Working in social media at Christmas time can be busy and overwhelming, with clients throwing last-minute promotions at you and expecting you to change content plans at the drop of a hat, and then wondering why sales aren’t magically increasing!

But with plans in place for this festive madness, you can ensure things run smoothly for you and your clients, and they don’t end the year with cash left on the table and a bad taste in their mouths.

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How to prepare your social media clients.

1. Don't wing it!

Between November & January, there are numerous holidays and promotional days that your clients may be planning to participate in.

Eg. Halloween, Guy Fawkes, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas jumper day, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's Eve and many more in between.

Your clients will need to decide which they plan to participate in and whether they will run any promotions for each. Don’t wait until nearer the time, and definitely don’t wait for them to tell you as they will expect you to know.

Having all this information now means you can plan the content accordingly and can promote it during and around the event. It also means they are less likely to spring a sudden change on you (and ruin your well-planned strategy!)

The easiest way to do this is to put all the relevant dates into a google sheet or Trello board to send over to your client. Then they can then simply fill it in with all the relevant info, discount codes and assets.

Even if your client isn’t in the eCommerce space and may not have any offers for these events, there are still ways you can make these events work for you in terms of a marketing opportunity.

Talk to clients about anti-Black Friday campaigns or charity appeals they might want to look at instead. You may even want to use these days as a great opportunity to connect with influencers by sharing their offers etc.

2. Give your clients deadlines for promotions and content changes.

We’ve all had unreasonable clients who seem to think social media managers live to post on Facebook at the last minute!

Christmas is not the time to bow to last-minute demands, so set some deadlines to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Ensure they know the final dates for any content changes and understand that you will be offline enjoying the festivities with your family, so any changes after these deadlines will need to be dealt with in-house or wait.

3. Get deadlines from your clients to share with the audience.

Your clients will need to make sure they communicate any last-order deadlines to their audience, not just to create scarcity but also to ensure you aren’t dealing with disgruntled customers. So make sure you have these dates well in advance and can schedule your content accordingly.

4. Communicate your Christmas working hours.

Ensure you communicate your working hours so that clients know when you will be closed for Christmas well in advance.

It is not unreasonable for a social media manager to take time off at Christmas, and your invoice may not need to change to reflect this time out, depending on the circumstances and the business you are working with.

5. Have an open conversation with your clients.

Understanding whether your clients expect you to maintain a social media presence over Christmas is essential.

Many smaller businesses may be happy with you just keeping an eye on their inbox and wish to reduce the number of posts so they don’t have to deal with orders or enquiries while they are enjoying a cheeky mulled wine.

Others might want you to continue to engage but reduce posting; it will depend on their marketing priorities, so ensure you have an open conversation to get an understanding of their needs so you know if you can meet their expectations over this period or whether you need to consider outsourcing for a few weeks.

6. Plan for a January comeback.

Coming back from Christmas can be a real slog. Just trying to get back into the groove after all the turkey and matchmakers is hard enough, so thinking of a content strategy when you are low on ideas might feel impossible!

So use this time to write down some ideas and plan some content to make coming back as easy as possible so you can hit the ground running.

It would also be a good idea to ensure your clients are thinking ahead and you understand their business goals for early next year so you are in a position to help them reach them.

Map out what training you will be investing in for next year and get yourself on any waiting lists for the courses you want to do.

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