It has long been built into the retail calendar to plan for the annual Holiday season early – also known as Christmas in July. The rest of us in the social media marketing space can take a big leaf out this book and plan ahead now to best connect with consumers over the holidays, whether in retail or not. This contains 5 core areas of focus to ensure your year end social media programs are truly effective and valuable.

1. 1
How to Prepare
Your Social Program for
Christmas in July
GEMMA CRAVEN | JULY 25, 2014

2. 2
Agenda
Establish a relationship with fans and
advocates
Use content and listening to define your social
voice
Plan to surround the customer where they are
in the Holidays
Outline your paid strategy
Set your social goals early
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3. 3
Social marketers should learn
from retailers
and plan ahead now for year end, AKA
"Christmas in July”.

4. This is a simpler title slide
Rod Favoron
@RodFav
July 2014
Establish a
relationship with
customers and
advocates early

5. 5
Don’t wait
until November
to engage with consumers or to work on
creating brand advocates – find those
advocates who are already talking about
you and build a relationship with them
starting NOW.

6. 6
Define
your social voice to stand
out from the crowd

7. 7
Define your social voice and use
content to further develop it in social
channels, so that come the end of
year rush, your fans clearly know who
you are and what you stand for.

8. This is a simpler title slide
Plan early to surround
the customer where they
are
Rod Favoron
@RodFav
July 2014

9. 9
Think about how
your end target’s daily routine will be
different during the Holiday period and then
design a social program that will reach
them. Bring internal partners with you when
planning to secure the approvals you need
from the outset.

10. 10
Outline
your paid strategy now

11. 11
Defining a paid strategy in July will
allow you to clearly define the goals of
a paid program, your target audience
and which social ad products will work
best to reach that audience. It will
also allow vital time for test and learn.

12. This is a simpler title slide
Rod Favoron
@RodFav
July 2014
Determine your goals for
the Holidays

13. 13
This is a time to establish
watertight and business aligned goals and
manage internal expectations for year-end
social media marketing programs. What are
your company’s overall goals for connecting
with customers around the holidays? And how
do your social programs feed into those goals?

14. 14
Conclusion
Establish a relationship with fans
and advocates
Use content and listening to
define your social voice
Plan to surround the customer
where they are in the Holidays
Outline your paid strategy
Set your social goals early

15. 15
Summer is the time
to work on holiday planning to ensure impactful
social media marketing.

16. 16
Connect With Us
Gemma Craven
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STRATEGIC MARKETS
gcraven@spredfast.com
@gemsie