7 ways to engage your audience during the holiday season

Whether your Holiday plans include rocking around the Christmas tree, waiting underneath the mistletoe, or having a merry little Christmas (I hope this created some melodic vibes for the post), we’re still not there yet. But waiting is even more exciting, isn’t it?

Businesses are working hard to find new approaches to meet year-end goals or simply say “thank you” to their clients for their loyalty and support throughout this challenging year.

This article provides easy tips and techniques to engage your audience and team during the holiday season. Whether it’s adding seasonal gifs and images to your online presence, contributing to a social cause, or publishing a holiday gift guide, these quick and simple techniques will help you stand out from the competition.

Add holiday spirit to your online presence

Just like adding lights to your home in December to get into the holiday spirit, uploading seasonal images or gifs to your website and social media accounts helps put your company (and your followers) in a festive mindset.

Here are some quick and easy tips on how to add the holiday spirit to your online presence:

• Create a festive virtual background for your Zoom calls and virtual meetings. You can use some of our virtual background templates or design your own.
• Update your social media cover photos. Use holiday-themed stock images or update your visuals using photo filters to refresh your current cover photos this season.
• Create holiday-themed Facebook posts. Use festive images to engage your audience and update your social media graphics to quickly freshen up your accounts and help boost engagement (use this article to learn how to increase overall social media engagement).
• Update your company logo with holiday-style images and drawings – examples include holiday lights or snowflakes. But don’t go overboard! You still want your customers to know it’s you.

Send out holiday greetings via email

Holiday greetings via email are simply more dynamic than traditional cards. Using data visualization to spruce up traditional text will increase clicks and time spent on your message (and with your brand).

Do you have end-of-year stats to share? Use an interactive chart or graph that allows readers to click into the chart and learn more about specific data points. This is much more compelling than a traditional static image.

 This time of year is also a perfect opportunity to use animated and sticker gifs in your message. Using Infogram will ensure they will look great on any medium, whether it’s a tablet, phone, or desktop.

Help a social cause 

Fun fact: over the last 10 years, the US has emerged as the most generous country in the world. But did you also know that 31% of annual giving happens in the month of December, while 12% of all annual giving happens in the last three days of the year? 

Whether it’s reflecting back on the year and wanting to do more for other individuals, or simply looking for an extra tax write-off, donations rise at this time of year. As a business, find a charity your entire company can rally behind. Spending time volunteering or simply offering a large donation will help everyone get in the holiday spirit. 

If you are a nonprofit (or you’re simply looking to help one out), here are the 5 best online fundraising tools and how to get the best out of them.  

Dive into holidays using infographics

Infographics communicate the story you’re trying to tell in an easy-to-understand format. They also work perfectly to share facts and figures – be that business statistics or a more personal story about the holiday season or your organization.  

Infographics also help increase brand awareness and drive traffic and social engagement. Learn how to create an effective infographic here while exploring the multiple options and best practices available. 

Once you’ve created your holiday infographic, it’s time to properly share it. Brush up on how to share and promote your infographic online.

Offer holiday discounts  

The holiday season is the perfect time for a sale. Many people will be looking for gifts for their loved ones, and this makes for a great chance to boost traffic and sales by offering discounts on services, products, or even shipping. 

Here are some quick and easy tips when discounting over the holidays:

• Take a 360°-approach and alert your followers of any discounting via your website, social platforms, and email campaigns. It seems basic, but it’s often forgotten to share a consistent message on all platforms. 
• Consistency is key. Have the same holiday look and feel across all platforms for discounts. Even a simple upgrade of using the same photo filter on all content will help boost engagement
• Content must be interactive and engaging to ensure more click-throughs and likes
• Format content to look great on mobile devices. In terms of holiday discounts, your content must look good across all platforms and easy to shop. 

Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are key to sales conversion, and these apps are primarily accessed via phones and tablets.

Infogram has a wide range of ready-to-use social media graphics, as well as the ability to build custom graphics – no coding required! We also offer templates exclusively for Facebook, so it’s really easy to get started.

Publish a holiday gift guide 

Publishing a holiday gift guide on your blog isn’t necessarily only for companies in the retail sector. Tech, education, business, and various other sectors can all create gift guides relevant to their audience.  

For inspiration, take a look at these gift ideas for the data lover. Or this celebrity fashion blog that offered up their annual gift guide. The idea is to get creative and share gifting options to dazzle your client. And if you want to take it a step further, create an interactive gift ebook that can be easily downloaded and shared.  

Send out video greetings   

If you want to get in touch with your audience, customers, or even business partners and connect with them even if they’re on the other side of the globe, send them a personalized message with the help of video. The human brain is hard-wired to engage with storytelling, which is why videos are far more likely to connect you with your audience on an emotional level.

To make your greetings more memorable, try Prezi Video, a video creation tool that puts you and your graphics on screen together in real time. You can even live-stream your video in a Zoom meeting, webinar, or conference call.

Final words

The holidays are an ideal time to engage with your audience – and there are plenty of ways to do so, including holiday gifs, jolly images, data visualizations, interactive email campaigns, holiday-themed gift guides, and more.  

Interested in discovering how Infogram can enhance your team’s work? Join a brief Zoom session with our Infogram representative to explore key features, get answers to your questions, and understand how we can assist. It’s quick, informative, and just like a coffee break chat. Schedule your call now!