What is the single most euphoria-inducing holiday celebrated around the globe? Well, none other than Christmas, of course. It is not just a date, though. It is a time of the year that people look most forward to. The time of the year when they get a chance to spend a lot of time with their loved ones and take a break from all the hard work they have been doing.
One thing about Christmas is that people tend to splurge on something they would not normally spend money on. Something for themselves, and more usually for their loved ones. It can be a token of appreciation materialized in a bottle of their wife’s favorite perfume, expensive lingerie or season tickets to their husband’s favorite team’s games. It can be a dream vacation for the family. A new bicycle for their kid. Or a gadget. Everyone loves a new gadget.
Basically, people tend to buy a lot. Anything they can afford. Sometimes even more.
So, when there are billions of people prepared to give their entire month’s salary on gifts and lavish family meals, anyone offering them any sort of product should step up the game. Christmas is no ordinary day. Most people prepare weeks in advance. Some even months. And there are those, of course, who will do everything last minute. And you should not neglect any of those costumer groups. Their money is green either way.
People love to feel the euphoria. It is not just the free time from work or school. Euphoria is in the details. Ornaments everywhere. Hot chocolate, cinnamon and cookies. The festive spirit of the people they meet every day. Including the shop assistant. Snow (even the artificial kind) doesn’t hurt either.
Like many of the physical stores and shopping malls who put up Christmas decorations, anyone running a Facebook page for a vendor/manufacturer/service provider should make the page more visible, more ornate in a jolly spirit of the holidays. Try to recreate the feeling of a familiar holiday setting. It should be perfectly clear that you acknowledge the holiday.
How do you do that?
Well, you would generally need to change your banners, profile pictures and add new posts, all of which would be recognizable for the page you are running and your brand, but playfully changed in order to attract more attention. Everything should be associative with Christmas. Only Christmas, your brand and your products, if you have any.
But, the visual recognition of the holiday is just the first step. With the recent economic turmoil, people are becoming more and more savvy. They will spend their money. But more cleverly than they used to. People want to feel rewarded for being a costumer all year long. So, present them with a gift.
That gift can be something that you will actually make money on. How?
Well, firstly, you can organize a give-away action via your Facebook page. Let one of the conditions be that the contestants share it with some of their friends, or post a generated invitation to their wall. Make the gift a desirable one and it will gain traction. And you will get free advertising with each new contestant. This way, it is a win-win for you and the consumers.
You can also offer them discounts via electronic vouchers. It is possibly the best way to reach the largest number of followers.
Another thing you can do is address the follower directly, or at least, appear to do so. An electronic greetings card should do the trick. But don’t play it too safe. It should be memorable. Funny. It should address the audience that liked your very page in the first place.
Bear in mind, Christmas, even though a Christian holiday, is a time of year when other religions have theirs, sometimes similar, holidays and a very universal New Year’s eve. Try to be inclusive or at least neutral, and make them all feel greeted.
If you are not selling anything and if people use your service, you should make yourself or your company visible during this period, since it is associated with feelings of happiness and satisfaction. People like to feel appreciated as clients or customers. This form of validation would more likely help ingratiate oneself with their consumer base. Thank your costumers for their loyalty. It will only make it stronger.
Christmas is a unique opportunity for you to reach your followers, your consumers or your fans. The more unique you Christmas posts are, the more likes and shares you get. That means that your posts are likely to appear on Facebook homepages of people who do not follow your page, but have friends who follow it instead. This is how you can expand your audiences during one the busiest period of the year.
That means that you should post something of high entertaining quality and/or likeability.
If you represent a cause, you can raise awareness during the Christmas frenzy. It is the most emotion-filled family-oriented holiday of them all. People are more likely to set aside both time and money for a worthy enough cause.
As people will work less, and spend more time at home, One thing you should bear in mind is the timing of your posts. Whether you are trying to sell something, trying to promote a product or use this time of year to strengthen your image, you have to have to follow some basic rules about the timing.
One cannot simply post a very important post on the very day of Christmas. You should prepare the followers in time. Depending on the purpose of it all.
If you plan to promote any product, you should do it much earlier, several week before Christmas, so that people who would consider your product would buy it as a part of their Christmas shopping.
But to keep a general feeling of holiday spirit alive, you should post more frequently than usual. In addition to receiving more attention, more people will be at home, and therefore be able to pay attention to what you post.
Try to post something new and fresh two weeks before Christmas and a week before Christmas. Just a few days before, try to post something even more holiday oriented, more family oriented. It will seem warm and human. On the very day of Christmas you should post something that expresses how grateful you are for your consumers/clients/followers/fans. An alternative is to post something on Christmas Eve.
With these few basic pointers, you can make your business flourish during the busiest time of the year. Do not miss out on the chance to enlarge your followers base and to leave a good and long lasting impression on the existing ones.
Even though it is not a long period of time, you should get prepared long before the first snowflake hit the ground. Take action as soon as you can, decide what you’re going to do this Christmas, decide when you’re going to start and how, plan everything from the first post to the last so you’re always on top of things and all that is left for you to do when the time comes is actually interact with other people.
