Holiday Rush Blueprint | Social Media Tactics to Boost Sales

Unlock the secrets to skyrocketing your holiday sales with our latest episode of Marketing con Sabor. Learn how to create content that stops the endless scroll and captures attention right from the start. With vibrant colors, strategic messaging, and movement as your allies, your social media posts will shine brighter than holiday lights. Discover the magic of pairing trending audio with your visuals to tell a story that resonates and sticks.

Explore the art of maintaining brand consistency while optimizing video quality, ensuring your brand’s unique voice shines through in every post. We share tips for harnessing natural lighting and clever placement to showcase your products in the best light possible. Engage your audience with urgency-driven marketing strategies like flash sales and countdown timers, and see how interactive elements like polls and countdown stickers can significantly boost engagement.

Power up your holiday marketing strategy with collaboration and strategic ad spending. Partner with brands that share your audience to expand your reach and foster trust. Learn to craft compelling holiday ads that fit any budget, ensuring your storytelling hits home, even in a 15-second format. With our insights and your creativity, you’ll be ready to turn this holiday season into a time of record-breaking sales and unforgettable content.

Where to dive in:

(0:00:00) – Boosting Holiday Sales Through Social Media (10 Minutes)

This chapter of Marketing con Sabor focuses on effective social media tactics to enhance visibility during the holiday season. I discuss the importance of creating scroll-stopping content, emphasizing the need for movement, bright colors, and strategic messaging in the first three seconds to capture attention. We explore how to effectively use trending audio that complements your content, rather than simply choosing what’s popular. The chapter also highlights the power of storytelling, illustrating how to weave a narrative in short video formats, like showing the journey of selecting a perfect gift and envisioning its future use. By planning and syncing visuals, audio, and storytelling, you can create engaging and memorable content that stands out amid the holiday rush.

(0:09:44) – Technical Tips, Trending Audio, and Best Practices for Social Media (12 Minutes)

This chapter focuses on optimizing video quality through natural lighting and maintaining brand consistency, especially in a digital marketing context. I explore the importance of finding the right balance of natural light, such as using shaded areas for product photography to avoid oversaturation. The conversation also highlights the significance of brand consistency, emphasizing that branding encompasses tone, aesthetic, and energy, not just visual elements like colors and fonts. I discuss the need to engage with trending music and social media trends without compromising brand authority. Additionally, I emphasize the importance of creating a sense of urgency in marketing strategies through last-minute deals, countdown timers, and flash sales to encourage quick conversions. The use of email lists and social media stories is recommended for effective storytelling and higher engagement, with a focus on using interactive elements like countdown stickers and polls to boost reach and conversions.

(0:21:23) – Boosting Holiday Sales Through Brand Collaboration (4 Minutes)

This chapter focuses on strategies for boosting holiday sales through social media, applicable to both e-commerce and service providers. We explore the benefits of going live to engage with audiences by addressing their immediate needs, offering tips, and creating a sense of urgency to drive conversions. Collaborating with a brand that shares your target audience is highlighted as a powerful tactic. By partnering with a complementary brand—not a direct competitor—and leveraging joint social media efforts, both brands can expand their reach and enhance trust with each other’s audiences, quickly moving through the sales funnel stages of ‘know’ and ‘like’. Additionally, the importance of running holiday ads is underscored, emphasizing that a strategic ad budget can effectively reach large audiences, providing a faster route to increased sales than organically growing a follower base.

(0:24:56) – Effective Holiday Ads on a Budget (1 Minutes)

This chapter focuses on creating impactful, eye-catching ads that tell a compelling story within a 15-second format, essential for engaging audiences and boosting sales during the holiday season. I share insights on producing different versions of ads—real, square, and horizontal—while maintaining a budget. Additionally, I introduce my master holiday ads on a budget mini course, now available at a discounted rate, designed to help you achieve conversion success. Accompanying the course is a free Holiday Rush Blueprint booklet, offering a detailed guide to executing effective holiday campaigns. Together, we can maximize reach and see tangible results during this bustling time of year.

Proud to be in the 918 and from the 956!

