Keep Your Audience Engaged Over the Holidays

Predicting how your audience will behave over the holidays is next to impossible. However, there are ways of maintaining engagement over this most hectic season of the year. Don’t get caught crawling your way out of a “whitespace” at the beginning of the New Year. Keep reading for tips on keeping your audience engaged over the holidays.

Social media gurus will tell you that your audience has not checked out, they are simply behaving a little differently. For example, LinkedIn reports a 32% increase in engagement over December. There are three main reasons you should maintain a holiday engagement schedule. First, you protect your share of voice. If you shut up your competitors will gladly take your place. Two, quite simply, your audience expects it. And Lastly, it builds trust. A B2B decision usually takes more than 4 weeks. “Always on” content keeps those longer conversions warm until they are ready for purchase.

There are some trends everyone should be aware of when planning holiday campaigns. Be careful spending money on paid ads because costs per impression increase over the season. If you must spend money on ad space focus your spending at the beginning before the Thanksgiving holiday and ramp down in the beginning of December. Generally, engagement with brands on social increases 36% from November to December. However, the other side of the story shows us cost per click also jumps 141% with a 41% drop in click through rate.

The week before a holiday the cost per engagement drops and the engagement rate increases. This is reversed on the holiday itself. Start the campaign early and let it run it’s steam over the holiday. Most basically, focus on engagement campaigns, not ad space.

Lastly, video content has clear benefits. There is a 10% drop in cost per view and a 56% increased view rate November to December. December to January is even better with 64% drop cost per view and 69% increased view rate. Therefore, if you have the budget, invest in video content! It will perform well throughout the season. Or, create video Visual Stories from your long form content with no additional design or engineering resources.

Remind people you are a trusted resource. As the New Year approaches people are seeking guidance. Inspire their new direction! Repurpose your greatest hits from the past year. Highlight your successes and you don’t have to worry about producing more content. Or, make 2020 predictions. Planning ahead is critical right now. Don’t pause holiday dinner to post on social. Use platforms like Sprout Social or Tailwind and schedule your campaign in advance.