#1 Summer-related tips relevant to your target audience
Depending on your industry and target audience, the summer may mean different things to your readers: it may be a very quiet time when nothing happens, everyone is on holidays and the period is generally ‘slow’ (e.g. if you’re targeting private tutors) or the very opposite – peak working time e.g. in the travel or hospitality industry.
Share some relevant and timely summer tips that will really resonate with your target audience:
e.g.:
- Time management lifehacks to maximize restaurant summer holiday business
- Single mum’s guide to surviving the school holidays
- 10 top best beaches in the South-East for a weekend mini-break
- 10 most-instagrammable beaches in Cornwall
- How to boost engagement with your audience during the summer holidays?
- Best Summer hats in 2019
Etc. etc.
#2 Personal touch – summer holiday photos, introduce your team members
There’s nothing more authentic than unbrushed holiday pics presenting your team members on holidays. Add some personal touch to your business by showing people behind the scenes – not only in work context, but also as human beings – tell your audience about your hobbies, what you like to do in your free time, how you like to spend your holidays.
That way – you not only build connection, engagement (personal photos attract 8 x more engagement than graphics/ stock photos!) and generate higher customer loyalty (people prefer to buy from people, not faceless businesses!) – but also make your businesses more resilient to crises. As one of our power-users and a social media crisis expert Monika Czaplicka said: ‘people tend to forgive brands more willingly for their failures if they have a more personal connection with the brand and higher level of customer loyalty’.
#3 Be topical – follow trends
Every summer – there are some ‘summer hits’ or tends you can follow. It’s either *that* one song (remember how you couldn’t get ‘Despacito‘ out of your head two years ago?), or something that is trending online – like the ‘FaceApp’ photos of people made to look older by the app’s ‘old age’ filter?
Why not leverage the summer trends to get more engagement, attention and light-hearted content?
Your audience will surely appreciate that your brand seems topical and in the know.
#4 Video content – shot in holiday locations -send a video postcard to your audience!
As you may know from our previous posts, video is no one medium for engagement across all social media platforms. When you’re already on the beach, why not shoot a spontaneous boomerang video from the beach greeting your audience? It doesn’t have to be elaborate, staged or carry a lot of educational value. Simply say ‘Hi!’ and tell a few words about how you’re enjoying your vacation with your family/ friends in this lovely spot. Again – engagement and loyalty-building guaranteed!
#5 Interactive content – summer contests
There’s nothing better than an engagement building contest/ competition on social media – especially if it involves real photos of real people. You can easily apply those ideas to your summer marketing:
- share a selfie to win XYZ
- post your holiday pics to win XYZ
- tell us your best summer business tip to win XYZ
That way you will not only increase engagement, but also get free user content!
#6 User-generated content – clients’/ users’ stories
No idea what to write about? Share your users’/ clients’ business/ life stories in a series of short ‘interviews’! The added upside to this is the increased virality potential thanks to ‘vanity metrics‘ – if you interview someone, the people are more likely to share it (and so are their friends and families – I once got over 400 shares on LinkedIn for a client simply because their post features someone who had a very supportive social circle – never underestimate the power of network!)
#7 Summer reads / films
Some of your audience may already be bored of lying on the beach and looking for some books to read – why not write some posts about interesting book/ film recommendations that your audience may find interesting and relevant? You can even make it into a series – recommending one book and film every week!
#8 Summer Joint Ventures, Interviews and Webinars
Summer is a great time for some collaborations. Invite industry experts, users, business people from complementary businesses – to share their best practices, tips and trocks for the summer.
Hope the summer marketing ideas helped you rev up your social media and save them from a sun stroke 😉 ! Let us know in the comments if you have any other summer post ideas you would like to add!
