2015 Holiday Marketing Tips For Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest

November 19, 2015 - 7 minutes read - Social Media Marketing

Are you ready for the 2015 holiday marketing push? Americans spend more than $3 trillion around the Christmas holiday — accounting for about 19.2 percent of annual retail sales — so it’s understandable that much time, energy and money gets invested in marketing channels like social media this time of year.

Seventy percent of small and medium sized business retailers are planning holiday promotions on social media in 2015, according to a recent survey by Bigcommerce. Nearly half of those retailers plan to buy social media ads. Other tactics include: email marketing (60%), discount offers (58%), free shipping deals (41%) and paid search ads (30%). About 20 percent of a retailer’s annual advertising budget will go toward holiday promotion spending this year.

Here are a few tips for marketing your goods and services over the 2015 holiday season…

Twitter Holiday Marketing Tips

Image Source: Facebook.com

The new website cards feature on Twitter is bound to be a hit this season. According to Twitter’s internal data, tweets with website cards receive 43% more clicks than standard tweets. A website card lets you do several things:

– Highlight products or services (a.k.a. give consumers a clear reason to visit your site)

– Make your products or services stand out (with a captivating image)

– Tell consumers what you want from them (with a call-to-action)

– Tell consumers how to buy (with a direct link to your website)

Twitter recommends that you do the following to maximize the effectiveness of your website card ad:

– Skip the hashtag. Website cards without hashtags receive 23% more clicks.

– Create urgency. Running low on stock? Is your promo code short-lived? Let them know!

– Ask questions. Get 25% more clicks by asking a question.

– Choose a specific action. Twitter gives you 24 options such as “Shop Now,” “Order Now” or “Preorder Now.”

– Focus images on products. Highlight what makes your offerings special with your image. Avoid generic stock.

You Might Also Like: 8 Ways To Use Twitter In Your Holiday Marketing

Facebook Holiday Marketing Tips

There are a few new considerations for Facebook holiday marketing this season. For starters, you’ll want to experiment with visual Carousel Ads, in addition to link ads featuring an image or offer. Video ads are another new way to showcase your offerings on Facebook.

It’s the perfect time to put everything you’ve learned about engaging audiences on Facebook to good use:

– Run exciting sweepstakes offers to generate enthusiasm.

– Drive sales with coupons and free shipping offers.

– Get festive with a holiday-themed cover photo.

– Take holiday-inspired photos of your products.

– Post tips, tutorials and how-to videos to help consumers.

– Provide behind-the-scenes glimpses by introducing coworkers wearing “ugly Christmas sweaters” or finding another way of connecting the human side of your business with the holidays.

– Solicit feedback with phrasing such as: “Click like if…”, “Tell me in the comments below…”, and “Click this link….”

Of course, tactics are only half the battle. You also need to connect with shoppers who are most likely to buy from you. The easiest way to do this if you are a brick-and-mortar is to use the Local Awareness feature to target only people who are physically close to your geographic location. Other methods include using Custom Audiences to find your best customers based on past purchases and Lookalike Audiences to find similar shoppers. Be sure you know who is buying from you and what’s working using Audience Insights.

You Might Also Like: 8 Facebook Marketing Tips For The Holidays

 

Image Source: Business2Community

Pinterest Holiday Marketing Tips

With a whopping 87% of Pinterest users having made a purchase based on a pin they’ve seen or saved, it’s clear that you can’t afford to skip this platform in your holiday marketing push this year.

Here are a few tips for crafting your Pinterest holiday push:

– Think of Pinterest as an online catalog. It’s the perfect place to offer a visual “Gift Guide.” Create boards based on recipient and hard-to-buy-for demographics to offer helpful suggestions of value to buyers.

– Do more of the same. See what people are pinning from your website already.

– Capitalize off Rich Pins. Categories of Rich Pins include: product, recipe, app, place, article, and movie pins. Product Pins, in particular, are useful this time of year because they let you provide real-time pricing and product availability info, along with your business name and URL.

– Invest in Promoted Pins (as all social media is essentially “pay to play” for decent visibility these days!)

– Include the “Buy It” Button to make immediate transactions more likely.

– Don’t forget to let people know about your Pinterest activity on other channels like email, Facebook, Twitter and your main website.

Are You Testing Your Holiday Marketing Promotions For Efficiency?

Testing ad efficiency and engagement is crucial for making your holiday marketing investment count. With so many analytics tools available to marketers these days, there is no excuse for throwing good money after bad strategies. Of course, we can see how the process is overwhelming, particularly if you aren’t sure which dashboards to use to capture your demographic and performance data. If you’re in over your head but need immediate results, let Mod Girl Marketing help! (We can also get you quality content, PPC ads, videos or other marketing materials in a pinch.)

Tags: Facebook, holiday marketing tips, pinterest, social media marketing, Twitter