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Social Media, PPC and SEO Tips For Christmas

15th November 2013

Christmas 2013

It’s one month until Christmas.

Retail experts are predicting 2013 will be the biggest consumer spending Christmas since 2007, with online takings set to soar past £10 billion for the first time.

Are you ready?

Social Media Tips For Christmas (1/4)

∞ Images - engagement, emotion and relationships are key in any social media strategy. Images - especially Christmas ones - are a great tool to build both. Tweets, Facebook updates and Google+ posts with pictures typically generate the best response. Try product images, picture collages, lifestyle images or a combination of all three.

Social Media Tips For Christmas (2/4)∞ Campaigns - Do you have a Christmas social media campaign planned? Is it

targeting one platform or multiple? Don't try and go all guns blazing if budgets and resource are tight.

∞ Focus on being helpful - This is the important one. Christmas sales will come naturally if you provide good products, along with good customer service. Focus on posts that are helpful, not on posts aimed at making a sale.

∞ Online customer service hours - Be transparent early. Create a post on each social platform (as well as your main site) clearly stating when customers can expect a response between Christmas Eve and the 2nd January. Managing expectations early will be extremely beneficial over the festive period.

Social Media Tips For Christmas (3/4)∞ Remember omnichannel - Interact with people. Join in conversations.

Customers often have questions or start conversations in-store, and social media platforms should be no different.

∞ Schedule posts - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day will be very busy on social media, as people share, tweet and Instagram their presents. Schedule updates wishing everyone a lovely Christmas (with a nice 843x403 image on Facebook), and similarly wishing everyone got what they wanted from the fat man in red on Boxing Day.

∞ Try a funny video or image - Generally everyone is in a relaxed, jolly good mood around Christmas. More time is spent on social media, so it's a great time to try out a new platform or media asset.

Social Media Tips For Christmas (4/4)∞ Think about helpful content - a video with commonly asked questions

during the festive period, a set of gift ideas blog posts, or a delivery times / dates cut off visual are great additions to your social assets at this time of year.

∞ Keep an eye on the weather forecast - If the forecast is looking snowy, icy and generally bleak, post updates and let customers know that they should get their orders in earlier to ensure there aren't nasty surprises with delivery problems.

PPC Tips For Christmas (1/3)∞ Prepare seasonal campaigns in advance - Sure, this is stating the obvious, but

there's still time to set up your Christmas campaigns if you haven't already. Build campaigns that align with promotional calendars, and remember customer service is just as important as selling at this time of year.

∞ Adjust budgets - CPC prices will inevitably increase during the festive period. Be sure to adjust daily budgets to accommodate the expected increase in spend.

∞ Refine negative keywords - Christmas is a very important time for reducing unwanted impressions and unqualified clicks.

PPC Tips For Christmas (2/3)∞ Hone your mobile strategy - ensure brand campaign ads contain information

about last delivery dates, Christmas and New Year opening hours, and contact phone numbers.

∞ Search Query Reports - check search query reports for new seasonal keywords that are triggering your ads. Add these to your campaigns if relevant, or add as negatives to minimise wastage.

∞ Product Listing Ads - if you’re using PLAs, ensure you keep your product feed up to date, especially any products that are likely to be popular at this time of year.

∞ Out of stock - using data feeds to align your PPC activity with stock levels is very important during the festive period. Ensure you set appropriate bids depending on your product availability and pause keywords related to any products that are out of stock.

PPC Tips For Christmas (3/3)∞ Competitor monitoring – look at your competitors’ ad copy to ensure that your

copy stands out and reflects any USPs. Can you offer better delivery deals? Gift wrapping? A price match? Or maybe a click and collect service after your delivery deadline?

∞ Plan your festive budgets – if your sale starts on Boxing Day and you have monthly budgets, ensure you allow sufficient budget for the end of the month when traffic may spike. Also consider revising your day-parting and time-based-bidding settings to ensure that budget is available at peak Christmas shopping hours.

∞ Sale ads – if you have a sale starting on Boxing Day and you won’t be in the office to change your ads, make sure you set up automated rules to pause your pre-Christmas ads and launch your sale ads.

SEO Tips For Christmas (1/4)∞ Optimise for mobile devices - as mentioned at the top of this post, mobile and

tablet traffic to retail sites over the festive period is expected to boom. Ensure your products can be found, selected and purchased on mobiles and tablets.

∞ Opening times - despite having plenty of time to buy Christmas products, us Brits often leave it until the last minute. We'll be dashing around the shops, searching Google for 'next opening hours oxford street' and 'waitrose opening times christmas eve'. Make sure your festive opening hours are clearly visible on your homepage, test different Google searches on desktop and mobile, and make sure your contact details are available.

SEO Tips For Christmas (2/4)∞ Check Google Map locations - People will be driving to pick up presents and do

last minute food and present shopping. Having the wrong postcode and location on Google Maps simply adds to the stress. Check all your locations have the right postcode, and swear at your web and IT team if anything is wrong.

∞ Use reviews - there are going to be A LOT more eyes on your site during the festive period, and users will be weighing up whether to purchase from you, or one of your competitors. To help swing them in your favour, consider implementing review rich snippets. As mentioned in our white paper, John Lewis use this technique well.

SEO Tips For Christmas (3/4)∞ Check last years data - Did your server load buckle? How many 404 errors were

there? Is there any way to improve your page loading time? What were your best performing keywords and landing pages? You'll have lots of data at your disposal from last years Christmas performance. Check for trends, and try and make sure any major errors are not repeated during the 2013 festive period.

∞ Site loading speed - every nano-second counts at this time of year, so make sure your site pages are loading as quickly as possible. At the very least, check that all bulky images are compressed and optimised for the web as much as possible.

SEO Tips For Christmas (4/4)∞ Google Shopping / PLA optimisation - More competitors will enter the market

over Christmas, and they will all have the same idea in mind - optimising product data feeds. Ensure that shoppers have a positive customer experience and can get all the information they need. Check out the FusePump white paper on Google Shopping for more information.

∞ Look at the bigger picture - more traffic from SEO, means more sales, and more customer data. Don't think about Christmas as a single sales period - think about how you can turn one-off customers into repeat customers throughout the year.

All The Best For The Festive Period!

The 8MS Team