Five Ways to Promote Your Small Business’ Holiday Deals on Social Media

One of the biggest challenges businesses of any size face during the holidays is cutting through the marketing clutter and generating attention for seasonal deals. It’s important not to get ignored and risk missing out on sales at this vitally important time of year.

For small businesses especially, social media is an invaluable tool in this effort. If used well, it’s often the most efficient and cost-effective way of getting noticed by potential customers.

Here’s a look at five forms of social media interaction that should be part of your small business’ promotional plan this holiday season.

Facebook Messenger ads

Messaging apps have become even more popular than traditional social media networks in recent years, thanks in part to the 1.3 billion-plus people who communicate via Facebook Messenger. As Messenger and similar services have grown in popularity, shoppers have shown an increased interest in exchanging messages with their preferred brands and businesses. Users enjoy the format’s relative lack of intrusiveness and the ability of chatbots to deliver rapid replies to their queries. Use Messenger to deliver daily or weekly content to your audience advertising your complete range of holiday deals, or to drive traffic to your online store. Learn more from Facebook.

Instagram Stories and polls

Instagram is like having a private TV channel you can use to deliver content to customers. A newly popular part of this social network is Instagram Stories, where users post photos and 15-second videos that disappear after 24 hours. The posts don’t appear on Instagram profile page or the site’s main feed, and viewers can’t leave likes or make public comments.

Instagram Stories are a great testing ground for marketing ideas, and their short lifespan relieves creators of the burden of making them flawless and perfect – they’re almost expected to be a little rough around the edges. Use them to post compelling content that keeps users coming back for more and to deliver other calls to action regarding holiday promotions.

Among the many features that can be used to enhance Instagram Stories are polls. Although polls can only have two outcomes, you can customize the questions and answers within fixed character counts. Besides increasing the likelihood of user engagement, polls offer an invaluable window into the desires and preferences of your followers and customers.

Facebook Live

Live video has become a prominent and popular part of the social media experience, and offers many opportunities for creating engaging, marketable content. Thanks to its immediacy and interactivity, the format is popular for Q&As, how-to demonstrations, or debates and discussions. Come up with a unique, creative a way to include the products featured in your holiday deals in a Facebook Live video, possibly by including a special guest who adds to the excitement.

Snapchat Geofilters

Geofilters allow Snapchat users to add a location-specific illustration or text to their posted photos. For a fee, business owners can create their own limited-time geofilter and make it available to any users who visit the location where the filter is available, such as a neighbourhood or your brick-and-mortar store. If the filter is popular or creative enough, it can become an invaluable way of attracting attention to your business. For instance, you could offer a holiday-themed geofilter that mentions your brand by name, and references a specific sale or discount offer. Shoppers who shoot photos of themselves taking advantage of your deals can post their photos to Snapchat and apply the filter, spreading word to all their friends and followers about the great bargain they just bagged at your business.

Extended Tweets

Twitter recently doubled the maximum length of tweets from 140 characters to 280. Take advantage of the extra space to say more than you could before about seasonal sales and promoted products, without having to worry so much about keeping the text so tight. There’s also more space for brands to boost engagement by using hashtags, adding photos and videos, or offering more detailed responses to customer questions and comments.