Festivals are about connecting with people, sharing traditions, and building memories. Can any other occasion get as Social? Then how can Social Media Marketing lag behind. Here are seven ways, Brands can leverage Social Media Marketing this festive season.
Cheers to the festive time of the year! It's end of October already, which means Diwali, Christmas will start scintillating around us any day now. This also means it’s time for Brands to start thinking of ways to incorporate the festival and holidays season into their Social Media Marketing plans.
Social media Marketing has become an integral part for many companies to promote their business in the festivals and holidays season.
With its dominating presence in the West and among foreign brands, many companies in India have also started to grow its social handles to attract and engage the customers.
Here are theSeven Secrets to Successful Social Media Marketing that can be leveraged in the festive time of the year to maximize your ROI:
1.0 Start Early:
Use your social profiles, website to build buzz leading up to festivals rather than just focusing on holidays as they are happening.Some companies like LG India have proactively rolled out their Facebook page with seasonal logo and engaging promotional cover page to boost its pre-festival sales.
2.0 Design a seasonal branded image or launch seasonal products to match across all social networks and the company site.
Yes, it starts with as sweet as Hershey Kisses chocolates and its seasonal products range on its website. Hope Cadbury India too is busy gearing up for its seasonal offerings.
Lets move from Hersheys to Home grown Indian Haldiram brand that has started early to engage its costumers with a wheel of festival calendar on its website.
They promote products to NRI(non-resident Indians) community through Twitter and Facebook handles.
3.0 Highlight your company culture:
Share pictures of your company festival parties, your staff dressing up for Halloween, Diwali, Christmas party or your participation in charitable events.
You don’t need to be a dough ball dipped in sugar syrup (Gulab Jamun) to talk Diwali. This day of food, festivities, and family lends itself to personalized dialogue with your fans/followers, as well as being the perfect time to showcase your offerings like travel packages in product section on LinkedIn by Indian travel portal makemytrip.com.
4.0 Broadcast time-sensitive Promotions.
This not only creates a sense of urgency, but fans ,followers will pay more attention to your social profiles if they are expecting spontaneous announcements of a sale that is lasting for the next few hours or days only and be likely to share this news with their friends.
5.0 Use social media to support your email program.
If you'll be sending email this festival season (and really, who won't be?) give your messages a better chance of being seen by promoting upcoming issues on social media. Post a message on Facebook /LinkedIn and or Tweet on twitter such as "Our newsletter is being sent out later today. Keep watch for it and let us know what you think!" Or, even better, tease the content that's included in your newsletter. That will put people on the ready and get them excited to read.
6.0 Give back to the community, Support the Cause
and give your brand a reputation boost by documenting your company-wide volunteer efforts on your social profiles. Upload a video to YouTube about a charity or a cause your company supports. Offer to donate a buck to the charity per video views the video gets within a short amount of time.
Support the Cause,Roll out a social campaign like ‘Responsible Diwali’ to observe Pollution Free Festival of lights that insists upon the fans and followers to celebrate Diwali noise free by renouncing crackers and celebrating with Lights instead.
7.0 Have fun.
Get in the spirit this season! Share YouTube videos of your favorite seasonal picks. Ask your fans and followers about the worst gift they ever received (or gave). Take a poll about people's favorite (or least favorite) aspect of the season.Whatever you can do to make the season more festive and fun, and engage your customers, clients, donors, volunteers, and supporters. Good Luck with your social media campaigns!!How is your brand approaching the festive season using Social Media Marketing? Which are your favorite campaigns?This blog post is brought to you by Inbound Mantra - a Data Driven Inbound Marketing Agency.
