Tips to help you crush Black Friday and Cyber Monday on Social Media

The world of mobile shopping is expected to increase by more than 10 percent this holiday season—so it’s time to up your game and grab the attention of those smartphone-savvy consumers. 

Let’s take a quick look at the strategies you can implement to ensure your limited-edition deals make a social media splash this Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

1) Get to work on your social media profiles 

Make sure you coordinate your social media accounts to ensure all profile pictures, banners, bios, descriptions, and links are updated to advertise your Cyber Monday and Black Friday promotions. 

Optimization Tips: 

• Cover photos are the first thing people notice on your social media profiles. Create a custom one for each of your profiles to promote your sale. 

• update your bio or call-to-action button to include a direct link to your dedicated Black Friday or Cyber Monday landing page. 

• Pin a tweet or Facebook post announcing the best deal at the top of your timeline.  

2) Create a sense of urgency 

Create a sense of urgency with countdown timers and other bonuses for fast action, inject some FOMO (fear of missing out) into your social media campaigns. 

A simple yet effective way to create a sense of urgency in marketing is to sprinkle time- or scarcity-related words throughout your social media content. Words like “today” or “now” trigger people to think something is in limited supply and urge consumers to take immediate action. 

You can also make use of other time-related trigger words to weave into your content and CTA buttons Like Hurry, Shop now, Limited-time offer, Instant savings, Save today, Don’t miss this or Today only. 

TIP:  

Try not to overdo it. Shoppers can quickly become immune to a stream of so-called limited-time offers. Moderation is the key to success here. Test a few calls-to-action and see what works for you instead of bombarding your audience with constant sales pitches. 

3) Make Use dedicated hashtags 

Try to carry out some hashtag research before you plan your social media campaign. This will help you understand the mood and interest of your target audience, and you can plan your social media posts accordingly. 

While major Black Friday and Cyber Monday have some obvious hashtags (#cybermonday, #cybermondaysales, #blackfridaydeals, etc.), You could try to find out what other trending hashtags you can use in your posts. For instance, searches for #giftsforher, #giftsforhim and #christmasgifts rise significantly during the holiday sales season. 

Make sure you choose hashtags that are relevant to your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals and use them in every social media post promoting your sales. 

4) Leverage the power of emotions 

Humans are inherently emotional beings. They like to feel and, when they do, they also like to share their feelings with their family and friends on social media. 

So when creating a post, try to indulge the emotions of your target market, your post could either be based on Amusement, Pleasure, Interest, Joy, Surprise, Hope, Happiness, Affection, Delight or Inspiration 

Embed these emotions in the content of your social media posts to get attention. Get it right and your post may just go viral. 

5) Plan and schedule your posts 

In the fast-paced world of social media, timing is everything. A well-timed post can be the difference between creating social media magic and a marketing ploy that falls on deaf ears. 

When you are preparing a Black Friday or Cyber Monday campaign, it’s always good to start early, plan your campaign, and create and schedule your social media posts well in advance. 

Summary 

• Have a dedicated landing page for Black Friday and Cyber Monday specials. 

• Make sure your tech systems can handle the increased volume during this busy time. 

• Be mobile-friendly. 

• Test, test, and test again to make sure you have ironed out all glitches. 

• Create a sense of urgency with countdown timers and bonuses for fast action. 

• Segment your audience and target potential customer types by their behavior. For example, 'abandoned carts', those who’ve opened an email, those who’ve visited an offer page but didn’t purchase, etc. Then, create custom emails for these groups of users and make use of re-marketing strategies to entice a conversion. 

• Double up your email marketing game by including catchy subject lines and contact all customers (even former customers) to provide them with a special VIP discount code. 

• Invest in digital media spend and third-party placements that direct additional traffic to your online store. 

Regularly check on how your social media content is resonating with customers. Make sure to reschedule posts that are getting a lot of engagement. 

Lastly, don’t forget that while discounts and deals are a big part of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, shoppers still value the overall customer experience—and your social media presence is an important part of that.