The season of long, lazy days, refreshing drinks, and too much ice cream is just around the corner! As a social media marketer, you are always on the lookout for content inspiration. Now, you’ve found it!
Creating summer content can be challenging. You don’t have big holidays like Easter, Halloween or New Years to tap into, but you can use what people love most about summer: warm weather, swimming, beaches, and vacations. The summer season is slower. People are either on holiday or daydreaming about one. The kids are at home. School is out. Life moves at a different pace.
That’s why we dug through some great social media posts from the last few summers and put together some actionable tips to use for your own seasonal content plan!
Tap into your customer’s current mood
No one wants to spend the long days slaving at the office. Yet in the U.S., fewer people than ever are using their vacation days. According to Project Time Off, 55% of American workers had unused vacation time at the end of 2016.
Summer is the perfect time to fix that! And yet, your customers put it off. They worry about their responsibilities and missing out on important tasks. Tap into those feelings and produce content that will help them. Check out what Hubspot did for their summer campaign!
By offering a solution to a common problem, you are showing your followers you care more about what’s going on in their lives than selling a product—you want to help them have the best summer possible!
And who doesn’t love a bit of holiday spirit? The Dollar Shave Club hits the same emotional note through humor. If you don’t take a vacation now, when would you?
Combining solutions-based content with laughter can be a potent formula!
A twist on the (old) summer favorites
We associate certain things with different seasons. Winter has warm blankets, cozy log fires, and exposed brickwork. Summer? Long nights, s’mores, and campfires!
Ben and Jerry’s does a great job of capturing those things and incorporating their product with them. True, they may have a slightly unfair advantage but this is a great example of how they use creativity to their advantage, which is something every brand can do.
Picture the traditional summer scene your customers would enjoy. How can your product fit in it in a natural way? Ice cream doesn’t belong in a s’more and yet, in this case, it’s the perfect match.
Old Spice does a great job of incorporating their year-round product into traditional summer scenes.
Regardless of your product or service, you can tap into what your audience is already thinking about with some creative product placement!
Summer doesn’t look the same everywhere
While most of us picture constant sunshine when we think of summer, that’s not always the case. If you are a local business or your product appeals to a particular audience, you can use that in your seasonal marketing campaigns.
Take a look at Innocent drinks, a U.K. based company, and how they tap into the British attitude toward summer. What’s a summer favorite in your area? How do most of your followers spend the hotter months? Using humorous posts that say what half your audience is jokingly thinking can work really well.
Address the elephant in the room
While summer is gorgeous, it’s also the time of year when most businesses slow down. Personal productivity can really take a hit. Most Trello users are constantly looking for ways to get more done. The Trello content team understands this and shares a lot of content specifically designed to help. Or, you can take some inspiration from Asana and create a summer resource!
So, what is your audience’s biggest summer challenge? Create content around it and help them make the most out of the season. Create helpful, actionable content that helps your followers live their best lives.
Doesn’t everyone secretly wish they could have that summer cake and eat it, too?
Try new tools
This summer we have access to some fantastic content creation tools that just weren’t around last year!
Use Instagram Stories and Facebook stories to capture more intimate snapshots of your summer. Share backstage festival videos, shots from your company’s barbecue party or create a Q&A series about how your team balances work with play.
This summer, tell human stories
Big brands have a lot of money to throw behind summer marketing campaigns. But, you don’t need a giant budget to create something your followers will respond to.
Instead of going big, go small.
Understand what your customers want to get out of this season and create content that helps them achieve that goal. Be the business that stands with your people! And, if your goals align, why not use Stories or Live video to share how you and your team do it?
Remember, the best stories are human ones. Use your seasonal content to make a connection this summer.
Make Your Life Easier this Summer…
If you are looking for a powerful yet easy-to-use social media tool to help you organize, store, and post your social media content so you can spend more time on creating your brand’s best content of the upcoming season, then it may be time to check out a robust social media management tool.
After all, isn’t there more to the summer season than ice cream and beaches? Summer is also about kicking back and relaxing. Try a social media tool that will help you do just that. Check out MavSocial and try it for FREE today.
