Christmas is just around the corner – you want time to relax and enjoy a well deserved break but you also want to keep your audience engaged throughout the festive period. What do you do? This is a very common marketing conundrum and businesses are often only left with two choices – creating and scheduling ahead of time, or maintaining their responsive social media presence at the expense of their downtime.
However, there is also a third option: outsourcing.
But which solution is right for you and your business? This blog post will help you decide.
Getting ahead
Planning ahead has a variety of benefits, and certainly appears as the best solution initially. When you create a complete schedule with auto-post enabled, you can switch off and enjoy your holiday without interruption, knowing that your social media pages are continuing on without you.
When scheduling, you can choose specific dates and times that are consistent with one another, helping to build businesses credibility and trust with your audience. Scheduling also allows you to target the times your audience is most active, maximising the posts efficiency and increasing the audience’s engagement. In turn, this will boost your posts outreach and broaden your audience.
Planning ahead has the added benefit of allowing you to take your time when creating content – which is especially important during the festive period, as content is likely to move away from the norm at this time of year. Rushing to put together an Instagram post or insufficiently proofreading your blog means mistakes can slip through the net. Nobody wants their social media presence tarnished by questionable content, having time to create your posts or write your blogs in advance means you can double (or even triple) check that your content is showcasing all the elements that make your business authentically great.
When creating your schedule, remember that things change, so you may need to rearrange it in future. Don’t underestimate the importance of evergreen content, these can be easily rearranged to make room for content responding to current events or trends. Making your schedule a mixture of evergreen content and posts that are time sensitive keeps it varied yet mobile. Meaning, you spend less time rearranging and more relaxing!
One downside to scheduling in advance is that you will likely fall short on being responsive. If you’re switching off over the holiday period and staying away from social platforms, client comments may be unreplied to and therefore engagement may drop. However, this is a relatively small price to pay for a relaxing Christmas!
Being responsive
New trends or updates appear and disappear again from social media platforms at an incredible rate, sometimes it seems like you can’t look away without it changing. This is why being responsive with your content is important when building your social media presence. Talking about current events or participating in trends as they emerge places you in a position to reach a wider audience before it’s been oversaturated. Staying relevant and up to date prevents your business from appearing to be outdated or “jumping on the bandwagon”, when the bandwagon has already left. This keeps your content fresh and stops your feed from appearing stale or robotic.
Creating responsive content allows you to build stronger relationships with your audience. Being active once you’ve uploaded a post means you can respond to comments as they appear, which engages your audience and boosts your brand’s image. If a comment were to be praising your brand or asking a question, showing gratitude or providing an answer is key. It shows that you care about your audience and showcases the wonderfully human element of your business. This is something that customers are proven to be drawn to.
Once you’re seen to be consistently engaging with your audience, they’ll be more likely to engage with you, which is fantastic for excelling your presence. After all, would you want to join a conversation if nobody was going to respond?
Outsourcing your social media presence
A third option, which many businesses opt to take, is to outsource your marketing efforts. By outsourcing, you don’t need to worry about any of the above, as a team of marketing professionals will do it for you. From content creation and copywriting to scheduling and live engagement, an outsourced team can handle it all.
Meanwhile, you can sit back, pour yourself a mulled wine and spend time with those you love. All with the knowledge that your online presence is continuing to thrive.
So, what do I do?
Whilst every business is different and may require a varied approach, it’s important to have a mix of both planned and responsive content. This keeps your audience engaged throughout the time you’re away by providing them with consistent content whilst still leaving enough breathing space for added responsive content.
If you decide to market in-house, striking a balance between the two may take some trial and error. We recommend testing out pre planned schedules on a regular basis so that you can see what adjustments may need to be made in future. The more prepared you are the more you can enjoy some stress free time off!
Switching off at Christmas with the help of Octima
Of course, if a well-earned break is what you really want, then outsourcing is the answer. Whether it’s social media posts, blogs, website development, or email marketing, Octima can take the reins and ensure your online presence is as engaging as ever.
If you’d like a helping hand over the next festive period, get in touch on 01202 022108 or at hello@octima.co.uk
