There is no doubt that the holiday season is a highly visual time of year. The turkey on the Thanksgiving table. The Christmas Tree. The twinkling lights on the Menorah. The decorated, snow covered houses. It can actually be said that the holiday season is a full on assault to your senses: from sights, sounds, to smells, and beyond.
One thing that all of these senses deliver when it comes to the holidays: emotion.
Emotion is one of the key things that marketers far and wide want to evoke in their target audience of consumers. Emotion helps fuel the buying decision substantially.
In the ever growing visual landscape, Instagram has really planted its flag as a viable marketing channel for businesses to tell their visual story. And if you want to start telling YOUR company’s visual story, the holidays are one of the best times to do it, or to start doing it!
Why?
To be honest, there is a lower barrier to entry in terms of coming up with ideas. Seasonal imagery and ideas can be very simple to come by, especially due to the “over-the-top” nature of our social landscape. You can’t turn around without being assaulted with holiday imagery, songs, products, and services, right?
But why aren’t you in this fray? Why are you not trying to expand your holiday sales?
I want you to try out Instagram this holiday season and see how you can enhance your holiday business returns! Here are my five tips that will help you enhance your exposure, website traffic, and leads via Instagram:
1. Get Special: When doing any holiday marketing, it is good to have something exclusive or “special” to offer your audience that you can deadline to create urgency. Make sure the special is attractive to your audience (basically, it is something that they want) and also be able to tie it into the holiday season in a straight-forward way. Make sure this special is linked to all of your posts.
2. Formulate Your Schedule and Timeline: There is nothing worse than a random, unorganized plan of action. Decide how many posts that you are going to be sharing per week, and when the best time is to share them (in order to get the most engagement and views). Make sure all of these posts (pictures and video) have the holiday angle. Make them fun, punchy and SHAREABLE!
3. Themed Posts: Make sure your content strategy supports your holiday package…but make it fun! Run contests, post funny quotes, run quizzes on holiday song lyrics – just get your audience interested in engaging with your special content. Remember, posts on Instagram can enjoy up to 15% or more engagement over a Facebook Page post – so the more the merrier, so to speak.
4. Use Video: Instagram video is lots of fun and is a firm user favorite – so use it! Social media video is always an engagement winner, enjoying over 65% more engagement than a written post. Make sure to showcase your special, tie your contests into the video, and have some seasonal fun!
5. Use Specific Hashtags: You can definitely come up with a hashtag for your special (the best is to use your coupon code if you have one), but also use hashtags that are well used in your niche to promote holiday deals, sales, or offers. Do a little digging and come up with a list of approved hashtags that can be used on all of your posts. This will help enhance your exposure.
My last tip? Get started today and have fun! Instagram is a creative outlet for your company and really allows you to tell a whole different side to your company’s story. The visual storytelling ability on Instagram will benefit your business to no end, so why not get started today and enjoy more engagement, leads, and sales during the holiday season!
