The Christmas holidays are fast approaching which for many businesses means closing down for the year.
It is important businesses not overlook their PR and social media activities throughout the holiday season.
With a good strategy in place and the right preparation your business can still gain media coverage and engage your target audience on social media throughout this period.
Here are some tips to help maintain your PR and social media presence during the festive season.
Plan ahead
It is important to plan ahead to ensure that your PR and social media activities don’t stop over the holidays. An action plan is an excellent tool to help prepare your business for the New Year and the weeks following.
Your action plan may include looking into speaking opportunities for the New Year, upcoming awards, features in publications to pitch to or new angles for articles.
Don’t Stop Pitching
Many media publications don’t shut down throughout the festive season, and with less ‘news’ to write about, journalists are often looking for newsworthy stories.
A great way to get ahead of your competitors is to take advantage of this opportunity and pitch your ideas to gain media coverage for your business.
Keep posting to your social media channels
Social media users are online more frequently during the Christmas holidays, and businesses can leverage this to increase their engagement.
It is important to keep contributing to your social media channels to continue to engage your audience and attract new followers that fit your target demographic.
Use a content calendar
Content calendars are a useful way of planning your business’ social media content. Planning the content for your social media platforms in advance will ensure that you always have something to post. This is particularly important over the holidays as it will free up your time.
Leverage the festive season to create interesting content
The holidays generate excitement which is something that can be leveraged to benefit your social media content. Events that occur every year, such as Christmas and New Years Eve are ‘evergreen stories’, which are considered interesting and newsworthy every time they come around.
Creating social media posts about these events increases engagement with your users. The content of posts could be as simple as wishing everyone ‘Merry Christmas’, ‘Happy New Year’ or asking questions, such as ‘What are your New Year’s resolutions for 2014?’
The holidays are also an excellent time to take advantage of the impact of visual content on social media. Update your cover photos, background photos and profile pictures to reflect the spirit of the season.
Use scheduling tools
It is important to remember that your website and social media platforms are available 24/7 to your customers and clients. Businesses need to ensure that their channels are updated with fresh and relevant content to keep their audience engaged.
If you are going away for the holidays or don’t have access to your social media accounts, scheduling tools such as TweetDeck and Hootsuite allow you to schedule your posts in advance. TweetDeck, for example, allows you to create your tweets and choose different times to automatically post them during the day. Facebook also allows you to schedule posts straight from your profile page in advance.
The holidays can be a great time to engage your target audience through PR and social media. It is important to remember that consumers and clients are still accessing the same publications and social media channels during the holidays. This is a great opportunity for businesses to engage with their audience and participate in the festive fun.
Sydney Public Relations Agency, CP Communications provides specialist media, traditional and online PR strategies that get amazing results. Contact us today. For more great tips visit our website www.cpcommunications.com.au.
