Not Christmas Yet, but Facebook Wants Marketers Ready

Sahail Ashraf posted on 14 October 2020

Facebook wants companies to have a good Christmas. And It wants to help, by supplying them with a toolkit that will guide their marketing practices in the run up to the holidays. Does it help?

Traditionally, Christmas Is the time of year when marketing and advertising goes into overdrive. Billions of dollars are spent and it’s all about new product launches, updates and general spending everywhere. Facebook knows this, and Facebook is built on advertising revenue. So you can expect a certain level of anxiety within that company as regards  tp making the most of the Christmas period. Now, though, things are a little more urgent. The COVID-19 outbreak has meant that people have suffered financially. Facebook wants to help businesses get the most out of the Christmas holidays, and has prepared a little something to do just that.

Facebook has prepared a Christmas 2020 Research and planning hub. Here, marketers can find a wealth of resources and tools to help them plan for Christmas. The idea is that marketers can use the information and data provided to make better decisions around the holiday season, and ensure that their efforts bring fruit. 

Facebook has explained it thus:

“This Christmas shopping season will look different compared to years gone by. However, it’s going to be more important than ever for people to come together and share gifts with their loved ones.”

So, what’s in the box?

The first thing you notice when you visit the special ‘hub’ is plenty of insights from the very first second. Right at the bottom of the homepage is a ton of information around the holiday season, and shopping and purchasing habits that Christmas brings out in people.

However, right there on that homepage is an incredibly rich insights tool that you can use without having to visit any other part of the site. This is surprising, when you look at the complexity of the data you can pull up just by pressing a few icons and identifying the market you want to look at. 

For example, we took a look at ‘discovery’ as part of the shopper’s journey in the UK for 2019. The information you bring up is definitely useful in thinking about how you can hone your marketing strategy and spend marketing dollars in the right place.

This insights section is quick and smooth. It finds the info you need on certain areas super speedily, and is a great way into the more detailed work that Facebook has undertaken to help businesses.

This involves something called a ‘Campaign Planner’. This is a huge thing, and it is incredibly helpful too. Firstly, the planner gives you a list of key dates to bear in mind when you are starting to plan the marketing campaign for the holidays. It then gives you a direct link to your own calendar, so that you can implement quickly and accurately. Again, the whole experience is fluid and quick. 

The emphasis here is on efficiency and clarity. Even the most cynical marketers will agree that, yes, Facebook is about advertising and it wants you to spend, but this material is just ridiculously helpful. And the most amazing part about all of this is just how much better it gets as you dig even deeper into the Campaign Planner itself. There is a heck of a lot more to work with.

The planner introduces complete timelines that allow you to map out a full campaign for the holiday season. It also offers advice on how to get the best out of an ad on the platform, including how to create one.

Then, right at the bottom, you’ll find a ton of resources, all of them a link away.

And checklists, too

To make the whole process even smoother, you can’t really overestimate the value of the checklists alone. These help to push you closer towards a more successful Christmas using Facebook as an advertising and marketing channel. 

Of course, every single piece of this work benefits Facebook. No one is blind to that. But it is something that seems genuinely borne out of a focus on helping small businesses. Here, we have one of the biggest marketing and advertising channels in the world telling you exactly how to get the most out of the holiday period. This is incredibly useful, and it is quite possibly the most important piece of support a business could have online right now. If a business uses Facebook, this (completely free) resource can only offer more support moving forward.

If you are in charge of social media marketing for a company, or for yourself, consider spending some time with Locowise. We offer great metrics, and a huge helping hand towards marketing ROI. Try us for a week, for free.