Major holidays, like Christmas, are typically very lucrative seasons for most businesses. It also opens up a lot of opportunities for them to connect with potential clients. Unfortunately, the holidays are a very stressful time for consumers.

The wrong marketing campaign can alienate clients, damage a company’s reputation, and waste precious opportunities to develop brand loyalty and increase sales. Conversely, the right campaign can give a company a major boost in terms of revenue and reputation.

Here are three highly successful holiday social media campaigns that are inspiring and worth imitating:

REI #OptOutside Campaign

Several companies have benefited greatly from a well-executed hashtag campaign. REI, Starbucks, and UPS have even parlayed their successful hashtag campaign into a yearly event.

REI’s #OptOutside started in 2015 when the outdoor retailer made their decision to close all their shops on Black Friday the focus of their marketing campaign. Not only did the company go on a break on the biggest shopping day of the year, something virtually unheard of at the time, but they also paid all their employees to spend the time outdoors with their loved ones.

The company also encouraged customers to spend the day outside and to share their photos with the hashtag. The campaign immediately went viral, winning multiple awards that year. REI’s campaign is still going strong three years in, and the company has kept things fresh, rolling out a new search engine that collects user-generated content with the #OptOutside tag.

Elf Yourself by OfficeMax

Some of the best marketing campaigns directly involve customers. Despite being more labor-intensive and time-consuming, fun user-generated contests are memorable and easily boosts a brand’s name recall.

A prime example of this is OfficeMax’s Elf Yourself contest. The company provides one video template that all contestants can use. The template shows five dancing elves, and users can customize it by putting in their friends’ faces. Needless to say, millions of people have fun making the video, uploading it and sharing it with friends and family on various social media platforms.

Nordstrom’s Advent Calendar

The countdown’s begun – but what’s behind door number 1? #December, we’re ready for you! #fridayfeeling

A post shared by Nordstrom (@nordstrom) on Dec 1, 2017 at 9:28am PST

Instagram is a wonderful vehicle for brands hoping to get noticed, and the Christmas season can make a key difference. Nordstrom really went to town with its Instagram marketing campaign this year. The company opted to go with an Advent calendar theme, posting a unique video every day as the company counts down to Christmas Day. The daily videos, which were sprinkled with some brands the store carries, helped customers get into the spirit of the season.

It was also a big plus that the video offerings were all very creative and fresh. Customers definitely had a great time viewing them and undoubtedly enjoyed buying from Nordstrom as well.

There’s a lot more riding on the marketing campaigns of today, as the different social media channels give companies more opportunities to have deep interactions with their consumers. But to do this, businesses have to be more creative in coming up with strategies for unforgettable content and its distribution. This is particularly vital during the Christmas season.

[Image via Pixabay]