As the holiday season approaches, the eCommerce market becomes livelier than ever. With so many different promotions here and there, buyers are drowned in a sea of choices. Then, how can brands effectively convince customers to buy from them on Black Friday – when competition is at its peak? Our suggestion is to research and curate effective Black Friday social media campaigns!

With the right approach, eCommerce brands can transform their social media platforms into powerful tools to nail their Black Friday sales.

In this article, let’s look through our suggested ideas for the best Black Friday social media campaigns using the following outline:

Read on and see how you can thrive during the most anticipated shopping event of the year with your social channels!

Profitable Black Friday Social Media Campaigns

For both eCommerce customers and store owners, Black Friday is definitely an event worth looking forward to. However, the year-end shopping frenzy also means that competitions are more intense than ever.

This calls for attractive CTAs, unique content and extra promotion effort on your social media channels to successfully capture the attention of your audience.

Here are our recommended Black Friday ideas for social media to convert your followers into paying customers:

#1 Countdown / Limited sales

What’s Black Friday without crazy deals and price discounts?

But sometimes, even the big sale percentage is not enough to make customers turn their heads and complete their purchase immediately. Putting a bit of pressure on your customers might be one of the best ways to get them to make that final decision – and to make it quick!

Take an example from Luvme Hair’s social media post, which showed a countdown announcement to the end of their Black Friday sale.

By announcing that their sale would be ending soon, Luvme Hair encouraged customers to make their decision fast before the discount became no longer available. It was as if the campaign was telling customers to buy now or they’d regret it later! This is why using urgency in your sales promotion is one of the best Black Friday campaign ideas that can significantly boost your conversion rate.

✧ Read on: Other inspiring sales promotion ideas to profit during the holiday season.

Key takeaway: Urgency leads customers to believe that they can secure the best deals by acting quickly. This may even increase their shopping satisfaction.

When writing Black Friday social media captions, make sure to include phrases like ‘limited quantity’ or ‘available for a limited time only’. They might further increase your chances of converting the audience into paying customers.

#2 Black Friday giveaway

Who doesn’t like free stuff?

For small businesses, doing a Black Friday giveaway on your social channels can be even more beneficial than trying to offer a high percentage discount. Take a look at this Black Friday interactive post by Ye Olde Donut Shoppe – who had a great way of executing their giveaway offer.

Rather than just giving away free products, Ye Olde also wanted to increase their social interactions. By offering an attractive prize in exchange for likes and shares, they gained more visibility and significantly better engagement. This also helped promote their products to potential customers who may have never heard about them before.

At the same time, Ye Olde was able to raise customers’ enthusiasm by hosting the giveaway in the form of a competition. Once they have entered the giveaway, customers would eagerly look forward to their next Black Friday or Cyber Monday social media posts.

By the time the result was announced, some of them would have been convinced to be loyal followers, even if they won the prize or not. And the cost for this campaign? 3 dozen donuts! Similarly, you can also enhance customer loyalty by offering giveaways. Consider gifting items like Wallpics Photo Tiles, which can be customized for your customers’ enjoyment.

Key takeaway: Organizing a giveaway using your social channels can be one of the most effective Black Friday social media ideas. Take this opportunity to get followers to engage with your social posts, boost customer experience and increase brand visibility.

#3 Gift guides

Most of the time, customers will take advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to shop for upcoming celebrations, such as Christmas or birthdays. Buying gifts for others is never an easy task. Therefore, Black Friday social media campaigns that focus on giving gift suggestions will help customers decide faster and make quicker purchases.

In Sephora’s case, the beauty product retailer created a gift guide that showcased 10 essential beauty items, all under a profitable price of $10 each.

With this guide from Sephora, customers not only knew about items that had the best discount. They also received multiple recommendations, helping them decide to either buy for themselves or for others. This is a great tactic for increasing your average order value.

Key takeaway: Consider compiling guides to buying holiday gifts as part of your Black Friday social media campaigns. This will help your customers make better and quicker buying decisions, thus increasing your sales as well as customer satisfaction.

#4 Email subscription incentives

More than just your social media channels, what if you also want to utilize email marketing to promote your Black Friday sales? Then a social media campaign to incentivize email subscription would be a more than suitable choice!

Steve Maddens have applied this tactic to their Black Friday social media campaigns to gain more methods of connecting with their customers. By subscribing to their newsletter, Steve Maddens would offer customers exclusive deals and early access to Black Friday promotions.

Why should brands care about email marketing during Black Friday? According to Shopify, email is the channel with the highest conversion rate for Black Friday at 4.29%. Thus, as you plan out your social media campaigns for Black Friday, it’s essential to incorporate email marketing into your promotion strategy.

The email addresses that you collected during this occasion can also help strengthen brand communication with your customers. They give way for other campaigns in the future, as well as build better customer loyalty.

Take a look at how you can utilize both email marketing and social media channels to rock your Black Friday sales:

Key takeaway: Curating Black Friday social media campaigns that focus on incentivizing email subscription can be beneficial to your sales performance. With the large potential traffic from social media during this season, you’re able to collect even more customer emails.

#5 Extended Black Friday sales

Imagine taking all that time and effort to prepare for a sale that would only last for a day! It would be a waste not to take advantage of the holiday shopping craze. Thus, prolonging Black Friday promotions is the tactic that many brands have adopted.

For Bath & Body Works, they utilize this game plan successfully.

At first, they announced their 5-day Black Friday sale with an attractive buy more, get more promotion. However, the company kept on offering other sale events across that same weekend, and even on Cyber Monday!

Bath & Body Works extended sales has certainly proven its effectiveness. Throughout their Black Friday social media campaigns, they have accumulated over 10 thousand engagements, showing how excited customers are with the prolonged promotion period.

