8 Impactful Holiday Marketing Ideas Leveraging Influencers

It’s ~almost~ the most wonderful time of the year!

Unless you're a marketer -- in which case, we’re all feeling the pressure as our busiest season quickly creeps in. The good news is that influencers are here to help! Influencers are a great resource for creating cross-functional content to amplify your 2021 holiday marketing strategies, both on and offline.

So to help get your creative juices flowing, here are 8 social-first holiday marketing tips leveraging influencers to try out this 2021 holiday season!

1. Put Extra Emphasis On Cyber Monday With Social Shopping Features

Social shopping has been all the rage in 2021 and for good reason -- social shopping sales increased by 41.4% in 2020 alone (thanks, at-home shopping) and are projected to grow another 15.2% this year.

Also referred to as mCommerce, social shopping is the process of using in-app features to shop and purchase products without ever having to leave the app, and all of our favorite social media platforms have been killing it with their integrations.

From Instagram Checkout to TikTok’s Shopify partnership, Cyber Monday is the perfect time to test these two new features to drive sales on yet another channel and broaden your omnichannel strategy.

Instagram Checkout

Social shopping on Instagram is now easier than ever to integrate into your influencer content with Instagram’s Checkout Feature.

Instagram Checkout allows users to buy products without ever leaving the app, right from an influencer’s feed. The influencer is easily able to tag a product linked to the brand’s Instagram Shop, and their followers are able to click directly to the product from the piece of content and purchase it in-app.

TikTok + Spotify

TikTok has partnered with Shopify to ramp up its in-app shopping capabilities. Through TikTok, you are now able to directly connect your business account to your Shopify store and create in-feed, shoppable ads. This is a great way to repurpose your creator content and get even more eyes on your product outside of your creators’ individual reach.

Unfortunately, in-app shopping features are not available for creators at this exact moment, but it’s rumored TikTok is launching other in-app shopping updates soon.

But this doesn’t negate the benefits of partnering with TikTok creators to promote a product and tag your brand’s account.

Not only will their followers click through to your brand’s page and shop directly from your in-app Shopify store, but partnering with TikTok influencers now will only help you start building authentic relationships for when TikTok’s in-feed shopping feature for creators does officially drop.

2. Test Out Live Shopping For Pre-Black Friday Exposure

Live shopping, also known as live commerce, allows brands to use influencers and key opinion consumers to promote products through live video and interactive content. Think of it like QVC, but through social media.

With the uncertainty of how in-store shopping may go this year, live shopping with influencers allows your consumers to shop easily from their homes. Influencers are able to share products on live streams and their followers can in real-time with just a click of a button.

Our suggestion? Use live shopping for teasers and sales for Black Friday or to promote your eCommerce offers on Cyber Monday for a fun, interactive shopping experience!

Here’s a few Live Shopping ideas to get you started:

Tutorials

Showcase how to use a product by partnering with an influencer or key opinion leader within your industry. Have them do a tutorial to showcase how they incorporate your product into their expert routines. This works particularly well with beauty and fashion influencers.

Product Demos

Have an everyday lifestyle influencer demonstrate how they use your product in their everyday, busy life. This works particularly well with lifestyle products and home goods.

Product Reviews

Have influencers try a set of products for the first time and review them live on their live stream while their followers ask questions in real-time.

Behind The Scenes

Have a charitable cause to promote? Have Influencers get involved with a Livestream of their charity day with your company, then have a link to donations directly in the live stream.

Hauls and Gift Guides

Are you a shopper marketer with a range of products and brands to promote? Showcase all of the products available in a live stream shopping haul or gift guide reveal to drive eCommerce sales to your retailer’s website.

Live shopping has been all the rage in China this past year, and it’s projected the US is not far behind. We’ve already started seeing social platforms in the United States lay the groundwork for this trend to take off, so get ahead of the trend this holiday season and be the trendsetter this holiday season.

Micro-Influencers are seen as the ideal content creators for live social shopping and provide a unique way for brands to increase engagement with their consumers in a more intimate way. And what can we say? We are the experts when it comes to micro-influencer marketing.

3. Create Urgency With Limited-Time Influencer Promo Codes

Have a big promotional push for an item or launching a new product during the holiday season? Have your influencers promote the product with a limited-time, holiday-themed discount code to “gift” to their followers.

The promotion will provide a sense of urgency for their followers to purchase as soon as possible with their “exclusive” discount, driving more purchases.

Bonus Perk: Although not completely foolproof, creating unique discount codes for all of your influencers is one of the easiest ways to track influencer ROI.

Just keep in mind some sales attribution may be lost along the way due to external factors, like in-store promos, but never underestimate the power of influencer marketing to generate brand awareness for long-term brand recall and new sales down the road.

How VizSense Fits In: Let us help you close the influencer data loop! VizSense has thousands of bits of shopper and demographic data that we love to analyze for our brands. With access to your online analytics site, like Google Analytics, as well as any POS data, we are happy to integrate our data with yours to fully understand the impact of our influencer’s content on your brand’s promotions. This includes analysis outside of just promo codes, implementing other attribution models to close the data loop.

4. Get Featured In Influencer’s Holiday Gift Guides And Listicles

For years, brands have raced to snag a coveted spot on influencer’s holiday gift guides. As we move further from blog content to social first, Instagram has launched its “Guides” feature for creators and businesses to build listicles right in the app by connecting relevant posts into a single list.

