13 Instagram Marketing Tips for the Holiday Season

If you’re anything like us, you can’t wait for the holidays to get here. The thought of a roaring fire, hot chocolate, and snowmen make us wish it were December already.

Also, the beautiful holiday season presents a golden opportunity for your business to shine on Instagram. Just because you’re out shopping for presents doesn’t mean you can’t still connect with your audience while boosting your brand’s visibility and driving sales.

So, keep reading to discover how to make the most of Instagram marketing during the most wonderful time of the year!

1. Get Festive With Your Visuals

Make your content pop by incorporating holiday-themed elements that align with your brand. Use seasonal colors, festive props, and imagery that instantly evokes the holiday spirit. You can also search for a couple of holiday hashtags to make your posts even more jolly.

2. Time Sensitive Exclusive Promotions

It’s hard to resist limited-time offers over the holidays, so use this to your advantage by offering exclusive deals and promotions to your Instagram followers. It would also benefit your brand to use Instagram’s shopping features, such as shoppable posts and product tags, to make it easy for users to click and shop.

3. Contests and Giveaways

People want to have fun over the holiday period, so bring some excitement into your marketing campaign by running contests and giveaways. Encourage your followers to participate by liking and commenting on your posts or tagging their friends when sharing your content. You can align the prizes with your brand and the holiday season to capture genuine interest on Instagram.

4. Collaborate with Influencers

There is probably no better time to team up with an influencer than over December. Before the holidays arrive, you can already find influencers or micro-influencers who share your interests and passions. Their endorsement can significantly increase your reach and credibility during the holiday season. Collaborate on holiday-themed campaigns, sponsored posts, and giveaways to maximize your marketing efforts.

5. Tell Stories

Storytelling is a big part of the holidays. When families get together for celebrations, they often tell stories about funny incidents during the year or relate side-splitting tales about their childhood holidays.

You can take the concept of storytelling further by using Instagram Stories to convey the story of your brand and product. Use this feature to showcase behind-the-scenes holiday preparations, share fun, user-generated content, announce flash sales, and offer exclusive discounts.

Instagram Stories offers a range of features like polls, questions, stickers, and countdowns to encourage audience interaction.

6. Ignite the Holiday Spirit With UGC

During the holidays, a sense of family and community reigns. At this time, you should focus part of your campaign on user-generated content to foster a sense of community around your brand. Ask your followers to share photos, videos, and testimonials featuring your products. Repost and credit these on your Instagram feed or Stories.

7. Create Heartwarming Content

A video is one of the fastest ways to get a message across any time of the year. When the holidays arrive, you can use videos to create holiday-themed messages that entertain, educate, or inspire your audience. Showcase product demonstrations and gift guides or share heartwarming content your followers won’t hesitate to share.

When highlighting gift guides, provide value by making sure they’re holiday themed and come recommended. Show your audience your top picks, curated collections, and personalized gift ideas.

8. Use Instagram Reels

Piggybacking on longer videos is the ever-popular Instagram Reel. This short-form video format took the social media world by storm and remains one of Instagram’s most popular features.

You can use reels to create quick tutorials, DIYs, or holiday hacks related to your products. You can have real holiday fun with reels by incorporating transitions, filters, effects, and music to make your content stand out.

9. Have Fun With Hashtags and Captions

Even before the holidays start, Instagram users actively search for gift ideas and inspiration. You can make a huge impact with your brand by optimizing your content to include holiday hashtags and captions. Start by researching the most popular hashtags within your niche and tweaking them to fit your brand and the holiday season.

10. Collaborate With Complementary Brands

In addition to partnering with influencers, you can also team up with complementary brands or local businesses during the holidays. Use this time to cross-promote products or services on Instagram to reach new audiences. There will always be organic traffic during the holiday season, so this collaboration can drive engagement and boost sales for all involved.

11. Host Live Sessions

Instagram users love getting to know the powers behind the scenes. You can invite your followers backstage, so to speak, by hosting live Q&A sessions or tutorials that fit in with your products. Invite your followers to ask burning questions about your offers and provide insightful answers. You can even give expert advice about your products and how they can help solve gifting dilemmas.

12. Work to Earn Reviews and Testimonials

You should earn testimonials throughout the year, but since everyone feels a little more festive during December, it may be easier to come by. Ask your followers to share their positive experiences with your brand on Instagram and feature their reviews by pinning them to the top of your feed or adding them to Instagram Stories.

13. Optimize, Optimize, Optimize

The holidays only last a few weeks, so as your campaign twinkles along, ensure that you analyze your Instagram insights to see what’s working and what isn’t. Identify your top-performing posts and modify them for reuse. Also, adjust your strategies to post content when your audience is online. Repeat what works and refine what doesn’t to keep your marketing campaign strong throughout the holidays.

Most Of All, Have Fun

Tis the season to be jolly, so go all out and have fun with your campaigns during the holidays. There is no other time of the year when the sense of joy is so palpable, so spread it even further by creating inspiring holiday posts that connect with your audience in a meaningful and even unexpected way. This way, you can create a memorable experience for your audience that you can carry through to the following year.