Transcript:

0:00:00 – Samantha Hollyfield
Standing out on social media during the holidays can feel a lot like navigating a blizzard. Bienvenidos y’all, welcome to Marketing con Sabor. I’m your host, samantha Hollyfield. I’m an MBA, an entrepreneur, and in every episode, we discuss the difference between strategy and tactics, so that way you can produce marketing promotions with flavor. That’s what support means, y’all. And in this episode, we’re actually going to talk about tactics. We’re going to talk about hand-to-hand combat on social media, so that way you can increase your visibility during the holidays and, hopefully, boost sales.

Everything in today’s episode is part of the Holiday Rush Blueprint. You can get the link for this free download in the comments for wherever you’re watching this video, in the description, in the show notes, whatever it is available. Wherever you find this video and it’s totally free All you got to do is drop in your email and we will send it to you so you can find success during the holiday season. Okay, let’s get in it. The first thing we’re going to talk about is scroll stopping content. Now, again, you’re going to want to download that guide, because there’s a lot of fine details in this that are going to be covered and listed out when you download this. So, to produce scroll stopping content.

Those first three seconds are critical. I want to see movement, I want to see bright colors. I want to see bright colors. I want to see stuff in the background. All of that is absolutely key in those first three seconds. Now, when I say stuff in the background, bright colors, movement, motion all of that, I’m not saying make something so distracting that people can’t focus and it looks messy. No, I want you to capture people’s attention strategically. Those first three seconds might immediately call out a need for your target audience, like looking for the best last minute Christmas gift for mom, for your mother-in-law, for something very niche and specific. So after those first three seconds, you’re going to show this product in action You’re going to do before You’re going to do an after. You’re going to show it in action You’re going to do before You’re going to do an after You’re going to show it in motion. You’re going to show, literally demonstrate the benefit of this product as it relates to whatever that strong statement was that you started out with for your reel. If you can do just those two things capture that benefit, that product in action, specifically, call out your niche you will be doing better than so many creators out there, so many brands. You will do a whole lot more in those first three seconds and those first 10 seconds than most people ever do, and it’s going to give you a leg up.

The next thing I want you to do is use trending audio. Now, not the most trending audio, because that means you’re going to be competing with a lot of other people doing the exact same thing and it gets pretty darn annoying. But I want you to look at the trending audio, see what’s out there, see what you can use that isn’t over inundated and saturated with reels and stuff. And here’s the big thing about using audio, guys it needs to go with the content. We are not just choosing audio to choose it because it’s trending, because everybody’s doing it. No, you want to pick audio that goes with what you’re doing, and that means you’ve got to sync up the beat with your actions. So I said you want to use motion, you want to have strong visuals. All of that needs to work in tandem with the music that you choose.

And here’s the other really key thing. So what are we going to do? We’re going to work in tandem with the music that you choose, and here’s the other really key thing. So what are we going to do? We’re going to work hard in those first three seconds. We’re going to call out our target audience, speak to that niche, speak to that need.

What are you know, looking for? A gift for dad that has everything that hard to buy, friend, whatever. And then you’re going to use motion and you’re going to show that thing in action before after benefit. And what else are you going to do? You’re going to choose that really great training music and sync up that beat. But not just that, you are also going to tell a story. I know that’s a lot to do in such a short amount of time, but I promise planning this thing out, taking just, you know, 10, 20 minutes to think about this before you record, is going to go a really long way.

So what could that story be? It could be literally picking out that gift, then thinking about how it could, you know, be shown in action. Maybe it’s like a fast forward to. You know, you picked out this present for dad who has everything, and you know, almost like a flash forward, of dad using these things, super happy or whatever, and then that person you know coming back to the present and that person wrapping this gift for dad. All you would have to do to, you know, show that transition to the future, do a fun little transition, and then put a different color grade on it. Then back to reality. Has the, you know, zoom almost backwards and then, like, zoom backwards, zoom backwards and then show the present day in that different color grade.

So that was kind of a lot, but that is an example of storytelling, right, picking out those first three seconds, you know how do I find a gift for the dad that has everything? And then it shows you looking at gifts for stuff and you spot the one you need. And then you, you know, think for stuff and you, you spot the one you need and then you, you know, think about how is dad going to use this? And then it, you know, does some kind of cool transition, change the color grade to showing dad using this thing in action. And then, you know, almost look like a rewind back to you thinking and into a different color grade, that present day color grade of you wrapping the gift and putting it under the tree, so excited for dad to open it. And maybe the last shot is dad opening it and like, yes, super excited and shocked.

