Need some last-minute Twitter tips for holiday Tweets?
You’ve planned your tweets to promote your holiday marketing campaigns. You’re well and truly entrenched in seasonal promotions. But, why aren’t your messages getting the results you need?
It’s not too late to increase your sales. Here are 12 holiday season Twitter tips to give your marketing the boost it deserves.
1. Images
Images have always been a big driver of engagement. Photos and videos deepen the connection with your Followers. They let you show – not tell – your product and brand story.
Twitter has made some big changes recently to make tweets much more image-rich. Visual tweets are now shown in your timeline by default. Twitter has also made photos and vine videos easier and more interactive on mobile.
Take advantage of this opportunity to broaden your Twitter marketing appeal over the holidays.
Marriott Hotels inspires with dream vacation photos
3 tips for images in your tweets:
- Show your message visually, to increase engagement
- Use images or videos for lifestyle, fun, quotes, and even products
- Tweet customer images (get UGC via photo contests
2. Discounts & Coupons
Christmas shoppers are looking for deals. Drive people to your store by offering discounts and coupons to your Twitter Followers.
Coupons on Twitter are really cool both for eCommerce sites, and bricks-and-mortar stores.
For example:
- You can host coupons directly on your eCommerce site, and Tweet about it to drive your Followers to your online store.
- You can host mobile-optimized coupons directly on Twitter, and gain foot traffic to your store from your mobile Followers.
It’s not too late to make a coupon campaign for your business. You can make a coupon app in about 5 minutes – and have it live to reach out to your customers for the shopping season.
Starbucks tweets about their holiday deals
3 coupon tips:
- People love to get a discount for Christmas shopping
- Set up coupons on your landing pages, or direct via your Twitter
- Make your coupons mobile enabled
3. Holiday Contests
Contests generate excitement and increase engagement with your customers. Use holiday-themed contests to increase sales in both your local stores and your online shopping sites over December.
You can generate tons of participants by running multiple holiday contests – such as “12 Days of Contests”. People will get to know your contests, and keep coming back daily for more.
You can also get lots of entrants by giving away lots of prizes – but keeping the monetary value low (such as a $25 gift card, like Target).
The link takes you to their sweepstakes landing page:
Make sure your prize has appeal for the holidays. Gift cards are brilliant – as they can be used by your entrants immediately. Gift cards can also be used as presents for your stressed-out shoppers.
3 holiday contest tips:
- Make your prize holiday-related, or gift cards to encourage immediate sales
- Host your Christmas contest on a landing page, or via your Twitter
- Run multiple contests with many winners
4. Add Some Goodwill
The holiday season is also a time for charity and giving. Show that you are a company that cares. Support a charity, and tweet about it to your followers.
Choose a charity that suits your brand. For example, if you are:
- a locally based store, support a local charity
- a restaurant or grocery store, support a food bank
- a global chain, support a global cause
Encourage your followers to get involved too. Non-profits could use the promotion at this time of year, and your customers will appreciate that you care.
Ikea USA has a global soft toy educational campaign to support kids (and families)
3 tips for adding goodwill
- Show your brand cares by holiday giving
- Choose a charity that fits with your business goals (i.e. local, children, global, etc.)
- Tweet about it to encourage customers to support with you
5. Holiday Lifestyle Tips: Recipes
‘Tis the season for eating. Whether your customers are big on baking, entertaining at cocktail parties, or just thinking a lot about yummy food – recipes tweets can be a big hit this time of year.
You can solve your customers’ lifestyle problems by showing them great Christmas recipes and entertaining tips. Use images in your updates, and tweet links to either your own blog with recipes – or someone else’s.
Your Followers will love that you’re thinking of their needs.
Whole Foods is brilliant at driving traffic to its recipe blog.
3 tips for recipe tweets:
- Solve customer problems with lifestyle tips, like recipes
- Tweet links to great party appetizer, baking, and breakfast recipes (on your site or others)
- Include an image of the food, too
6. Seasonal Hashtags
Include popular seasonal hashtags in your Tweets. They will spread the reach of your messages, and get more people clicking through on your links.
A few popular hashtags over Christmas and December are:
- #giftideas
- #lastminutedeals
- #stockingstuffers
- #holidayjoy
You can also check out hashtags your followers are using. Include them in your holiday tweets to get found by like-minded people.
New: Google now includes #’s in search! So, using seasonal hashtags can get your tweets found beyond Twitter.
3 tips for holiday hashtags:
- Use popular holiday hashtags like #giftideas #lastminutedeals or #stockingstuffers
- Connect with like-minded people – use hashtags your followers use
- Use product, campaign, and trending hashtags
7. Share your @mentions
Use @mentions to connect directly with customers and partners. Use it to respond to people who’ve tweeted to you, or used your brand or campaign hashtag. Use it to send out messages to people about your sales or events.
