Black Friday & Cyber Monday are behind us which means it's almost Christmas! As an entrepreneur, the end-of-year period is usually a very busy time but you shouldn't neglect your socials because of that. In this blog post, you'll learn how to keep your cool in the lead-up to Christmas.
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It is currently December 1st which means we are officially counting down the days to Christmas! The Christmas period is such a busy time for any kind of entrepreneur and it can be easy to neglect your socials. Ghosting your followers is never a good thing but since the Christmas period is one of the most profitable times of the year, we definitely want to leverage our audience as much as possible. In this blog post, I want to give you a few tips on how you can keep your cool in the lead-up to Christmas, leverage your social media as much as possible, and maybe even prepare for a little break over the holidays!
1) Work on your mindset:
The Christmas period is very competitive online: everyone and their dog is promoting their business. Traditionally, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the official start of the Christmas shopping season, so from now on you will only see more and more promotion for products and services on social media platforms. I know that for many business owners (and probably even more so, women) it is challenging to promote their work without feeling salesy or guilty.
“Am I not annoying these people with my products? Is anyone even interested in what I have to say? There are so many other amazing businesses out there that they can buy from... why should they buy from me?”
I want you to remind yourself (even on a daily basis, if you have to) that it is not a bad thing to talk about your business. In fact, it is expected of you on your business account. You don't need to feel bad for talking about your amazing products or the amazing work you do. Every single day, there are millions of businesses promoting themselves and they don't feel guilty at all, so you shouldn't either. Getting stuck in this mindset of “I don't want to annoy people with my posts” is not going to help you at all.
If you want to dive more into that kind of mindset and want to hear ideas of how you can promote your business in a more subtle and authentic way, then have a read through this blog post here where I discuss this topic in depth.
2) Stand out with your content:
One of my main social media pet peeves is the classic “Merry Christmas" or “Happy New Year” social media post (see example here). Bonus points if you use a generic stock photo without any brand assets whatsoever 🤨
I get it: you want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas but are you really going to stand out with a post like that? Meh, probably not.
In the lead-up to Christmas and especially the last few days before Christmas, Instagram and all other social media platforms experience a decrease in engagement because a lot of people are already off. Those people who are still around and scroll through Instagram will see twenty different businesses wishing everyone a Merry Christmas...
Whatever you do on social media, you always want to stand out and not be compared to all the other businesses out there, especially not your direct competitors.
In the crowded space that social media has become over the last few years, it's not enough anymore to just post things that people can google. Brands that are really, really successful on social media make content that none of their competitors can make.
For example: You are a web design agency. For your end-of-year content, you could ask each of your team members about their favourite website they worked on that year. Each of them then quickly shows their favourite in a video. This will help you do 3 things:
It introduces your team in an interactive way.
It shows the websites that you have created.
It gives your audience a behind-the-scenes look at your workplace, how you work, and the results that you create for clients.
Another alternative to the classic Christmas post could be filming a short vlog of your company's Christmas party. Or, if it's just you in your business, you could share a post about your favourite traditions. Get creative!
3) Taking a break over the holidays:
A lot of people are afraid that if they don't post for a little while over the holidays their social media will completely be ruined, their engagement will tank, their reach will go down and when they're back, nobody will care about them anymore. And this is why a lot of social media gurus recommend that you should just schedule a few posts over the holidays so that they go out automatically and you don't have to worry about content and your engagement going down.
Two things to consider here:
Your engagement will go down over the Christmas period either way because lots of people are not going to be on social media. So, naturally, your engagement will be a bit lower and that is OK - it will go up again later.
If you schedule content ahead but then don't show up replying to comments and engaging with other people's content, your engagement rate is also going to go down and it's probably even worse than not posting anything. It’s basically like walking into a shop and nobody is there. I am more annoyed by that than if there’s a “closed” sign hanging on the door.
I am speaking from experience. In October, I have not posted a single thing while I road tripped through New Zealand with my family and guess what: my Instagram was completely fine. In fact, when I came back I had so much more energy and so many content ideas that I wouldn't have had if I had just scheduled content throughout the trip. And if we're honest, taking a break from social media means taking a break from social media. I doubt that you're really switching off from your socials if, first of all, you have to prepare content in advance in an already busy time, and secondly, if you know that content is going out but that you're not actively there or you're just checking in once in a while - that's not switching off.
Social media is really quite dead over the holidays, especially here in New Zealand because it's also summer - so don't stress about putting out a lot of content and just enjoy your time off like everyone else.
Whatever you decide to do, I wish you a very productive pre-Christmas time filled with plenty of Christmas sales! When the big day comes, I hope you have a wonderful time with your loved ones and a relaxing time off to recharge 🥰
Talk soon,
Hanna