Key takeaway: Extended Black Friday sale can help you maximize your sales preparation efforts. The lengthened campaign will attract not only new customers, but also people who have already purchased on Black Friday.

#6 Influencers partnership

Partnering with influencers has proven extremely effective for eCommerce businesses. These social media figures can easily persuade loyal followers with their opinion. Therefore, in order to increase the year-end shopping incentive, brands can popularize their products using influencer generated content.

Pura Vida applied this strategy a little differently. Together with having influencers promote their accessories, the brand even developed separate product lines with them.

With the high demand for collaborative products, Pura Vida saw Black Friday as a chance to boost their sales even more. Customers can get their favorite influence’s items at never-before-seen prices.

By taking advantage of social proof marketing, you can easily persuade the audience to try out your products. People are more likely to trust your brand when the products are suggested by a person widely admired.

Key takeaway: Partnering with influencers during Black Friday will get your brand name across a larger group of potential audiences and enhance brand authority. When deciding to partner with influencers, it’s essential to choose those who share the same spirit as your brand.

Best Tips For Successful Black Friday Social Media Campaigns

#1 Start your planning early

As you start thinking about Black Friday social media marketing, you’ll probably realize that there are many factors to take into account.

Which type of promotion would suit your business best? How would you price your sales products? Who is your target audience, and what is their shopping habit at this time of the year? So many things to consider, so little time!

Thus, the best way to avoid the year-end rush is to prepare your Black Friday materials early. A well-organized social campaign will surely give you an advantage over your competitors. Detailed planning for Black Friday and the holidays will also save you the effort of making adjustments afterwards.

Take the extra time to research a little deeper into your audience. Pay more attention to the content of your social posts and test multiple options when you still have the chance. You can avoid missing the date for important announcements by having your content ready and scheduling them in advance.

#2 Create a sense of urgency

Honestly, no one likes being rushed. But sometimes your customers need a little push to finally make that purchase – or else your products are just going to end up in the abandoned cart!

Therefore, building up anticipation and then creating a bit of pressure for your audience is one of the best Black Friday tips. Tactics such as last chance items or limited hourly sale will encourage customers to make faster buying decisions. The best time to post on Black Friday when applying this method is early in the day, then counting down to the end of your sale.

When combined with the right Black Friday social media ads content, you can even increase the effectiveness of this strategy.

#3 Make meaningful engagements with your audience

Social media is a powerful communication tool. As you acknowledge your customers’ opinion and respond to their comments, you can form personalized experiences that’s harder to achieve elsewhere.

Interacting with customers regularly also shows that your business cares. As followers find that you are providing helpful information and dedicated support, they will grow more fond of your brand. This will eventually convert to stronger loyalty and better seller-buyer relationships.

#4 Increase reach with hashtags

Hashtags are the golden factors in driving engagements to your Black Friday sales campaign. In fact, posts using hashtags will get as much as twice the engagement of posts without them. With hashtags, you’re letting potential customers discover your business more efficiently.

There are a few types of hashtags that you can make use of in this occasion:

Branded hashtags: These will help you build your own community. Brands can incentivizing both potential and existing buyers to get involved with their story.
Content / topic hashtags: These let you join the discussion with millions of social media users who are interested in particular topics. Make sure that the hashtags stay relevant to your brand and the products you’re selling to maximize their efficiency.
Campaign hashtags: These are the hashtags that you can curate specifically according to your campaign’s content. Using them in your Black Friday social media campaigns will link all your content together and create more consistency. Customers can also find all related campaign posts using the hashtags.

Why You Need A Good Social Media Strategy For Black Friday

For many eCommerce brands, offering Black Friday promotions is not just to grow in sales numbers. It’s also a wonderful chance for them to gain potential leads and generate better customer experience.

Brands believe that an impactful social media campaign will benefit their overall performance even in the long run – and they are right. Social media is a powerful tool when it comes to announcing your Black Friday sales. With effective use, these marketing channels can help you achieve more than what you spend.

Here is how a good Black Friday social media campaign can benefit your business:

Gain brand awareness: This is perhaps a stated fact – even more important on crucial sales events such as Black Friday. The easy-to-share feature of social platforms will help spread the campaign to more than just your direct followers. Even their friends and family may hear about your brand and your Black Friday promotions!
Strengthen customer loyalty: By showing that you’re trying your best to meet buyers’ expectations, you have the chance to leave them a positive, long-lasting impression. As the experience you provide your customers is consistent and satisfactory, they are more likely to stay with your brand longer.
Improve trust and brand authority: When the audience sees a consistent posting schedule and original Black Friday content on your social media, your brand will appear more credible. Moreover, replying to followers’ inquiry directly creates a great sense of trust. This also shows new visitors that you value your customers.
Increase conversion rate: As your online visibility increases, there are more opportunities for potential audiences to discover your business. By understanding their needs and delivering the right promotional message, you can effectively convert them into making successful purchases.

Need more ways to increase the effect of your Black Friday social media posts? Check out our detailed resources on social media marketing:

FAQs: Black Friday Social Media Campaigns

[sp_easyaccordion id=”44276″]

Access our essential Black Friday – Cyber Monday resources to help you build your holiday sales’ action plan:

Final Thoughts

Being the biggest event of the year for retailers, Black Friday is a profitable occasion to go all out with your social media content. A successful Black Friday social media campaign will help eCommerce businesses boost traffic and improve brand awareness. At the same time, optimized social media content can generate remarkably better conversion rate and sales performance.

With our suggestions of Black Friday post ideas for social media, we hope that you’ll have the most successful Black Friday campaigns for your eCommerce store.

Join our dynamic eCommerce community and check out our LitExtension blog to start preparing your Black Friday social media campaigns together with thousands of other store owners today!