When you start a tweet with “@mention”, your tweet only appears to the person you’ve sent it to, and on your timeline. It does not get shown to all of your Followers. There are ways around this!
Use a “.” in front of your @mention, for example:
- . @wishpond’s contest apps drove my holiday sales up 1,200% this year. Thank you!
Use small words like “Tx”, “The” or “RT please” in front of your @mentions, for example:
- Tx @wishpond! You made my holiday marketing easy!
iTunes uses “.”
3 tips for sharing @mentions:
- Get your @mentions seen by all your followers – don’t start it with @mention
- Use “.” in front of your @mention to get it shared
- Put “the” “tx” “RT” etc in front of your initial @mention
8. Personalize Your Tweets
Connect with your followers by showing the human side of your business. Show people that you can relate to them, and they’re more likely to relate to you – and buy from you too!
Craft your holiday tweets in a personal tone. Use pronouns like “you” “me” and “us”. Show photos of your happy, friendly staff. Make your place of business look inviting, to drive foot traffic to it.
Show behind-the-scene looks at your staff preparing for the holiday rush. (You may just improve staff morale too!)
Yup, even businesses like Android are humanizing through social media.
3 tips to personalizing your tweets:
- Write your tweets with “you” “me” and “us”
- Tweet photos of your busy, friendly staff – to show you’re human (hey, if Android can do it – you can too!)
- Include behind the scenes looks at events you’re hosting – online or off
9. Twitter Ads
Spend some of your season’s ad budget on Twitter’s Promoted Tweets. If you’ve never used them yet, try them out this holiday season. They’re super highly targeted, and you only pay when people engage with your ads.
Twitter ads can be uber-targeted by:
- keywords people are tweeting
- interests and gender
- geo-location
- Followers, and people similar to Followers
- mobile device
You can see your analytics to monitor and improve your results in real-time. Oh yeah, you can even target your competition. Check this out. I was searching for H&M for examples for this article. @Gap was the first tweet.
Pretty cheeky, Gap!
3 tips for your Twitter ads:
- Use Promoted Tweets to get your posts seen by your followers and more
- Target your competition, like the Gap did here with H&M
- Promote your most engaging posts, like cool vine videos
10. Be Easy to Contact
The holiday shopping season can be a frustrating one for your customers. Give them great customer service to help them through.
Change up your Twitter background to upload a cleanly designed contact information box. Put your contact info on the right-hand side of your Twitter page – don’t ask me for specifics, but the right-hand side gets more views for Twitter contact info…
Oh, and it really helps your customer service image if you’ve got a CEO who’s willing to put their own presence on it.
Check out the brilliant Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com
3 tips for contacting ease:
- Holiday shopping can be stressful – make it easy for customers to get your help
- Design a Twitter background with your business contact info
- Include store locations, hours, and other common queries
11. Ask for a RT
This is a classic on Twitter. Ask for a retweet by starting your tweets with “RT”.
Use the method as a way to engage your Followers, by asking them a question, for example. Include “RT” in your coupon, sale, or contest campaigns to encourage more sharing of your store discounts.
“RT”’s get an average of 12 times more engagement than tweets with no sharing ask. And hey, if you actually spell out “Retweet”, your messages get shared 23 times more!
Walmart uses community building tactics with “RT”’s
3 tips for asking for a RT:
- Make your RT tweet an interactive question or consumer choice
- Use RT asks in your holiday coupon and contest campaigns
- Spell out “retweet”, to get 23x’s more engagement
12. Show Your Product
Yup, you can even show your product(s) to get them sold during the shopping season.
When you do tweet about your products – show them. Use visually enticing images, photos and vine or youtube videos.
Always keep your customer in mind, too. Craft your message to explain how your product will solve a customer problem. And use a personal tone with “you”, “me” or “us”. Think of what you’d say to your customer if they were in-store.
Include a link directly to your product on your ecommerce site. Make it easy to buy your product during the busy holiday times.
Check out how H&M shows their festive red dresses – solving the customer problem of what to wear at all those holiday parties!
3 tips for showing your product
- Use visually appealing images of your product
- Think about lifestyle in product tweets – how will your goods solve customer problems
- Include a link directly to your ecommerce landing page
Conclusion
It’s not too late to up your Twitter marketing game. Act on these tips, and increase your Twitter generated sales this year!
To learn more Twitter marketing tips:
- 60 Simple Ways to Increase Your Twitter Followers
- The 9 Most Common Mistakes on Twitter
- 12 Formulas: How to Use Twitter to Drive Traffic to Your Blog
- 6 Sure-fire Methods to Generate Email Leads Using Twitter
What are your tips? Are you successfully marketing on Twitter? What works for your business?
Written by Krista Bunskoek @ Wishpond
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