Marketing During Downtime
Depending on what your brand or product is, you might be faced with a period of the year that is much slower than others. Tons of products, services and brands run on a seasonal schedule of being the most active during certain times a year, everything from movies and TV shows to clothing and accessories specifically designed for a particular time of year like swimsuits or winter jackets. In the world of social media, the key is to stay relevant at all times even when your product might not be at the time. Everyone’s version of the seasons or discovery of your product is different, so it’s important that you continue to create content for those who have a bit of a more “off-season” approach. Here are just a few tips for marketing during downtime
Don’t Force It
At the risk of providing a good case for shutting down your social media altogether, it’s important for you to recognize exactly what your peak season and off seasons are for your brand if you have one. While you should definitely ramp up the activity during your busiest times, don’t feel pressured to keep the same type of momentum during your slower months. Consider scaling your approach back and giving yourself time to plan for the upcoming busy season. If you’re normally making posts to your social media accounts several times a day, consider cutting it back to once or twice and ensure they’re thoughtful and useful scheduled tweets.
Get Creative
Naturally, you may not be able to post the same kinds of content during your downtime as you would in busier months. This will be a bit tricky, but think outside the box when it comes to the types of content you create. Think about teaser videos, “wrap ups” of busier times, Q&As, infographics and other imaging and so much more to post in the meantime. Don’t be afraid to pull from user-created content as well. This is the perfect time to share any content related to your brand that was created by those that use it most. Not only will it be a fun and interesting spin on the content you share, but it frees up your marketing resources to head back into the planning stages for the busy season ahead.
Think Relative
No matter what industry your brand is a part of, it exists as part of a larger industry alongside other brands, ideas, blogs and adjacent industries. Think about the other types of related content you could also be creating that fits in with your brand and go from there so you have even more content to share. For example, a brand that sells winter apparel could post about extreme travel to parts of the world that are cold year-round as a way to help fill the gap.
Focus On Sharing
Another approach takes the onus on the brand entirely in terms of content creation. Still thinking about related content, consider some from other sources. An account about a TV show could spend their downtime sharing, re-posting and retweeting off-season conversations happening about the show – as well as news stories that have run about it and other content people may have missed along the way.