Okay, so that’s a lot to do in under a minute for a real or a short. And I’m telling you, hey, those first three seconds are critical, then those first 10 seconds are critical, the first 15 are huge. I mean, if you, if you can really nail this thing down to like 15 seconds which I mean, guys, that seems impossible but it is totally possible. But it takes planning you could use that then for ads. 15 seconds is ideal. You would, you know, create the real version, the square version, you know that horizontal version. Then you would be able to optimize a digital ad perfectly and you would have this super strong storytelling visual that would lead to high conversion. Now, if you want to do that, if you want all the tricks and tips to do that during the holidays, I do have a master holiday ads on a budget mini course. It’s available for 29 right now. Usually 150 also have a link to that. Wherever you’re watching this, or you can go to hollyfield consultingcom hollyfield has two l’s and check out the shop. It’s there.

Now, another big thing here I mean, everything is a big thing when we’re trying to do this all in like under a minute, in 15 seconds, is you need to create a sense of urgency. So you know you’re not just looking for a holiday gift for the dad who has everything. It’s the fact that you’re down to the wire and maybe your brand has free shipping. Maybe they can order by this particular date to get it by Christmas. That is urgency. Maybe you have a special discount between this date and this date and you know what Allow them to do. You know, get it before Christmas, but also it’ll be wrapped, or something like that. Create urgency. Urgency could be as simple as hey, this is a bestseller and it’s going quick. We know this offer is limited. We have so much in stock and they’re flying out the door, just kidding. But again, you need to create a sense of urgency and that’s going to happen toward the end of your reel. It’s that last call to action.

The key here to boosting those holiday sales, if you’ve done that really great strategic work to make this reel absolutely fantastic, is to create that strong call to action that captures the urgency at the end. And, of course, if it is relevant to your brand and the identity of your brand and the tone of your brand is relevant to your brand and the identity of your brand and the tone of your brand, guys. You have an opportunity to be so silly and have so much fun with your team creating these things, because making people laugh is shareable. It’s that thing that gets it sent to people in their dms. Yes, you know, if we do something that is for that perfect person and we do it well, that will also, you know, get it shared and commented and whatever, and or tagged. I mean it could be that you know, like, hey, tag whoever really needs to buy this for you or something of that nature. Right, that creates engagement. But again, so you still want to have that urgency kind of thing at the end of your reel to create conversion. But we want to make this thing shareable, commentable, engageable. Why? Because engagement helps you literally boost through the algorithm. So the algorithm is going to see oh, people are liking this, people are commenting on this, people are sharing and it will help increase your reach organically. Now I’m going to say you need a paid holiday budget, paid ad budget during the holidays, but we want to do as much as we can organically to help those dollars go further, to help our conversion rate be better. So a big way that we do that, of course, is to encourage participation, and a huge way to do that is getting people to comment and to tag people is getting people to comment and to tag people. That is really what you’re looking for in order to tell the algorithm hey, we’re here, please help us get more reach and impressions.

And I really just wanna give you some technical tips that absolutely make a difference in terms of standing out, and that is good lighting and the quality of your video. Now, you don’t have to have the most sophisticated gear, but you do need to make sure that the quality of your video. Now, you don’t have to have the most sophisticated gear, but you do need to make sure that the quality of your video is good and lighting goes a long, long way. So let’s say you don’t. For example, I have two really great lights right here. If I didn’t have that, I should probably be facing a window with the sun shining in, so that way it lights me really well.

Natural light goes a long, long, long, long, long, long way in improving the quality of your video. However, you can’t have it so light and bright that you are overly saturated and it just washes you out completely. You want good natural light. So if you are outside, for example, when we take product photos of our Poodle 918 stuff or video. We love going in front of this mural on Brookside here in Tulsa. It casts a really great shadow, so it could be really sunny and gorgeous outside and if we just step into that shadow we have incredible natural lighting. We don’t need any extra lighting for our footage and it looks fantastic. That’s what you can find.