You asked for it and it’s happening. We’re expanding our Guides feature – meaning you can now curate and share products, places and posts you love no matter where you are. pic.twitter.com/hupLQOKzKn

— Adam Mosseri 😷 (@mosseri) November 17, 2020

This holiday season, partner with influencers you’ve had long-term partnerships with, or creators who already love your product, to be featured as the perfect gift this season! Once you’ve snagged the coveted spot on your top influencers’ gift guides, repost all of your influencer content to create your own Instagram gift guide (of your products, of course).

This is a great way to not only get your product in front of your influencers’ audiences but also build your relationship with your creators. By showcasing them at the forefront of your own social channels, you’re showing them that you value their partnership as well as their (obviously tasteful) opinions.

Here are some Instagram Holiday Guides ideas to get you started:

Be Holiday Inclusive

Focus on different holidays, like Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, to create different gift guides for consumers across a variety of demographics, utilizing influencers who celebrate their own holiday in their own special way.

Gift Baskets For Everyone

Promote different products for different needs, like a list of the perfect stocking stuffers, or gifts for mom, dad, or your MIL. Whatever Instagram “Gift Basket” you decide to promote, you can also enter in consumers for a fun giveaway!

Instagram Advent Calendar

Create a 12 Days of Christmas campaign, and add the posts each day content goes live to your Instagram Gift Guide -- driving consumers to your own social page each day to check out the latest post.

5. Create A Holiday Campaign Hashtag

Hashtags are a great way to create campaign awareness and track the growth of your larger social media campaigns. They’re easy to search, discoverable, and can allow you to find and track new content, virality, and sentiment of your social media campaigns in the simplest way.

If your holiday marketing push has a specific theme or tagline, make it into a hashtag for your influencers to use across their promotional posts while also using it across your own social content. This is the simplest way to tie your influencer marketing efforts into your larger marketing campaign for seamless, omnichannel integration.

Getting your influencers to join in on your hashtag campaign is also a great way to try and get your customers to start using the hashtag as well on their own related content in hopes the hashtag will go viral.

Hashtag campaigns can work particularly well on TikTok if done correctly, or are perfect for giveaways, and can exponentially increase your brand’s reach while generating hundreds -- even thousands -- of pieces of user-generated content.

6. Promote A Charitable Cause This Giving Tuesday

Is your brand's main focus to give back this holiday marketing season? Get influencers involved and have them create a piece of content that promotes the charitable cause your brand is supporting!

Giving Tuesday is the first Tuesday of December each year -- landing on December 1 of this year. Partnering with influencers on Giving Tuesday is a great way to share how your company is making a positive impact, while also encouraging your customers to donate to the cause motivated through your influencer’s personal stories.

Micro-influencers, in particular, are a great way to tap into communities directly affected by the charitable cause that is being promoted by your organization. Through micro-influencers, you can find individuals who tell their personal anecdotes and connect with their audiences in a more intimate and authentic way. When discussing any touchy subject, micro-influencers can help drive authenticity and trust between your consumer, you, and your purpose.

How VizSense fits in: We thoroughly vet each influencer for each unique program. We know their stories and we have the best insights into their audiences through our proprietary analytics tools. VizSense assures we will find the most appropriate micro-influencers to tell your brand’s charitable story in an authentic way while connecting with an audience that will actually care -- because the last thing you want is to come across as disingenuous.

Two particular ad platforms we’ve personally been excited about this year are Pinterest and TikTok. Both platforms throughout 2021 have expanded their offerings to provide a more seamless experience for businesses to repurpose their creators’ content.

Story Pins:

The second is Story Pins, which allows businesses to upload video or story content that mimics Instagram Stories or TikTok videos and show up in users’ feeds. In fact, most of the content we see featured in these ads was originally created for other platforms, so it’s incredibly easy to repurpose your influencer content for Pinterest Ads for even more cross-channel exposure.

So, if your creators have a Pinterest Business account, put it to use! Pinterest’s users are 3x more likely to click through to a brand’s website on Pinterest than any other social media platform. Not only are you increasing your campaign reach to a highly targeted audience, but you’re also more likely to reach users who will convert.

TikTok Ads

TikTok recently launched a new feature called Spark Ads that allows businesses to directly sponsor organic, trending content that features their product, without having to go directly to the creator for permission. Think of it like a “boost” on Instagram.

This is a great way to supplement other influencer campaign content by converting already existing, UGC content into In-Feed or TopView ads, blasted to a targeted audience.

Spark Ads are also a great tool for finding organic content creators to be future brand reps and test their content’s success!

How VizSense fits in: The VizSense team is made of trained experts in all things paid social. Our team knows the best platform for your brand to drive conversions through paid, while constantly optimizing your campaign content to get you the best results. Just one less thing you need to worry about!

8. Look Ahead To Partner With Influencers Into The New Year And Beyond!

New Year’s is great for sharing how you ring it in with your favorite Bev/alc brand or to hit the ground running on January 1 with a new year’s resolution/health and wellness campaign.

But don’t stop your holiday-themed influencer activations there!

Micro-influencers are a great way to target niche holidays or promote awareness for seasonal social causes throughout the entire year. They allow you to connect with your consumers on a more personal level while driving real, authentic conversations year-round.

Kicking off a program at the start of the new year and continually engaging with those influencers throughout the entire year sets your brand up for continued exposure beyond the holiday period while building authentic brand loyalty.

Start thinking ahead now so we can make sure your campaigns are as timely as possible.

How VizSense Fits In: VizSense has done tens of dozens of seasonal and holiday influencer campaigns, from social awareness with PRIDE and Black History Month to niche holidays like National Take a Shot Day or Back To School. You can view all of our case studies by visiting the “Our Work” page and see how VizSense provides value for our brand partners year-round!