If you are a business that sells ice cream, swimwear or focuses on outdoor activities then the summer months are welcome arrivals. However for many businesses the summer season can be difficult to navigate through as business can slow. So how do you keep consumer eyeballs on the great work and plans you have, whilst they are enjoying their summer activities?
The good news is that even though many things get quiet over the summer, social media is not one of them. The average person accesses their social media accounts up to 15 times a day.Therefore it’s key to understand how you can connect with potential customers via social media during the summer holiday period.
We look into cost effective and quick fire ways that you can add a sprinkling of summer to your social plans, so that you can continue to connect and engage with potential customers during the slower summer months.
Get your business summer ready on your cover or profile photo
Ensure that your profile picture and cover photos have a summer holiday theme. Your profile and cover photos should be crisp, clear images that represent your brand. Think about investing in some bespoke images created especially to promote your business over the summer period, but if budgets don’t allow, then there are plenty of free summer and beach themed frames which can be used to add to your existing images; the key is that your followers and visitors need to feel that the account is ‘alive’ to the times, and celebrating the (hopefully) hot summer season with them.
According to research [1] the average person has 5 social media accounts and actively uses 3 on a regular basis. Create consistency across your social media profiles by posting the same summer themed images on all your accounts, which in turn will improve the trust and durability of your campaigns whilst continuing to build your brand identity.
Set out your summer stall and create timed offers
Decide what your summer offers are and set out your stall early. Having a clear idea and focus of what you can offer potential customers and how this compares to the competition will stand you in good stead. For example, you could decide to offer a summer discount or a free gift (Sunglasses, beach ball, inflatable unicorn) when bought with other products to create a clear up-sell strategy for your business. Once you have defined your offers, create a series of summer themed images or preferably a short video to promote your offer. 80% of all Internet traffic is based around videos [2], so visual (and in particular, video) content is a necessity, as this type of content is more than 40 times more likely to be shared on social media than any other kind [3]. Create regular posts surrounding your offers and think about boosting your post regularly or creating a series of adverts which can be placed across platforms. Remember that most of your content is likely to be consumed on mobile devices whilst your potential customers enjoy the summer sun, so keep your posts bite sized and appealing.
Spread the summer vibes
The summer season is a happy time of year so keep your posts full of lighthearted summer fun, projecting positivity and joy through your brand. For example if you are a food related business think about sharing summer pudding recipes (ideally through a video) or why not launch a competition to win a holiday or weekend break by asking potential customers to post a comment or photo of their family’s favourite summer activity? This will enable you to generate discussion, likes and hopefully shares.
Send customers to a sizzling summer landing page
Whether you are promoting a product, limited offer or competition, it’s important to create specific landing pages to direct your potential customers to in order to create a targeted call to action and add perceived value in the buying cycle. E.g. a 25% off post should link through to the product page on your online site where there is an action to ‘order now’. Similarly a post promoting a competition could lead direct to a landing page which captures the potential customer’s details. Landing pages should replicate your summer branding, which will create a more seamless brand journey.
It’s time to hit the beach running!
There you have it! Our top tips demonstrate that you don’t need a champagne budget to create a strong, cohesive and relevant plan to dazzle your potential customers, so get started today and get ahead ready for the summer season.