So let’s say, it’s super bright outside. Don’t step directly in front of the sun where you’re like looking like this. No, don’t do that. Find a really great shaded area where you’re getting all the benefit of the natural light without the oversaturation and somebody squinting as they speak. Of course, if somebody isn’t speaking, you could totally be in direct sunlight. You just want to have, like, the right background and all those things. Maybe it’s some kind of action shot, that’s okay, but if you are speaking, if you are maybe doing product photography or videography, you may need some kind of overcast or shadowy kind of area where you get the most out of the natural light without the glare. It depends. You’re going to need to experiment a bit, but all of that, to say lighting, is critical.

Another big thing is going to be your brand consistency. So, in terms of standing out, we want to jump on trending music, maybe jump on some cool trends that are happening, but we don’t want to do this at the expense of our brand authority that we work so hard to build all year long. And branding is not just the colors that you use, the fonts that you use, your logo. Branding is your tone. Branding is the whole aesthetic of what you’re doing. Branding is the energy you bring to this thing. Is it light, is it dark? Is it funny? What is it? All of that matters and it’s part of the integrity of your brand. You need to carry that into the creative things that you do so you don’t lose followers. If you are suddenly jumping on a trend that makes no sense with who your brand is, you might lose people because it gives them the ick Ugh. Why are they so cringy? What are they doing? And here’s the other big thing.

I talked about a sense of urgency. You’re gonna need some of those last minute deals, last minute sales. It’s not gonna be. Hey, it’s christmas eve, come buy this right now. Nobody’s gonna get that in time right. It’s capitalizing on the hay. We have three, you know, two weeks before christmas in the next 48 hours, we are putting a discount on this thing so you can get this special gift with free shipping before christmas eve, so you can get that puppy wrapped under the tree. It might be that, hey, this product is so popular, we actually created extra and we are having a flash sale so that way you can get it on time for christmas. It could also be, hey, we are doing local delivery, we are doing curbside pickup, we are doing free shipping, all for the next. You know, 72 hours, 48 hours, 24 hours.

Create that urgency and create that last minute feeling so people convert fast. You don’t want to give people so much time. Hey, it’s three weeks for the holiday and you know order now. No, don’t do that. Create urgency, create that prompt for conversion right away. You can also effectively create that sense of urgency with something like a countdown timer. Make it literal, put it on your website, use it in your social posts. You know, actually visually show people how much time they have left, even when they’re checking out, so that way it can help them convert. Now in the Holiday Rush Blueprint, that free guide. That’s in the notes for all of this stuff.

I actually give you 10 subject lines where you can put in your brand, put in your product that have a sense of urgency for your email list. So, yes, we are mainly talking about social, but obviously we have email lists where that is a great place to get people to convert and it is a low cost for actually doing advertising, promotion and seeing conversion. So use those subject lines. They have a sense of urgency. You can plug and play your brand information. You can tighten them up, you can turn it into chat, gpt and then add the tone for your brand. So you know, put the thing that I gave you there, plug in your information, put it in chat, gpt and say add humor, add this, add nostalgia, add you know something specific there to your brand to make it better, add you know something specific there to your brand to make it better.

Another super cool thing and often overlooked way to boost sales and see conversion on social during the holidays are your Instagram and Facebook stories. Stories are short, they’re only about 15 seconds, but you can tell really cool stories in stories and see a higher conversion rate than you would on a regular post. You can use countdown stickers to create that sense of urgency that I talked about. You can use polls to create extra engagement. Again, anytime somebody engages, the algorithm recognizes that thing and helps that reach more people.

You can do all kinds of behind the scenes videography showing you know packaging products, you know how a product works. You can tell a story for the benefit, showcasing the benefit of that product. Now I don’t want you just to throw up anything in stories, not just a pretty graphic, not just a 15 second behind the scenes. I want that behind the scenes, I want that graphic. I want anything you do in stories to what Tell a story. And that can be tough. You have to think about it beforehand. You’re going to say, okay, I want to say this in 15 seconds, and then this in 15 seconds and then this, and then I need to do the last 15 seconds really as my call to action, my sense of urgency, how they can act. Have my links Now, remember, a lot of people watch stories with sound off.

