Can my social accounts flourish over the holiday season while I take a break from the hectic year that was 2020?
The answer is yes, yes they can!
Read on to discover how to develop a ‘set and forget’ comms plan that will seamlessly run over the course of the Christmas and New Year season, designed to free up your time and give you the rest you deserve.
Tip 1: Back to basics
Now is the time to head back to basics, and develop content that reflects key fundamentals of your business.
What are your core services? Who is in your team and what can you share about them? What are your cultural pillars as an organisation and what are your ‘staff favourite’ products?
Reminding your audiences of who you are and what you do is a simple way of developing content that will keep you afloat over the Christmas period, and serve as a nice reminder for future clients in the new year.
Tip 2: Top performers
A quick way to develop new content that is certain to receive strong engagement with minimal effort is to re-invigorate top-performing posts from earlier in the year. This could be a new design of an old concept, a similar message packaged differently (ie. a well-performing video posted as a static quotation or used as a ‘story’ rather than a feed image) or a new post matching a campaign theme that was previously used.
When selecting which ‘top performers’ to refresh, try using a simple ‘performance matrix’ that matches top performers against your organisation’s strategic objectives. That way, you can ensure that posts selected align with your overarching business objectives.
Post selection matrix
Post 1 performance against matrix
Tip 3: Encourage your audience to do the heavy lifting for you
Running promotions and giveaways at this time of year not only reflects festive spirit, but also provides the added bonus of content being produced for you.
Try running social campaigns such as ‘post a photo of yourself in front of / holding [something to do with your business] to win [prize].’ Not only do you have lots of people engaging with you online and spruiking your organisation on their own channels, you have a steady stream of readymade content to share.
Tip 4: Holding line refresh and approval
Refreshing and approving your organisation’s media holding lines prior to the holiday break is really important to avoid a last-minute media scramble (should a major event occur) while you’re on leave.
You should aim to ensure that your holding lines not only cover key topics of interest but also include business basics for any background or context-setting should this be required.
Tip 5: Utilise your funnel accounts
In the lead up to Christmas, you should be thinking about how you can maximise the efficiency of your content.
If your business uses funnel accounts, think about creating pieces of content that are going to be relevant and interesting across all of them. This way, you’re reducing the amount of content needing to be produced, while still keeping your accounts active and relevant. This might sound simple, but boy can it be effective!
Tip 6: Scheduling and layout tools
If management of your socials is manual, you may want to consider investing in tools that automate the process - you want to fully enjoy your break after all!
In some cases, scheduling tools don’t allow you to take control of the aesthetic of your feed. If you want to ensure your feed looks as good as it does when you’re in the WFH office, services like Preview, PlannThat and Hopper make it easy to lay out your ideal feed prior to scheduling.
Scheduling tools out of your budget right now? There are ways to make sure your socials don’t go completely quiet even if you’re away. You might develop a holiday roster to separate account management across a number of team members.
Tip 7: Don’t be afraid to ask for help
After a stressful 2020, it could be time to switch off zoom, close your laptop and let someone else take over your holiday socials. If this is the case, there are great services out there that do just that.
Ensure to find one that understands your vision and is able to ‘pick up where you left off’ for a seamless transition. You can also check out our social media manual with additional tips, tricks and templates to help you achieve your social media goals.