The holidays are upon us and December is already busy as ever. As we get closer to the holiday peak time you’ll be wanting to make sure that you maximize your efforts and make the best of your time management. The following are a few helpful tips and guidelines to consider for making the best use of your social media and social marketing strategy. Good Luck and remember, be consistent!
AddThis is an excellent resource for social sharing ideas and they frequently have some great advice. They’ve shared some helpful materials that reveal some of the best times for social sharing over the Holiday Season – Tips for best day and time to post to Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest are provided.
When to Share on Social Media
From AddThis…
This past spring, we published the best times to post on social media. The post was so popular that we decided to look at the times of peak engagement during the holidays. Holidays are full of recipe searching, gift shopping, and decorating madness––all of which we witnessed in the clicks and shares across our network. That means your audience is actively engaged, but when and where?
We looked at this year’s peak engagement times for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest during November 17 through December 7. In our research, kept in mind the surge of online traffic many sites experienced during Black Friday and Cyber Monday traffic. All the times listed here are in U.S. Eastern Time.
Shares in the Morning, Clicks in the Afternoon
People are sharing to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn mostly in the mornings, but are generally more likely to click on content within these services in the afternoon beginning at 3PM. Pinterest users both share and click content as they unwind at night, starting at 8PM.
In a nutshell, they determined that if the majority of your audience is in the United States — post in the Eastern time zone. If the majority of your audience isn’t in the United States, determine where they are. After you determine the location — post at these optimal times in that time zone:
- Saturday and Sunday at 12–1 p.m.
- Thursday and Friday at 1–4 p.m.
- Wednesday at 3 p.m.
- Wednesday at noon and 5–6 p.m.
- Monday–Friday at 12–3 p.m. and 5 p.m.
- Experiment with 2–3 a.m., 6–7 a.m. and 9–10 p.m.
- Tuesday at 10–11 a.m.
- Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 7:30–8:30 a.m., 12 p.m. and 5–6 p.m.
Google+
- Wednesday at 9 a.m.
- Weekdays at 9–11 a.m.
- Saturdays at 8–11 p.m.
- Any day 2–4 a.m. and 2–4 p.m.
- Fridays at 3 p.m.
- Monday and Thursday at any time other than 3–4 p.m
Videos
- Any day at 9 p.m.–8 a.m.
- Experiment with 2 a.m., 5 p.m. and Wednesday at 7 p.m.
It’s also worth noting that CoSchedule found that people are extra happy on Fridays.
What to share?
So, now we know when to share but WHAT can you share around the holidays? The following are some article or blog ideas that you can share and schedule over the holiday season:
- Product/App discount and holiday specials
- Year in review blog post sharing company milestones
- Year ahead predictions
- Team profile and holiday wishes
- Top features or Top blog posts recap
- Holiday maps or fun holiday place names
- How to be more productive with your solutions (a great New Year resolution idea)
- Training materials – many people have time off, they’ll need stuff to do!
- Re-purpose – year end is a great time re-share your most valuable and popular content from the year
- Career opportunities – year nd is a great time to recruit!
How to Share?
If you need some assistance with useful tools to plan and implement your holiday social sharing strategy, here’s several social sharing apps & tools to consider:
- HootSuite offers customers three types of plans: free, pro and enterprise. The free plan covers three social profiles, schedules one message at a time and provides you with data on your followers. The social listening feature of its program lets you know what trends and conversations your customers, competition and industry influencers are engaged with & all the information is showcased on an easy-to-read and well-organized dashboard. The pro plan equips you with the power to schedule 350 messages to publish in advance for 50 to 100 accounts
- Buffer is a free app that assists with your post schedule for a variety of social media outlets, including Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn and Facebook. On its individual plan, you can connect one account from each platform, and on its awesome plan, you receive a combination of 10 accounts. Buffer’s post schedule timeline allows for varied schedules, so your content can go live at the various peak times.
- Social Oomph enables you to schedule tweets, track keywords, save and reuse drafts, and view mentions and retweets. The feature saves your tweet draft, which eliminates wasted time spent re-typing your content. The app thoroughly organizes the mentions and tweets linked with your account. You can interact with Twitter users through this feature and gain more followers. Social Oomph can keep track of five Twitter accounts at once, for no charge.
- Gremln markets itself as secure social media. The company recently updated its security settings and is endorsed by state banking associations for FFIEC, FINRA and SEC social media compliance. The app provides a full-access marketing suite, assists in the set up of your social media strategies and monitors your return. It includes organizational tools that allow a streamlined system for utilization of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
- Tweetdeck – This simple social web service enables users toe easily manage multiple twitter accounts, manage numerous streams of followers, mentions, direct messages and more. Scheduling tweets is simple and all accounts can also be integrated with a shortening account like Bit.ly. Tweetdeck is free but quite useful. Ideal for anyone.
There’s no correct answer here and no one quick solution or blueprint for every organization. Regardless of which option you select for your brand or business, keep in mind that blogging and social media for your business will take time and a commitment. Most important, be regular, be true to yourself and have fun! Oh, and be sure to follow us for regular updates and tricks! Find us on Twitter & Instagram @geojobegis or see all our social media activity HERE.
Good luck with your holiday marketing strategy! Be sure to spread your content around over the holidays, posting through all your channels at various times. Be sure to also repost and re-purpse.
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