We are leaving it later and later these days to do our Christmas shopping … or are we ??? 

There are some that have already bought and wrapped, others that are now getting going and others that will leave it last minute.

Its now more evident than ever that instead of going out to the shopping centres and high street shops shoppers are turning to their mobile phones to do their shopping.

We all know by our own habits that we browse social media to get inspiration and make pre- purchase choices. The important statistic is that over 90% of our purchasing habits stem from mobile searching and in the main this activity derives from social media. So, as business owners we need to employ and take advantage of creating inspiring and engaging festive social media.

Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest are considered to be the best social media platforms for inspiration mainly due to the fact that these portals are geared up to be very visual.

Such trends are expected to continue to grow in 2016, so it’s more and more important for every business to be seen at the point that influences, drives discovery and ultimately improves sales.

Therefore to get you prepared we have set out 8 Festive Tips for you to get prepared and take advantage of sparkly mobile influenced social media …

1: Sparkle Up Your Cover and Profile Photo

Your Cover Photo on ALL of your social media portals should always represent who you are, what you offer and reflect your company brand values and personality.

Therefore create and design an awesome Christmas themed profile using festive colours, graphics and icons.

Get your audience into the Christmas spirit.  Motivate and influence them to stop by your social media portals and posts to look for special Christmas offers or unique gift ideas.

Add images of your products and services that will showcase your festive spirit and those special Christmas products

Post a picture of your office decorations or shop window and brand it elegantly with your logo to give an inviting and festive vibe to your social media. Also take pictures of your staff and include these … remember, people love to buy off people !

Maybe create and add your very own corporate #hashtag and include this within your profile and header banner.

2: Create a ‘Very Merry Christmas’ Offer

Christmas is one of the biggest buying periods of the year so make the most of it and squeeze everything you can out of it.

Incorporate sales incentives such as one day only sales, VIP open evenings, buy-one-get-one free, special festive discounts or Christmas Vouchers. Maybe you can think of other incentives that will be suited to your audience and followers?

Create some great visual adverts using some of the fab software and app tools that are out there such as Canva, Fontmania and Ripl … these work great for visual representation with bold text to highlight the offer.

Don’t forget to take advantage of using countdowns, 12 days of Christmas (12 best offers), Black Friday and using alarm dates like ‘only one week left’. Adding a date and time for offers creates urgency.

3: Share the Joy of Christmas

Social media is what it says … its ‘social’ so use the festive season to give your posts some yuletide spin.

You will get people excited not only about Christmas but also about your products and services.

Start a conversation with your audience by creating posts that ask people what’s their most memorable Christmas moment is, favorite Christmas food and drink, what their best part of Christmas is and what their family traditions are.

Whatever you choose to write about, make sure you visually represent this with Festive pictures to support what the post is about.

You can help your audience on various Christmas tips like how to decorate their home, choose the best gift, ideas on how to perfectly wrap their gifts and of course food and drink ideas

4: Make a Wish Come True

A great way to encourage interaction is to run a Christmas Competition. Not only will this create interactivity but will support and showcase your products and services that you could use as prizes.

Your competition could be very simple such as setting up a quiz with holiday related topics or inviting your audience to share photos on their worst Christmas jumpers.

5: Kick Off the Festive Season with an Event

Why not have a ‘Pre-Christmas’ open evening or a ‘VIP Evening’ for your top 100 customers ? … people love this interaction and then become involved in your company and later talk about it and post out pictures and comments. It goes without saying that we all enjoy a free tipple and a mince pie too!

If you want your event invitation to be noticed within newsfeeds give your design some extra kick with creative icons, decorative shapes and powerful festive colors that symbolize Christmas.

Take advantage of the season and use this period to reach out to new potential customers. Boost your important marketing messages through social media adverts or online banners using specific and targeted audience builds.

Facebook can create targeted audiences with laser precision so make the most of this.

7: Wish Everyone a ‘Happy Christmas’

If you think that Christmas Day is a good time for giving your social media accounts (and your audience) a break then think again.

Your audience will be logging onto their profiles to wish their family and friends a Happy Christmas. They will be talking and discussing what they are doing and what gifts they have received. This is a perfect opportunity for you to send out a “Merry Christmas” message whilst everyone is active.

Keep the message non-sales and sincere … maybe add a thank you for their custom over the festive season and also giving you continued support through the year. Use a nice graphic to relay your message over too.

If you don’t want to be posting on Christmas Day then schedule all of this up using some of the free scheduling tools out there such as Hootsuite.

8: Don’t forget Charity

Whilst we are all enjoying Christmas, we all need to spare a thought for those throughout the world that is unfortunately worse off than ourselves and may not be as privileged to have the same Christmas as we have.

As a company or brand it’s always an ethically nice gesture to donate to a chosen charity at Christmas and customers and clients love to see this goodwill passed on.

Choose a charity that is close to your heart but reflects the ethos of the business and your customers.

Over to you ….

Do you have other ideas on how to get your social media ready for the holiday season?

Let us know if you have implemented the ideas within this blog and also let us know some other ideas that you have that would help others ….

Let us know in comments below!

The post 8 Creative Ways to add Some Christmas sparkle to your Social Media Marketing appeared first on The Digital Formula.