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Dec 04 2014

Making 2015 Awesome – Reboot your social!

Welcome to December – and happy (almost) New Year from us at Upswept Creative! Whether you’ll be spending your the holidays at home or out on the town, the move from 2014 to 2015 is the perfect opportunity to breathe new life into your brand’s online presence and social media.

From making the most of your social media to stoking the fire under your online sales, now is the time to dust things off! Every week in December, we’ll showcase a new aspect of keeping your brand fresh and alive in 2015. This first week, we’ll show you some tips and tricks to get your social networks revving during the holiday season and new year.

1.) It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas – all over the internet.

Google are not the only people to change their “doodles” for special events and seasons. Many websites change up their icons, colours, or headers to make things look seasonally appropriate, or just to provide some visual stimulus and keep things looking fresh.

Consider updating your Facebook cover image or profile picture, Twitter background or YouTube channel art with something fun, whimsical, and holiday-related. This is a great opportunity to do something humorous and a little different than your usual styling. Do you have some fun holiday-themed infographic you’ve been dying to create? Let us do it for you! Now is the time.

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Connecting to your audience while supporting others feels good and does good for your business.

 

2.) Tis’ the Season… to be giving!

Thanksgiving may be over, but that doesn’t mean that it’s too late to show your feel connected. As the weather gets colder and resources wear thin, many people struggle to make ends meet. Do you have cause you feel especially passionate about? (For us, it’s our Bowlful of Heart pet food drive!)

Combine it with your social media, and get two for the price of one. Some examples include donating food to a charity for every Like you receive on Facebook, organizing a toy drive and then tweeting about it, teaming up with others to do a charity event of some kind, or even just collecting gift cards to donate to charities at your Christmas event. Be sure to mention on social what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and how people can support you reach your goals!

3.) Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa and New Year’s are particularly photogenic times of the year.

Leaves, snow and ice, lights, candles, gifts, meals, ugly sweaters, fireworks…the perfect time to take some photos of your business, or even set up an Instagram contest. Get your followers to tag you in their holiday photos, compile a jury or judge the entries yourself, and reward the best photos with some prizes of your choice. You can even combine a photo contest with some charitable giving – the best photos could be rewarded with a donation to the winner’s favourite cause.

If Instagram is not part of your business repertoire, you can tweak the holiday competition idea to work on Facebook or Twitter. Asking your audience to participate, by sharing stories, tips, recipes and gift ideas helps create the sense of community and buy-in that strengthens your social media presence.

4.) Take advantage of the end of the year’s atmosphere of renewal to launch a new product line, pricing strategy, package deal or service.

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Take advantage of this festive time of year.

Create some buzz around these new offerings by talking about them on social media first, before you create a big reveal on your website! Create a special sale, a coupon, or limited-time only deal, and make sure your social networks know about them.

Do you have any ideas about how to make your brand shine on social this time of year? Are you thinking you could use some handy internet elves to help out with whimsical Facebook headers, Christmasifying your blog, or running an Instagram contest featuring dogs in sweaters? Get in touch, we’re here for you!