Contextual Posts and Holiday Marketing
Episode #3 of the course How to create stunning content on Facebook by PromoRepublic
Welcome to our 3rd lesson on creating viral, contextual posts on Facebook. Today you will learn about the power of holiday marketing. Social media posts that prioritize context, such as holidays or historical dates, sporting or business events, trending topics, and memes, allow you to engage on a deeper level with your target audience. These contextual posts are all about the present moment, and this is what touches your followers most effectively, because people are interested in “the now.”
Let’s consider trending topics. Trend is synonymous with popularity. This is your chance to get attention from the largest audience possible by implementing a popular idea (content or whatever) in your marketing strategy. Using a trend means contextualizing your posts and creating a message about what is happening right now. That is important, because people live in the present and want to see content about what’s going on right now.
Trends can be divided into two categories:
1. Sudden trends
Something you can never predict. For example: a funny remark by a politician or actor, a meme, video fails, etc.
2. Predicted trends (or events)
Planned events that are likely to become very popular. For example: new episode of Star Wars, FIFA World Cup, etc.
Keep an eye on the following predictable events:
• Local and international holidays
• Sporting events
• Show business events
• Local events (jazz festival, severe snowfall, etc.)
• Days from history
If you want to create engaging content, use trends. Be sure to post trend-related content before it becomes too mainstream. Check out the following diagram on a trend’s lifecycle (mostly related to sudden trends, newsbreaks):
Hashtags
A few words about hashtags. The purpose of a hashtag is to help people discover a specific topic across a social media platform. With Twitter and Instagram, provided your account is not set to “private,” they can also help you gain more followers. Hashtags have no significant impaсt on Facebook in that you might not gain more followers, but it won’t hurt if you add several.
Note: Too many hashtags results in lower engagement. One or two per post is perfect.
Tools to Find Trends
You don’t need to waste time searching for trends manually. Check out some useful tools to do it in just a few minutes:
• Google Trends – filter your search by country, topic, category, specific topic, content type, and more
• Buzzfeed – its trending section is perfect for searching for hot topics
• Buzzsumo – search for the most shared web content on a specific topic
• Reddit – aggregates trending content from all over the internet and shows the hottest (most upvoted) topics on the main page
• PromoRepublic – its content calendar with occasions will keep you aware of all big and small events, important dates, holidays, and more.
The next lesson will be about visual content, its types, main rules, and other tips.
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