A glance at the calendar shows that we’re approaching the holiday season faster than actually seems possible. This means that along with mood boarding your seasonal decorations (guilty!), it’s time to get your holiday marketing in order.
Where’s the best place to start? Well, Facebook, of course! On the blog and our podcast, we talked about time and again about how vital Facebook is to a successful social media marketing strategy. It’s a great place to strengthen your community and reach clients. Build the foundations of your holiday marketing here and watch the rest grow.
So, you want to breeze into quarter four with an awesome Facebook marketing campaign ready to go. However, we understand that a lot of solopreneurs simply don’t have huge advertising budgets to create massive campaigns. That’s why you need holiday marketing staples are options that will reap rewards without breaking the bank – and you’re in the right place!
Planning your holiday social media strategy just got easier. Read on for a few Thrifty Facebook Holiday Marketing Hacks to complement your overall holiday marketing strategy effortlessly!
Tip #1 | Collaborate with Another Brand
You know what they say: two heads are better than one. The same goes for brands! Brand collaboration is an easy way to increase visibility for your product or service. In addition to this, you’ll extend your network and maybe learn something new along the way.
While it’s not the quickest strategy to implement, the time you invest in making connections, exchanging emails and setting up coffee meetings is well worth it. Collaboration multiplies your potential audience because your product and service will be seen by their followers as well as your own. This exchange of visibility doesn’t require any funds. We’d recommend, however, that you do your research before starting on a collaboration. Don’t do it simply to say you’ve done it; find a company that’s at your pace and visibility level. You want to be sure they can bring traffic to you, after all!
There are lots of different ways to maximize the potential of these collaborations. A simple start is exchanging products that you then each showcase on your respective Facebook feeds. It’s a win-win because you each get your business in front of the other’s audience. If you’ve got a bit more time, you could collaborate on a holiday-themed Facebook live interview with content that’s of interest to both your communities. That’s fun, engaging and helps you create fresh content into the bargain.
How can you make these connections? Well, by reaching out, of course! Be brave. Ask your community on Instagram Stories, or your marketer if you have one, whether they know someone who might be interested in working with you. Then get in touch! You’ll be amazed at the opportunities that come up.
Tip #2 | Partner with Charitable Organizations
The holiday season isn’t only a great time to boost your marketing campaign; it’s also a time to give back. You can achieve both these objectives by partnering with a charity. As in our first tip, you want to reach out to charitable organizations – possibly local ones or those with a cause that aligns with your business – and ask for opportunities to collaborate.
With Giving Tuesday in full swing, we’re sure that they’ll be on board with getting this mutual support. Partnership options can include donating a percentage of your sales to the organization or doing a one-for-one donation; however, if we’re talking about budget-friendly tips here, then your collaboration can simply focus on visibility.
Often nonprofits have launch teams who have prepared a ton of content that you can easily use: social media graphics, newsletter copy, tweetables and so on. Then, all you need to do is schedule the content, tagging the charity and using the assigned hashtag and immediately their visibility, and yours increases.
At this time of year, your audience will already be thinking about giving to worthy causes. You highlighting a charitable organization helps them out and means they see your business in a more positive light. This is a neat, effective Facebook marketing strategy that costs nothing at all.
Tip #3 | Content Plus
Creating “content plus” is the simple act of taking a popular product or service you offer and giving it a little something extra. It can be something you sell all year round. Give it a holiday makeover and a ‘plus’, then you’re ready to run with it. It takes no effort, has no cost and is guaranteed to engage people.
For example, at SoVerve we use our strategy sessions. Our special New Year strategy session is like our normal strategy sessions but with additional modules and content pieces, because it’s designed to map out the whole year. This is only available to book over the holidays and we market it on Facebook throughout the season. So, we’ve taken something we know people love and give it a holiday spin – like magic, our Facebook holiday marketing has a driver.
This strategy is easily adaptable for whatever your product or service is. If you’re a coach, do what we’ve done and add an extra session to your usual training; if you have a subscription service; add something extra to the box for those who sign up over the holiday period. You can use your Facebook community to promote your content plus. It’s simple but hugely effective.
A lot of these thrifty Facebook holiday marketing hacks are absolutely foundational for us. Take these on board now and they’ll boost not only your holiday marketing campaign but future marketing campaigns, too.