What’s in this article:
- Facebook launched its 2021 Holiday Marketing Guide in June – here’s why
At the beginning of June Snapchat started pushing holiday marketing. Now, Facebook dropped its 2021 Holiday Guide.
Like all social media guides to marketing, it puts the stress on connecting with and delighting customers.
Facebook’s claim: “The Facebook Discovery Commerce system can help you delight shoppers and anticipate their needs, helping products find people wherever they are through a series of sophisticated components and tools.”
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It breaks down four ways digital discovery reshapes holiday shopping:
- Community and connection
- Engagement and entertainment
- Anticipation and occasion
- Inspiration and spontaneity
To address the first, they recommend to: “Make people feel connected by engaging around interests, geographies and passion points with our personalization engine.”
For the second, they share surveys that say “71% of NA mega sale day shoppers agree they like to take part in shopping experiences that are entertaining” and a forecast of $25 billion in sales from live-stream shopping by 2023.
For the third, they talk about “Mega Sale Days” that earn their own acronym MSD. They claim that such days are redefining the shopping season, though the “proof” of that is merely less than half of holiday shoppers have made an MSD purchase.
For the last category, they say, “92% of holiday shoppers surveyed who say they discover on Facebook platforms made a spontaneous discovery whilst shopping online.” [Note whilst!}
For all four categories, Facebook offers recommendations on marketing and talks up relevant partnerships.
But why start in June? Probably because Snapchat did. However, Facebook also offers its own timeline that calls for marketers to “establish foundations” already in June and July.
August through early October is the time designated for preparation for the peak holiday shopping period. That peak time is shown to be late October through December.
Even January through February make that calendar as “post-holiday” time. The only months that escape this overarching winter holiday umbrella are March, April, and May. Now, that’s a lot of holiday marketing!