One of the most tried-and-true social media strategies is to build a content calendar around celebrations, events, and holidays. This is especially the case for UK-based gifting company Letterbox Gifts. They’re a women-led business that aims to make sending gifts to friends & family easy and enjoyable, offering a range of curated and hand-wrapped gifts from independent producers.
With so many gifting occasions throughout the year, their social media marketing revolves around celebrating each giving moment, big and small. Their robust calendar of events unlocks a regular heartbeat of content ideas, promotions, and new customers. We spoke to Eleanor Bagust, co-founder of Letterbox Gifts, about how they use Buffer to plan and schedule their social content throughout the year so that they never miss an opportunity.
We have been using Buffer for a number of years and it's been an invaluable resource to our social media strategy and how we communicate with our customers. One of the most important features we use is Buffer’s social media calendar. We have communications planned for those key dates like Mother's Day, Father's Day, and also for smaller celebration days that we like to recognize such as Employee Appreciation Day or even National Hugging Day!
As you can see, the Letterbox Gifts social calendar is packed with quality content. How do they keep it up? It’s thanks to a collaborative process and a disciplined planning approach.
Buffer’s publishing queue allows us to get our plans and ideas 'down on paper' so to speak, so we can visualize our feeds, and use the drafts & editor functions to ensure we have a consistent voice and style behind our posts. We have multiple staff members upload and add content to all our social media feeds in one place, which makes life a lot easier than managing each social platform individually.
Instagram is one of their key channels for building brand awareness and driving sales around gifting occasions. But when you have multiple people adding content, it’s important that everyone has visibility into upcoming content.
The ability to preview upcoming Instagram posts in the grid is one of our favourite Buffer features. It allows us to make sure it looks great and that it’s diverse and not overly repetitive, especially when the posts are added by more than one person.
Aside from planning ahead and using Buffer to manage their content, we asked Eleanor to share some tips for anyone looking to build marketing campaigns around holidays and events.
Tip 1: Get the timing right. “Social media marketing is largely about the build-up to the event; there's no point in marketing on the day of the event, as it will probably be too late for customers to purchase in time. That being said, nobody wants to hear about Christmas in the middle of June. For most occasions, around a month before is a good time to push the bulk of the marketing campaign.”
Tip 2: Repurpose existing products and campaigns. “Think about how can you market existing products for upcoming occasions, whether it's taking a picture or video of a product in a Christmas setting for a Christmas campaign or renaming a suitable product to sound romantic for Valentine's Day. You don't necessarily have to invest in lots of seasonal stock for holiday marketing.”
Tip 3: Be respectful of your entire audience. “Be sensitive around holiday campaigns, and avoid referring to relatives as 'your' to prevent upsetting people who may find special occasions difficult. For example, instead of saying 'This is the perfect gift for your Mum' use language such as 'This is the perfect gift for the special women in your life'.”
Tip 4: Get creative with product staging. “Staging scenes such as parties with your products and using videos and reels on social media to showcase these are a fun and creative way to generate interest around your brand for upcoming occasions.”
Ready to create a calendar full of occasion-based social media campaigns? Buffer has a range of plans, including a free plan, to help you get started. Learn more about Buffer’s publishing and planning features.
