VA to help you if your customers would be expecting responses.
But one thing you shouldn’t let slip is your social media. You do need to plan your social content and here’s why.
What will people do over the Christmas break?
Studies have shown that 60% of Australians use the internet more than five times a day. And that’s on average throughout a ‘normal’ day. So when we’re home with nothing else to do (or we’re having a minute away from entertaining the kids on holidays), we’re going to jump on our social media aren’t we?
For this reason, it’s important that you’re still posting over the holiday period.
It’s a great time to boost your sales (if you’re selling products) as you’ve got a captive audience who have time to browse and shop (and may have Christmas money to spend).
Honestly, with so many of us never having our phone far away (especially when we get bored), Christmas is a great time to keep engaging with your audience.
And yes, you can have a holiday too!
Here’s how to set your social media up to survive the silly season
1. Brainstorm your ideas: Spend a couple of hours to brainstorm your content. Look at what you’ve posted during the year to see what had the greatest engagement. Were they posts that educated, inspired or connected with your audience, or were they funny or promotional type posts? Jot down all your ideas and group them into categories.
2. Create a plan: Once you’ve got all your ideas written down and grouped into categories (e.g. fun, advice, promotion, tips etc.), you need to create a plan of what you will post and on what days. Remember to include a ‘Merry Christmas’ or ‘Happy New Year’ message on the big days.
3. Schedule your content: When you’ve planned out the content, it’s time to work out your schedule. When will you post and at what times? Because no one wants to be sitting around over the holiday period posting to social media, use scheduling tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule your posts in advance.
4. Create a special offer: Just because you’re not working, it doesn’t mean your business isn’t. With more people having time to browse over this time, you should consider special offers on your products to create more sales (like boxing day sales but online). Or have special offers for services during January (which is often a quieter time of year too). Promote these offers using Social Media posts or ads.
5. Post well wishes: Don’t forget you want real connections so make sure you wish your audience well on the major days and check in with personal updates occasionally too. If you’re on holidays sitting by a pool, share it. Maybe keep the New Years’ Eve photos to yourself!
Not wanting to think about social media over the holidays?
Maybe you should put a social media manager on your Christmas list! Not only will we help you plan the content and create the posts, but we’ll set a schedule and make sure you stay social over the silly season. Contact me for more information.
If you’ve got any further tips or tricks, please feel free to share them below. And please share my content calendar template with anyone who needs a hand with planning.