With just a matter of weeks until Christmas, now is the time to be thinking about your brand’s holiday content strategy on social media!
In fact, TikTok’s latest Holiday Guide reveals that 38% of consumers are planning to begin their holiday shopping earlier than ever this year.
But simply running a Black Friday or Cyber Monday sale isn’t enough — here’s how you can prime your audience so that they’re ready to buy from your business this holiday season.
Step 1. Develop A Consistent Posting Schedule
Have you heard of the rule of seven? It means that your customers need to see a message (such as your brand or product) seven times before they’re ready to buy.
Just popping up with a last-minute sale in November is not going to be enough to convert your audience. This holiday season, there will be endless competition for your audience’s attention and you need to have a high-converting holiday content strategy to stand out!
Ready to stand out from the crowd? Create a consistent social media plan that focuses on driving action from your audience.
If you’re not already posting consistently on social media, now is the time to start. Are you posting sporadically? Try posting two times per week before working up to four times a week. This will keep your brand top of mind ahead of the holiday shopping season.
If you’re already crushing it with consistency, then your next step is to get really strategic about what you’re posting and WHY you’re posting it.
If you’ve been posting on social but aren’t seeing the results (such as high engagement, new followers or product sales), it might be time to re-think your Instagram strategy.
To move the needle in your business, you need to have a plan in place. When you get strategic, it’s easier to create content that serves your client’s needs and gets you closer to your business goals. But to do that, you need to know who you’re creating content for, what you’ve got to offer them and what you want your social content to achieve for you.
It’s not enough to post about your product or service — you need content that makes your audience THINK, FEEL, or ACT. More on that next!
Step 2. Get Back To Basics With The 5 Ws
The next essential ingredient to high-converting holiday content is this: having convincing answers to the five Ws:
• Who is your ideal audience?
• What action do you want your audience to take?
• When is your ideal audience online?
• Where is your audience consuming content?
• Why is your audience going to trust or choose your brand?
These questions are designed to help you craft content that’s tailored to your target audience, brand positioning and business goals. With these questions in mind, you can craft high-converting content that drives meaningful action from your audience.
Ready to get started? Here are some questions (based on the 5 Ws framework) that you can ask yourself to get clear on your Instagram strategy fundamentals:
WHY do you do what you do?
Your WHY in business is as unique as you are! Think about why you started the work you do and how it makes you feel when your services or products help people. Take your time—and take notes! This will help you to clarify and articulate your brand’s unique selling points.
WHO is your content for?
Your target audience is super important for every part of your marketing strategy and worth spending some time digging into.
🔥Hot tip: Build a client avatar or client persona. Imagine your perfect client or customer who’s going to benefit from what you do and who thinks your business is the best thing since Taylor Swift.
Be specific about where they live, what they like, what’s important to them and anything else you can think of. The more you know about your target audience, the easier it will be to create content that connects with them.
WHAT do you want your audience to do once they’ve seen your post?
To effectively track the performance of your social media content, you need to know what you want people to do once they’ve consumed the content.
Do you want them to think, feel or act?
Content that gets your audience to think can be tips, tutorials, industry updates, thoughtful quotes, statistics, and educational content.
To build a connection with your audience, you’ll also need content that makes them feel something – whether it’s a personal insight, a customer story, a meme, or your opinion on an important issue.
And, of course, as businesses, we also need to make people act. This is the content that focuses on the sale and encourages people to take action after reading. This content should have a strong CTA (call to action) that prompts people to click the link in your bio, send you a message, or tap the product tag to shop.
HOW will you share these strategic content ideas?
Another thing to consider when designing high-converting content is the different types of posts you can create for Instagram. You have a lot of options: Posts, Stories, Carousels, Reels, Lives, Guides….
Before you get overwhelmed, take a deep breath. You don’t have to make ALL of these types of posts. Try starting with two or three content formats. As you get more comfortable and confident, try adding another format into the mix. Focus on the types of posts that you enjoy making and that your audience engages with the most.
Step 3. Harness A Content Holiday Calendar
A social media content calendar helps you plan, organize and schedule the content you’ll post on your business’s social media platforms.
It helps you plan and execute your strategy, which in turn can help reduce the stress many small business owners feel when it comes to dreaming up fresh content ideas on the fly throughout the month.
Using a content calendar helps you 👇🏻
✅ Post consistently to Instagram (and any other social media platforms) to grow brand awareness and authority
✅ Create strategic, quality content that keeps you moving toward your business goals
✅ Save time by making batch content creation easier
✅ Have more fun and feel less stressed about dreaming up fresh content ideas on the fly
✅ Stay on top of important dates for your business, your audience and your community
A content calendar helps you consistently create strategic, intentional content for your audience without the stress of dreaming up new ideas as you go. Once you’ve hammered out your social media strategy, try our free Weekly Content Calendar Template to map out content week by week and keep your business moving toward your goals!
Step 4. Put Your Holiday Content Plan Into Action
Once you’ve set some goals and planned out how you want to get your products or services in front of your ideal audience, the next step is to carve out some time and start creating that content. Get out your calendar and block out specific time for:
✅ Taking holiday-themed photos
✅ Creating graphics
✅ Designing emails
✅ Writing social captions
✅ Drafting an OOO message & holiday notification for clients
✅ Scheduling content in advance using Plann
October is the ideal time to start getting your business ready for the holidays. It might feel early, but it’s far enough ahead of the holidays that you’ll have plenty of time to get strategic but not SO far ahead that you can’t tap into that holiday spirit and get creative!
Dig out some of your favourite decorations, put on some holiday tunes (I’ll be singing along with T-Swift’s Songs of the Season album) and think about how you can talk about your products or services with a fun holiday spin.
Schedule Your Content Now To Avoid Holiday Stress Later
Ready to get ahead with your holiday content? The secret to creating high-converting holiday content is this: planning ahead and batching your time.
Plann is my favorite scheduling tool because it has so many features that help small businesses create content quicker and without overwhelming them! The AI caption generator is a game changer and has allowed me to cut my content creation time in half. Use Plann to visually lay out your content and ensure your grid stays on brand this holiday season — and then schedule that content so you can enjoy a well-deserved break!
Why Preparation Is Key To Creating High-Converting Holiday Content
The holidays might seem like they’re a long way off, but for small businesses, the countdown starts ticking early. To give your business the best chance at a successful holiday season, you need to plan ahead and get your products and services in front of your target audience’s eyes sooner rather than later.
Getting organized, thinking strategically, and making some magical holiday content now (yes, now!) is going to give your business the best shot at a successful holiday season. Even better, you’ll be able to kick back with a sugar cookie oat latte (Starbucks, I’m looking at you! 👀) and enjoy some of that ho-ho-holiday cheer with your family and friends.
