Santa’s digital marketing naughty list

The end of the year is on the horizon, and your mind is turning to home, family, and holidays. That doesn’t mean your social media marketing can hit the snooze button, however. The holiday season is boom time for sales, but if you get caught sleeping, you could undo all the hard work you’ve put into online marketing this year. Here’s some top tips from the Zebra 360 Digital Marketing Agency team to put to good use.

  1. Don’t leave people wondering who you are

This is a great time of year to acknowledge the holidays, but don’t lose track of the goal or your brand persona. Now is not the time to start treating your digital marketing as a stomping ground for your personal mood and opinions. A little seasonal tie-in? Awesome. Your opinion on ‘the War on Christmas’, who people should buy from, or that gif you find hilarious? Save it for your personal social media spaces. 

Holiday pro-tip: You want to let some festivity enhance your brand voice, not drown it. Make sure everything you do still showcases your brand at Christmas, don’t let yourself become Santa Claus’ PR machine instead. And keep it on-brand, whatever you do.

  1. It’s all in the timing

It’s easy to feel time pressure at this time of year, but don’t let that mess with your flow. There’s plenty of tools out there to help you schedule your campaigns over the quiet season. Make sure you aren’t the company advertising New Years before the kids have even broken for the end of the school year, or it’s just schlocky buzzword marketing that will turn people off.

Holiday pro-tip: Target holiday tie-ins for the right dates and times, and honour the calendar as a real thing in your brand planning. Smart use of scheduling tools will help. Be sure not to go dead over the year-end period, or you may be forgotten.

  1. Quality pays off

If your social media marketing plans for the holiday season include endless post recycling- no matter how good- or hasty, thoughtless posts, step away now! Just because it’s the silly season doesn’t mean you can get lazy, riddle your posts with bad spelling (please, no ‘hoe hoe hoe’ unless you’re a garden centre), and look like you don’t care.

Holiday pro-tip: Lighthearted is great for this time of year, but it doesn’t mean lazy! You can repeat a select bit of content, but not every second post, and keep the new ones high- quality, too.

  1. This ain’t yo’ office party

This overlaps a little with our first point, but it’s worth reiterating- your social media spaces are still part of your brand image and marketing. We don’t want to see classless office party stories and inappropriate pictures all over. Let alone that ‘edgy’ tweet you think is so smart. Remember, once it hits the net, it’s near impossible to claw back, too. 

Holiday pro-tip: Lighthearted and human is fine, but keep it reasonable. If you wouldn’t be comfortable with your Ouma or Gogo reading it, make sure it’s not being used as part of your brand voice, either. 

  1. Be nice, not naughty

December is a difficult month. There’s constant disruptions, accelerated deadlines- it’s just a mess. Don’t leave your customers wondering what’s going on. It’s very easy to lose goodwill at this time of year.

Holiday pro-tip: Keep people in the loop. Update trading hours, make sure they know what help channels are open, make sure timed campaigns run properly and that there’s someone on-hand to keep queries answered.

The end of the year is here, but that’s no excuse to slack off! With some smart planning and a little care, keeping your social media marketing ticking over at this time of year is easy. Remember, the pro team at Zebra 360 Digital Marketing Agency are always here to help you craft your best year-end campaigns yet.