In the next couple of months you are going to be launching your holiday campaign via social media. You are excited and know that this period is one of great opportunity. The problem is that all the other companies also know this and they are also getting ready to launch their holiday campaigns.

This makes the need to stand out from the crowd tricky. You want to catch your audience’s attention, but don’t want to become annoying or pushy. There’s a fine line in trying to spread holiday cheer and getting blocked on Facebook.

There are a couple different things that will help make or break your social media campaign this holiday season.  We’ve conveniently placed them here for you.

Visual Elements

Crucial to any holiday campaign is the use of visuals–good ones. We’re talking eye-catching, make-people-stop-their-news-feed-scroll, worthy-of-a-thumbs-up-or-a-share, make-me-want-to-invest-all-of-my-stocks-into-your-business kind of content. The last part is only a small stretch.

Videos, memes, pictures and interactive GIFs are what we are referring to. Visuals that have motion tend to particularly stand out.

Why does it work?

There is a big difference between hearing and seeing information. After hearing information, people are likely to remember only 10% of what they heard three days later. However, when a relevant image is paired with that same information, the amount of information retained during the same time period goes up to 65%.

Your message is not only more likely to be retained through visuals; it is more likely to be shared. Tweets with images were retweeted 150% more times than tweets that were only text.

For videos, people want quantity over quality, as more output does not mean more engagement when it comes to social media. If you are going to create a holiday video, put the time and resources into it that make it worth posting. Otherwise social media will call you out on simply trying to fill a space.

Social Media as a Service

Nowadays, social media acts as a means of customer service. A study showed 67% of respondents reporting having contacted a company via social media for support.

Companies who respond to support requests on social media are more likely to retain their customers than companies who don’t. And, when companies respond to customer service requests over social media, the customers who received help spend up to 20% to 40% more with the company. Not bad, right?

The number of messages a company receives on social media usually correlate with the number of followers they have. If you have a large following, expect more messages. However, even if you are a small business with a small following, you should expect some messages.

There are three main things you can do for great social media customer service.

Prevention

Obviously, the fewer messages you receive concerning complaints or questions concerning your product, the easier your job will be. That is why before the holiday season hits its peak, you should be sure that your accounts are up to date with the appropriate information.

That includes links to FAQs and any commonly requested documents.

You can also avoid added frustration from customers by informing them of the time frame in which they can expect customer support.

Preparation

One of the difficult paradoxes of the holidays is that your busiest times as a company are also the times you and your employees tend to need time off work.

Review your holiday work schedule to ensure that someone is available to respond to social media concerns. Anticipate and plan for the unexpected. Doing so will keep you in control in a season that can quickly turn into chaos.

Tools like Help Scout software also might be useful if you think you will be particularly swamped.

Action

The most important thing to remember is that when you receive a service request, act as quickly as possible. In a survey by The Social Habit, 42% of social media users expect a response to a service contact within 60 minutes. It should be common sense, but just so you can’t say we didn’t warn you, here it is. Act fast.

Engage

A great holiday strategy that can set you apart from competitors is not just posting content, but posting content that will allow you to engage with your audience.

There’s no one way to do this, but a recent trend is to run a holiday related Facebook live video. Facebook live videos are much more likely to be viewed than regular video. This video could be introducing a specific sale or free giveaways. It could show a holiday-related activity going on at your office. It may even just wish a warm holiday greetings.

Another idea for engaging is to post content that pulls at the heart strings of the season. Consider sharing a personal story related to the holidays. This could be a favorite recipe or your worst Christmas present. Make sure you open up the conversation for others to share their stories too.

While they’re definitely not a small business, take a look at what Starbucks did to engage with their customers over social media during the holidays.

You’ve Got This.

Yes, there is a lot of competition for attention on social media especially over the holiday season. But using these tips will help move your marketing campaign from a mediocre one, to a successful one.