So if you are talking, I want you to make sure that you are using captions so they can read and follow along, which often means you kind of got to edit those captions so that way they say everything correctly. Again, technical tip lighting matters, even for stories. You can get a little less technical in stories and set up a phone and do a recording, but your lighting is still going to be really important and, again, movement will always catch the eye. So let’s say you’re panning over your products or something as you’re talking about them. Let’s say that you’re zooming in on a particular product, zooming out on something. Maybe you have stop motion, maybe you have quick cuts showing different products in a row or how a product is being used, or before and after videos. You can do a whole lot in 15 seconds when you think about the story that you’re telling and again when you download the booklet.

I want you to use the same concepts that I told you you need in a reel or a short meaning. In those first three seconds, what you’re saying and doing really matters to capture attention. Throwing up key things on the screen, to call out your target audience. That’s still going to matter in stories. So you’re going to want to make sure that very first story that you have in your sequence does those first three seconds really well. It has that motion, it has those subtitles. It’s keeping people engaged so that they go to the next slide, because they are wanting to see what’s next? Same thing at the end of your reel or short You’re going to have in your last sequence of your story. It’s going to have that sense of urgency, that strong call to action that motivates people to act quickly.

This sale is not going to last. This sale is not going to last. This is hand-to-hand combat y’all. That means I want you in the comments. That means I want you responding to people and engaging authentically, genuinely Gosh, authentic is so overused. But seriously, you don’t want to just use a chatbot to respond to all of your comments. Now you may be using something like ManyChat to send people some kind of free thing in their DMs discount code, whatever. Yeah, that’s fantastic, don’t stop doing that. But on other posts where you’re not using something automatic like ManyChat, I want you to be in there responding to people. If they tag somebody and say something along with it, respond to them If they think something is funny that you posted. Respond to them with something quippy and fun. Be engaging, use the tone of your brand and actually get in the mix with your followers. Again, engagement spurs engagement and helps the algorithm. Help whatever you’re doing reach more people A huge but kind of intimidating way to get in the mix with your audience in real time is to go live, and you guessed it.

Lighting is really gonna matter, and so is the quality of your video. You don’t want to look like you know you’re in one of those scary movies where the phone keeps shaking, right? What was that movie in the 90s, early 2000s, I forget um, something about a witch gosh. I don’t know, but you remember right, the phone was shaky and everything being viewed like, or the video camera I guess it wasn’t a phone at that time but your stories you’re going live, whatever you’re doing. That live thing can’t look like that y’all.

You need to do this with purpose. You need to go in and know that your technical setup is good. So if you’re wearing a lapel, you want to make sure that it’s hooked up correctly to your camera or your phone. Make sure that you’re actually capturing audio from the lapel and not from that device, otherwise that could sound super far away, super echoey, super bad. You want to make sure that duh, the lighting is good. You want to make sure that the quality of that video doesn’t look like it’s recorded on, you know, a pink razor flip phone. All of that stuff matters. Once again, if you don’t have lighting, natural light will go a whole long way. You have to test before you go live so you can do it right, and you need to go in with what A plan looks, showing the inside, how soft the fabric is. Maybe you’re showing how you might style something that could be really cool.

Now, if you are doing styling stuff, you would want to have everything prepped right, so you put on the item and then you like, put on the next thing that would go with it. Put on the next thing that would go with it. Talk about why you chose those things or what else you might do, what you wish you had. Oh, it’s over here, let me get it. You actually already had it ready. You go in with a plan so you’re not scrambling as you do it, meaning you’re going to lose attention, lose engagement. People are going to tune out, swipe away.

And, speaking of the technical, when you go live, you want to frame the shot, so you need a plan, right? Let’s say you’re in your store. You want to already have a walkthrough plan of what you’re going to video and why you want to have. Okay, we’re going to be trying on products over here. We’re going to make sure we have this beautiful Christmas background. Maybe there’s like a stand in the back with, like a big discount code or something, perhaps there is. You know you’re somewhere, very noticeable, so people know where you are. You need to frame the shot.

