Key Takeaways
- The early bird catches the worm!
- Activate nano and micro KOLs for organic product campaigns
- Capitalize on emotional connections at Christmas with personal touches
- Don’t do things by half. Social networks are saturated with Christmas content, make sure your actions stand out from the crowd.
Start early!
If you haven’t already begun reaching out to KOLs regarding potential partnerships for the holiday season, you need to start. Now. The Christmas period is a crucial time for all businesses, not only yours. This means KOLs’ services will be in high demand, but equally that they are likely to be more choosy about which brands they partner with in order to not saturate their audiences with sponsored posts during such a busy time of year.
Starting your KOL outreach early gives you and your KOLs ample time to agree on partnership terms and conditions, and to prepare and review content ahead of time. This second point is particularly relevant given the extra personal demands your KOLs are likely to have on their time during the busy end-of-year period. Preparing content and scheduling posts in advance means both parties avoid the stress of rushed campaigns, and reduces the risk of silly mistakes.
Finally, given content prices can be expected to rise in line with demand during the end-of-year period, working with creators early on content may provide a bargaining chip in your efforts to keep prices down. It’s worth a shot, at any rate.
Going organic
With a plethora of new and seasonal products released by brands, the Christmas season is a natural fit for organic influence campaigns. Sending free products to your favorite KOLs is an effective means of generating organic reach within a tight marketing budget.
But it’s important to take care how you do it. As awareness grows around the unnecessary waste generated by product gifting, instead of a blanket product mailout take the extra time to reach out to your KOLs to check if they are interested in the product first.
It may take more time, but sending gifts only to KOLs who are truly interested in the product makes it more likely they will post qualitative content about your brand.
And in addition to reducing waste (and costs), communicating with your KOLs along these lines enables you to personalize the products and messages that you do send out, helping to develop closer relationships.
Go big or go home
With competition for audiences’ eyeballs at a premium during the Christmas period, activating a high number of KOLs is an effective way to expand reach and prominence.
Micro-influencers are especially effective in this equation. Delivering higher engagement rates at lower prices, activating a high volume of nano and micro influencers around Christmas can deliver hefty reach and stronger connections with the target audience.
The trick, however, is to thoroughly research your KOLs ahead of time to ensure that their audience is a good fit for your brand. Nano and micro influencers may be better for the budget, but as with other times of the year, there is not much point in working with them if their audience is not aligned with your objectives.
Competitions and promo codes
There is a reason the Christmas period is rife with competitions: they work. Running competitions in collaboration with influencers who invite audiences to like, follow and tag a friend to have a chance at winning enables you to publicize your product or brand, while growing your own accounts. It is also a handy means of offering KOLs interesting content formats with which they can reward loyal followers.
Running funny, interesting competitions is also a great way to stand out in a crowded field. Other than simple like/tag to win, why not come up with a fun concept that invites competition participants to create UGC to win? Dance challenges on TikTok are an obvious option, but thinking outside the box to combine something iconic about your brand or product with the Christmas theme can be very effective when done well.
Liven it up!
As livestreaming gathers pace and popularity on the major social networks, brands, KOLs and audiences are learning that aside from sales, a deeper value of the medium lies in fostering stronger links between presenters and the audience.
Direct interaction during a livestream can be powerfully persuasive, whether for awareness or sales purposes. Collaborating with KOLs on livestreams could take any number of forms during the Christmas period, and offers an additional emotional element that is absent during other times of the year.
Personalization
Christmas is a great time to strengthen relationships with brand ambassadors through co-created content. With so much happening, why not invite them to the office or factory to create some behind-the-scenes content? Giving your KOLs and, by extension, their audiences, a sneak peek into how decisions are made and products created provides an additional opportunity to share your values at a time of the year when audiences are particularly engaged in the purchasing process.
Co-creating products with your KOL ambassadors for promotion and sale around the holiday season has long proven to be a winning formula. And while product co-creation often makes one think of global brand/celebrity collaborations, it doesn’t have to be the case. What about co-creating a Christmas card with the profits donated to a favorite charity?
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to successfully activate KOLs around the holidays, but given the intense competition in the marketplace, strong personal relationships and targeting the right audience is more important than ever.