How to Leverage Social Media to Enhance eCommerce Holiday Efforts

Written by  AJ Leale, Sr. Director eCommerce 
As holiday eCommerce sales reach new heights every year, be sure to take a slice of that huge
pie for yourself!
Using your Social Media profiles yields amazing results and increases the sales like never before, but only if you do it right. Keep reading for easy instructions you can implement this very hour.

Define your goals

Previously specified goals and KPIs have the final say when you build a holiday eCommerce social media strategy. Most brands focus on bottom-funnel goals during the holidays – such as conversion increase and fostering lasting relationships with the target audience. 
After you determine the goals for this season, sketch a calendar of all the tasks you need to complete in the upcoming months. Break them down into daily activities that incorporate teasing, pre-launch, launch day and follow-up period – that way you won’t run out of ideas and post unimaginative content that doesn’t get you any sales. 

Use every platform available, but make sure they provide value to you

Your goal is to deliver a unified and consistent experience on all the social media platforms you use. You can achieve this by utilizing some of the many social media management systems, such as Buffer, Hootsuite, or AgoraPulse.
While you maintain the holiday spirit and stay on-brand, it is important to diversify the holiday strategy for each platform. 
Do it in a way that enables you to target the right segment of your audience on social media – for example, many people argue that Facebook is for elderly people now, while the younger crowd flocks to Instagram (but keep the captions short and sweet). 
However, if one platform is underperforming, or performing better than others, be quick to reallocate your spending and increase your ROI. If a platform never worked, maybe reconsider a small pilot to see if it still holds true.
As far as videos go, the ideal length for Youtube videos is up to 18 minutes. This hugely depends on the topic you need to showcase, but the reasoning behind this claim goes from neuroscientists!
To make the people remember you, aim for daily activities while avoiding spamming the timeline with trivialities. People will not refrain from muting, blocking and following if you do, no matter what you post.

Promote holiday deals, special offers, and favorable shipping options

Competitive prices, bundles, and offers; focus your Holiday eCommerce social media efforts in promoting the items that sell – or make the products more desirable!
In order to increase sales during the holidays, you can:

• lower the shipping prices during the period when people purchase gifts online (well before the physical shopping takes place);
• create FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out – by implementing countdowns, limiting the special offer to certain days only
• reintroduce your products by putting them into a seasonal context – as perfect gift ideas
• group them into the offers such as “buy two, get one free/half price”, “20% off for two, 30% off for three purchases”, etc

Promote these on your social media by implementing the Shop buttons on the images, or provide links at the spot.

Seasonal content that resonates with your objectives

Create a season-appropriate holiday eCommerce content for social media that will help you achieve your goals – if you put it to good use.
Tailor your blog posts, images, and videos according to the holiday themes, but to the specific audience as well. Some ideas include:

• Gift guides
• Dealing with the weather
• Healthy lifestyle recommendations
• Decoration ideas

The idea you will use, of course, depends on the type of product and service you sell. The goal is to present your offer to the audience as a solution to their problems in a non-invasive way.
Go a step beyond the traditional content and produce some quizzes, podcasts with relevant guests, and courses. 

Festive social media profile design

Tastefully refurbish your social media and brand visual design elements such as logo, colors, typography, images, packaging, etc.
While you’re at it – make sure your meticulous designs and animations don’t slow you down!

Charity and awareness campaigns in times for gifting

Holidays are great times to show that you care about the important causes, and include your customers in actions that make the world a better place.
Helping the ones in need, clearing up the environment, promoting a healthy way of life or diversity – connect it to your brand in a logical way. For example, if you are selling tote bags, a campaign that calls for eliminating plastic bags makes perfect sense; launch a special collection of bags, and donate a part of the revenue to an appropriate charity.

Make your campaign more inclusive

Not everyone celebrates the same holidays, and even when they do, they don’t celebrate in the same way. Including various social and religious groups in your holiday strategies will do wonders for your image, and sales as well! 
It turns out that these elements do matter for the customers – Dove “Real Beauty” campaign sparked the conversation about the body image and female beauty and paved the way for the other brands to start doing so.

Conclusion

Holiday eCommerce depends greatly on your social media presence. Make sure to create a strategy that covers all the fronts and enables a good shopping experience.
If you don’t feel like leaving your strategy to chance – feel free to reach out and tell us about your Christmas wishes. We are not Santa, but we will deliver the Social media strategy just as magically!