Well, you don’t have to be a professional videographer to do this, you just have to be thoughtful, and this is one of those things that is often forgotten Make sure your phone if that’s what you’re using is on airplane mode. Nothing is worse than going live and you’re interrupted by a phone call or text or any of these other things that can be distracting or cut off your video a phone call or text or any of these other things that can be distracting or cut off your video. And another thing make sure that you save this video. It can be used for other reels, other shorts, on other platforms. Make sure you save it and get the opportunity to reuse this content.

Now, I talked a lot about kind of the e-commerce side of things, where you’re selling a physical product, but if you are a service provider, y’all this still applies to you. You can still go live and be talking about things that are extremely relevant to your audience and whatever you’re planning to sell, so you can go live and talk about the immediate needs that your audience is experiencing during this holiday season and, you know, address those things, offer tips, offer something, speak to the benefit of what you’re selling. That will help them and then create that sense of urgency and you know, tell them where to get it right. Duh, and that going live is a wonderful opportunity if people are engaging in the comments to answer questions real time and help with conversion.

This is probably one of my favorite ways to increase holiday sales on social and that is to collaborate with a brand that shares your target audience. So if you are selling, you know, cowboy boots, I’m not saying to go partner with somebody who is also selling cowboy boots. I’m saying go partner with somebody who also shares your target audience. Partner with somebody who also shares your target audience. So if you’re selling boots and you know that this is really for, like, rancors, kids in FFA, you know, or just, maybe you live in Oklahoma, like I do, and a lot of people wear boots, go partner with somebody like I don’t know an outdoor store who also has other cool stuff that will be relevant to whoever wears boots. Right, maybe they literally live out in the country. Maybe it’s a car dealer who’s also has some kind of like you know holiday discount on trucks. That’s a thing.

Partner with somebody who shares your target audience, then go live together, create reels and shorts and click that collaborate button on social media so that way it reaches both of your audiences. And what happens is because you have trust with your audience and they have trust with theirs. When you collaborate like that, you are introducing one another’s brands to each other’s audiences and because they trust their brand, those followers will start trusting you because of that collaboration. It is a very fast way to get past the no and like in the sales funnel. The sales funnel is no like trust, try, buy, repeat, refer. Now a lot of social media is doing the no and the like and doing all the work to build that. But if you have no and like and trust with your following and so do they and you collaborate, it is a very quick way to get past that no and like and see conversion, especially during your critical time, like the holidays Again.

So what’s the key? I’m not saying go partner with an influencer. I’m saying partner with another brand who also has to see sales, who also has to see people walking through the door or visiting their website, somebody who also has a sense of urgency. You can do some kind of co-deal, creating that sense of urgency together. Discount code, whatever it is. Be creative, create urgency, follow those other tips I’ve said and make sure that the big thing here you share each other’s target audience. Your customers are their customers. You just sell a different thing. That works well together.

Now mentioned holiday ads earlier, and it’s because it’s critical, guys, it’s just a reality of social media. Not having an ad budget and doing social is really tough, especially when you need sales fast. You’re not going to magically have a hundred thousand followers overnight. It’s not going to happen. But you know what you can do is reach a hundred thousand people when you run a really good ad, and a great way to do that is to follow the tips that I mentioned at the very beginning of this video.

Create that incredible, eye-catching, strong storytelling, urgency, creating real and then use that as an ad. And to do that it really needs to be 15 seconds. You could have the real version, the square version, the horizontal version and then make sure you have a really fabulous audience and you can get conversion and you can reach a whole lot more and you can do it on a budget. So if you want to do that, you can go check out my master holiday ads on a budget mini course. It’s only 29 bucks right now. It’s usually 150 and I’ve done that because I get it.

I also have to do this thing and so I’m doing it with you and I’m showing you how to do it. So you can go buy it Got a link in the comments and wherever you’re watching this it’s there. Or you can visit hollyfieldconsulting.com slash shop Hollyfield has two L’s and, of course, download the free booklet that goes along with this video, the Holiday Rush Blueprint booklet that goes along with this video, the holiday rush blueprint. It’s going to help you do all the things I just said, but it has it all written down and laid out. So let’s do this thing together and tell me how it works for you. I want to get in the mix. That’s so important to me because I really care about this stuff. Otherwise, why would I do it? It takes a lot of time. So thank you so much and y’all let’s get out there during the holidays and let’s see conversion and boost sales.