Sure, you’ve got a Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn account, but how are you leveraging them this year to boost your holiday sales?

According to Steelhouse, 28 percent of consumers expect to do more of their holiday shopping online this year, and that likely means that they’ll look to the Internet to decide where to shop.  If you’re still sticking to traditional holiday marketing, check out these three inventive ways to engage your customers—and get them to buy.

Ask Them What They Want

The world of social media is all about connecting with your customers and making them feel like they’re an important part of your business.  So what better way to do that than to involve them in the planning of your holiday sales?  Post questions on your social media platforms about which products they would like to see on sale, and then use the data to create your holiday sales schedule.  Make it fun by setting time limits on the sales for each product, which will also create an urgency, as well as keep them actively involved in the process.  For instance, if you run an online bookstore, and a lot of your customers want to see the latest John Grisham novel on sale, announce that the book will be on sale for two days, and watch the sales roll in.  Keep them in suspense about the next upcoming sales item so they’ll keep checking in.

Have a Contest

Who doesn’t like to win free products, especially when those products are on their holiday shopping list?  Reach out to your social media fans this year by holding a contest where you give away some of your product.  But don’t just announce a contest and expect them to be excited about it.  Instead, involve them in process.  For instance, for the fictional online bookstore we mentioned earlier, you could hold a writing contest, where the winner would receive a $100 gift certificate to your store.  Have them write a paragraph about holiday memories, and post the submissions online.  Get the word out about your promotion on the web, and you’ll soon draw not only your regular customers, but new ones as well.  Don’t forget to keep all of your new email addresses—you can use those for marketing efforts throughout the year.

Give Them Ideas

Too often people are frustrated by trying to find unique gift ideas for their family and friends.  It can be worse when they are shopping for someone in the office or neighborhood who they don’t really know.  But you can use your social media sites to help customers with this problem by giving them ideas about how to use your products for the perfect gift.  Do this by sending tweets about gift ideas or starting a thread on your Facebook page about unique ways to package or use your products as a gift.  Using our fictional online bookstore again, you can send tweets about creating gifts using various journals, poetry baskets as gifts for the soulful artist, or start conversations on Facebook about the best books to buy for history buffs.

Getting your customers involved this year will make a difference in whether or not you reap some of the predicted sluggish sales.  Rather than telling customers what you’re offering, get them involved, and watch your holiday sales go up.

Image credit