How Hubspot’s Social Team Prepares for the Holiday Season [+Tips You Can Leverage]

The holiday season is a time when many of your company’s social media channels are busier than ever. Without a plan, the workload could turn into chaos in short order. Here’s how Hubspot’s Social Team prepares for the busy times ahead.

So, most of us haven’t even decided on our Halloween outfits yet.

However, for marketers worldwide, it’s almost that time of year when we should be drinking eggnog and planning our Christmas marketing strategy – but where do we start?

Are you unsure where to begin with your social media holiday marketing strategy? Hear from HubSpot’s social team about the finest social media holiday marketing tactics and how they prepare for the holiday season in this article.

Holiday Marketing Best Practices on Social Media

1. Make high-value content a top priority.

“When it comes to companies publishing on social media throughout the holidays, the question we should always be asking is “Is this of value to my audience?”,” says Kelly Hendrickson, Senior Manager on HubSpot’s Social Media team.

Because audiences are likely to see a lot of material from a lot of different companies attempting to drive sales over the holidays, the content you develop should be as high-value as possible, such as offer-centric social media posts or emails that draw attention to current specials or discounts.

Consumer behavior online might vary throughout the holiday season, according to Annabelle Nyst, Senior Content Strategist. “Social media use can drop during the holiday seasons since individuals are spending time with their loved ones IRL,” she says. This implies that your content must shine in order to have the best impact on your viewers when they are online.

Set objectives related to your holiday marketing requirements and establish a content marketing plan that will help you execute and succeed in order to generate this high-value content. ‘The holidays are a period when CPMs are high and attention spans are poor,’ Hendrickson notes. Content must be more valuable than ever before to cut through.”

2. Have social media assistance on hand.

During the Christmas season, consumers send merchants more social media messages than during non-holiday seasons. SproutSocial predicts that by the 2021 Christmas season, shops will get 18 percent more social messages each month on average (as shown in the image below).

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As a result, make sure your service and marketing teams are on the same page and ready to react to social media posts throughout the holidays.

3. Make an effort to be inclusive.

During the Christmas season, it’s especially vital to be inclusive.

Your target consumers are spread throughout the world and celebrate various holidays at different times, if they do so at all. It’s critical to be aware of this, and to use that information while developing your adverts. “We also try to be as inclusive as possible,” adds Kelsi Yamada, Marketing Manager, “and don’t mention certain holidays explicitly since not everyone in our worldwide audience celebrates them.”

In practice, this may look like non-holiday-specific social media postings that highlight the emotions that can develop throughout the holidays.

4. Keep your publishing to a bare minimum.

As previously said, customers spend the holidays with friends, family, and loved ones, therefore they may be less active on social media than they would be at other times of the year. “We [HubSpot] really prefer to post lightly and provide our audience some space away from our material so they can disconnect and be with their families [during the holidays],” Yamada explains.

This suggestion goes hand in hand with posting high-value material; if you’re going to publish less often during the holidays, you’ll want to make sure that what you do post is beneficial to your audience.

Use historical data from prior holiday seasons to have a better understanding of how customers act so you can determine the optimum times to publish online and implement this knowledge into your content marketing plan.

“They’re [holidays] a very holy time for a lot of people, and not necessarily a time when they want to be sold to.” As a result, it’s critical to be very deliberate about how and where your business appears on social media over the holidays,” adds Nyst. “Think about how your brand can bring value to your audience’s Christmas experience, rather of attempting to force your brand message into places where it doesn’t belong,” she continues.

5. Express your gratitude to your audience.

It’s crucial to express thanks to your customers at all times, but it’s especially critical during the Christmas season. This may take the form of social media postings thanking your followers in general, sending tailored emails to consumers who have made a purchase, or even giving customers free thank you presents or discounts in exchange for their loyalty.

A plus is that real gratitude fosters client loyalty, which leads to retention, which leads to increased revenue. Of course, you should always show thanks at other times of the year, but during the Christmas season, it might mean a lot more to consumers to hear that you respect their business.

6. Make shopping on social media as simple as possible.

In the United States in 2021, 28% of consumers intend to utilize social media for holiday shopping, so making it simple for customers to explore items and make purchases on the channels you use is a wonderful approach to boost the success of your social media holiday marketing efforts.

You may utilize the native shopping facilities available on many social media platforms to reach your consumers where they are during the Christmas season to take advantage of this advice. As an example,

• Instagram enables you to make shoppable posts, which viewers may look at in the app.
• You may create product pins for browsing on Pinterest.
• You may start a Facebook Shop dedicated to your company on Facebook.

All of the aforementioned suggestions will assist you in getting the most out of your holiday social media marketing. Check out this article if you want to get some ideas from real-life companies and campaigns.

In addition to recommended practices, HubSpot’s Social Team contributed holiday preparation suggestions, which we’ve included below.

How HubSpot’s Social Media Team Gets Ready for the Holidays

What is the most important suggestion from HubSpot’s Social Team for preparing for the holiday season? Preparing and scheduling ahead of time — “The finest piece of advise I can provide is to plan ahead of time.” “An editorial schedule will almost never fail you, but you must approach and prepare for its flexibility,” explains Amanda Zantal-Wiener, Senior Content Strategist.

HubSpot provides a free Social Media Content Calendar Template (as seen in the picture below) to assist you in planning and scheduling your social media content.

Use this template to plan your holiday posts on social media.

Even if you prepare ahead of time, flexibility is crucial, according to Zantal-Wiener: “The world moves and changes quickly, so allow yourself a runway, but realize that you may very likely have to pivot quickly.”

In addition to making a calendar, you may find it useful to plan your material ahead of time so that it goes online without you having to do anything. Use a social media management platform that allows you to plan postings weeks ahead of time.

HubSpot Social Teams do a lot of preparation to make sure they have time to spend with their friends, family, and loved ones around the holidays. “Planning allows us to take a break as a team and enjoy that time for ourselves, too,” Yamada explains.

“Wherever feasible,” Nyst adds, “we complete material early so our employees may relax and enjoy the holidays themselves.”

Now it’s your turn.

The HubSpot Social Team agrees that it’s critical to keep showing up for consumers – “We want to show up with consistency for our community, but we also don’t want to disturb their valuable time away from work and with their loved ones,” Nyst adds.

Plan ahead, concentrate on high-value content, and express gratitude to your audiences, and you’ll be able to continue to give the enjoyable experiences they anticipate while meeting your marketing objectives and being active online.