How to Sleigh the Holiday Season with Instagram

Instagram state there are more than 400 million daily users for stories. Instagram Story ads have proven to be a cost-effective solution for Holiday Marketing. Efficient avenue for merchants to gain brand and product awareness.  Instagram gives you a number of features that you can apply to your holiday posts that are a quick & engaging format perfectly suited for mobile experiences.

Create a quick Instagram Story :

Instagram Stories allows you a ton of ways to get creative. Use all the opportunities at your disposal to bring your content to life. Combine text, pictures, videos, stickers, filters, interactive polls and doodles to produce fun and interesting holiday content.

Consider treating your holiday Stories like a TV network with scheduled programming for the week, or even recurring “episodes” that happen on certain days. Thinking in advance about what kind of content you’ll be sharing and how your Story will flow will help you craft a more addictive and consistent experience for your viewers.

Instagram Story ads may be a win/win for you this year, as a low-cost option with the opportunity for high engagement. And with our suggestions for creating low-cost creative assets, you should be able to take advantage of this channel with very little time and effort... A rare opportunity during the holiday season!

Pick a Specific, Branded Hashtag :

If you’re using a photo contest on Instagram (or Twitter) to generate engagement and conversation, you’ll need to be able to locate all the listings your participants are sharing. The best plan to do this is by asking that participants use a specific hashtag for your contest.

You want your competition hashtag to have a holiday theme, just like the contest itself. This time of year, the right hashtags can boost engagement. 

A typical mistake that many brands make is choosing a generic holiday term and using that as their branded hashtag. The problem with this, which many don’t realize until it’s too late, is that generic hashtags won’t bring awareness to your brand, and it’s nearly impossible to easily evaluate the entries. Instead of just choosing #stockingstuffer, go with #LOFTstockingstuffer. This will keep your content front and center, and you’ll be able to keep better track of your followers. The alternate option is to use two hashtags, one generic and one specific.

Photo Ads :

 Use traditional Instagram posts you can generally increase your exposure if you strategically use multiple types of stickers, location geotags and hashtags. You should add a location, sticker or hashtag to your photo or video in the stickers menu.

 

Instagram Live :

Fun to watch when it's someone else's show, but it’s a little intimidating to start yourself since it's recorded and goes out in real-time.
Some Instagram Live ideas include Running a contest or inviting your audience to bet on an outcome and Covering an event or sharing an interesting moment

Instagram Insight :

View metrics like impressions and reach, but also actions are taken on your stories, such as how many people tapped through, replied or bounced away. Use Instagram insight to figure out where you're getting the most engagement and where you're losing attention. If your stories are too long or too short, you can make your holiday sales post content better over time.

Video Ads:

Instagram video ads can last up to 60 seconds, and they provide a great opportunity to tell your brand’s story in motion. Marketers have flexed their creative muscles by using video to share time-lapses of product sketches, animations, how-to guides, and funny or thought-provoking short films. In the Holiday season, Johan Jacob came up with an innovative way to give products testimonial with interactive video.

By using Instagram ads, you can reach people where they’re already consuming content, and drive leads with some of the most innovative tools available. Whether you choose to launch photo ads, video ads, or carousel ads, Instagram has a wealth of resources to help you boost seasonal sales and end the year with a bang.

Wish customers a happy holiday
Gone are the days where you need to send a holiday photo in the mail. Although receiving snail mail is always exciting, use Instagram to wish all your customers and followers a Happy Holiday in one fell swoop. Feel free to get creative with costumes, fun graphics, or anything you think your customers would love.