In every month of the year, there is bound to be a significant holiday or festive occasion that is celebrated by a portion, if not all of your brand’s target audience. These events are rooted in different cultures and as a marketer, these specific holidays are opportunities for you to either garner the attention of users that are increasing their usage of social media or to give your brand a more intimate tonality. Whichever reason you think of, here are 4 reasons why it would help your business when you slot in social media posts on holidays and festive occasions.
1. The possibility of higher sales revenue
During the holiday season, consumers usually wait to checkout their shopping list only when they deem the price to be reasonable. Over the years, consumers have learnt items will be further discounted as it draws nearer to the holidays and festive occasions, hence collectively, they all increase their spending to make sure they reap the discount benefits. A 2018 survey by Deloitte showed that 95% of people deem that price discounts are the most appealing promotional offers.
An example that everyone knows would be Black Friday, a day that originated in the United States. In 2019, 93.2 million consumers in the US spent a total of USD $7.4 billion on this day alone. Similarly, Australians spent $39.9 million while New Zealanders spent $253 million dollars on Black Friday of 2019. This is an example of how one event can be celebrated across different geographical locations and it is crucial to tap on these events to capture the possibility of having increased sales revenue.
2. Being relevant and sensitive to cultural settings
In recent years, cultural sensitivity of a brand has been talked about significantly in the realm of marketing. If a brand wants to cater to the varied needs of different audiences, the campaigns cannot be used in a copy-and-paste fashion, and marketers need to comprehend the finer nuances of local cultures. Cultural sensitivity is not only about adapting your campaigns, but making conscious efforts such as giving back to the community, putting customers first and lending your voice to social issues.
A study conducted in 2019 found that 25% of a buyer’s decision currently depends on the cultural involvement of the brand. This was also found to be especially true for consumers who are between the ages of 18 and 35. Holidays like Singapore’s National Day embody deeper meanings of independence, fortitude and strength of a small country and as much as you can, go back to the history of the events and you’ll strike a chord with the different local cultures.
3. Opportunity to interact directly with your consumers
Whether it is a short comment or reply, acknowledging your consumers’ presence on your social media platforms will help them feel appreciated. Social media traffic increases 73% during the holiday season and instead of stressing your team out on the day of the holiday, plan weeks ahead on how you want to establish deeper connections with your customers online.
Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn are just some of the platforms that have integrated numerous ways for two-way interactions to prosper – comments, polls, emojis and tags are just some of it. However, with more choices comes a need for brands to research which particular way works best for them.
A 2019 consumer social media survey by The Manifest showed that consumers do indeed interact differently on different platforms as well. Find what works best for you, and let your interactions go off the roof!
Pro tip: Create a bigger impact with your festive posts through hashtags!
Seeing that you’ve read this article to the end, you’re definitely seeing the marketing value in festive occasions and we want to help you maximise your campaign’s impact. As a tip, don’t forget to weave in relevant hashtags for your social media content!
Hashtag was a concept that started in 2007 by a man called Chris Messina, and he first used it on Twitter. Now, hashtags create different trends that consumers can follow on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest. 75% of social media users utilize hashtags on social media. You don’t need to go through all your posts on Twitter home page to get to a topic that you want to hear about.
Similarly, on festivals like Diwali, the hashtags #diwali and #happydiwali become trending on the day of the celebration as users on the platform are sharing all that they experience from the celebration – from personal experiences, OOTDs (outfit of the day), food and most importantly, memes.
With hashtags, most brands use two to five of them in one post. It is not advisable that you crowd a single social media post with too many hashtags because it may make your brand seem disreputable. Instagram’s algorithm will penalize accounts that use the same exact hashtags for almost every post, making it even harder for you to reach your followers and other users. In order for you to look at which hashtag you can use for the festival this year, look at which hashtags were in trend the previous year. For example, #diwalivibes has 169,134 posts on Instagram alone and it could be one of the few hashtags you use.
These are just some of the reasons that explain the significance of social media postings on holidays and festive occasions. You should first scrutinize your previous social media campaigns and calendars, and see how better you can position your brand. These special holidays happen all year round, and you sure don’t want to miss it!
