5 tips on how to engage your fans on social media during the festive seasons

Janet Yu, public relations and marketing veteran, shares her takeaways about social media engagement during the festive period.

Chinese New Year is around the corner and, for brands, this is a good time to engage with their fans. Even though you may potentially need to do some work during the holidays, which may get you some raised eyebrows from the team, however, it is important to utilize this opportunity.

During the last Thanksgiving holidays, Instagram received its record-high usage throughout the whole year, averaging 226 photos uploaded per second. The holidays and festive seasons always encourage the public to use social media to share their experiences.  In general, everyone is more open minded to new ideas and concepts. So how should you go about with your holiday social media engagements?

1) Create interactions with your fans

A good tip is to make sure your message with your fans is interactive. The more diverse the message is, the easier it is for fans to reply and engage with you. Fans will also know that you are listening to them. It is important to make sure that the message is relevant to your fans. A recent study revealed the biggest reason why someone unfollowed a brand is because the brand posted content that was irrelevant. An important tip is to make sure to create activities that your fans can relate to, such as photo contests or creating a wish list.

2) A balanced message is key

A balanced message is very important as at times, brands can sometimes write messages that can be more promotional than engaging.

3) Posting at a right time for your fans

Another tip for optimizing engagements is to make sure you post your messages at good times. Most of the Facebook users in Hong Kong are active between 12 midnight to 1 am. A lot of brands have good content in their posts but these are posted during the daytime, which their fans don’t get to read about.  Weekends are also a good time to engage with fans.

4) Plan it early

Last minute rush is never ideal! The earlier you can plan your campaign, the better it is for you and your team. This can help to avoid last minute costs too.

5) Measure your campaign

It is important to measure the impact of your campaign, so you can take away any learning. It will also help you to identify habits and characteristics of your fans.

A good example for the above is Prudential Corporation’s Asia Fan page. They created a holiday drawing competition on Facebook and asked parents and family to submit their children’s drawing.  The prize for the competition is an education fund of up to US$10,000.

This example practices good engagement tips because it interacts with fans by creating a competition. It first came out middle of November last year where everyone is aware that Christmas is around the corner.  If we look at the prize that was given out, the education fund can be easily related to Prudential’s product. Last but not least, when we take a closer look at Prudential’s marketing promotions, it always has a strong focus on children and financial literacy. This competition managed linked the two main elements of Prudential’s business together.

A good holiday campaign should try to take in as many as the points as above, but not necessarily be too complicated. A message that has a good tone of voice, i.e. human-like and not over promotional can be a great start.  Have a lovely holiday!

About the author

Janet Yu, born and raised in Hong Kong, went to the UK for her education. There, she read law and business but ended up working for an IT/ Media  company. First, starting in sales and now in public relations and marketing. Passionate about SaaS, entrepreneurship, sales and marketing. Her motto is “Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending”. Janet is currently Marketing & Communications Manager, APAC at Meltwater Group. Follow her on twitter at @janetcyu.

Image credits: Gigcoin

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