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When it Begins to Look a lot Like Christmas: Festive Ways to Get Your Podcast Listeners Into The Christmas Spirit
It’s the jingle bells and winter time, the magically lit streets smell like apple pie and gramma’s cookies. You just feel like hopping on the The Polar Express, picking up Santa's gifts from the North Pole and then going back to your hometown and watching some christmas movies next to the tree and the fireplace while Christmas carols are playing in the background.
It’s a magical time, Christmas time, where everyone is a child again hoping to be off the Naughty-List. It is America’s favorite holiday across all generations according to The Harris Poll.
It’s understandable! Who can resist the lights, the playlists, all the decorations and the food, staying in and spending quality time with the family, friends and loved ones. Watching reruns from the same movies we viewed as kids.
We get so excited for Christmas as soon as Halloween is over and Mariah Carey’s official “Not Yet” season begins!
That’s why it’s so important to you as a Podcast Host to get fully into the Christmas spirit and create festive episodes to keep your listeners entertained and interested.
Here’s a few tips and tricks that can help you tremendously with this:
3 Words: Green, Red & Gold: Rebrand!
In order to get into the Christmas spirit, your whole brand needs to get festive:
1. Change your podcast’s social media logos and pictures, add some green red and gold (Official holiday colours) on them, change your podcast pictures on the different apps you use for your podcast such as Spotify, iTunes etc..
2. Make sure to edit your bios or Podcast descriptions and add a creative “Merry Christmas” caption there.
3. Make sure to keep the same theme and holiday feed aesthetic across all your social media posts and captions. Make it a story, a timeline and people will follow it.
4. It’s really important to have a team of designers and social media managers in order to make this happen, create your new logos, posts, designs and share them on the different social media platforms during the perfect timing for maximum engagement. If you need help with that and you’re unsure how to get everything planned for the holiday season, our team can help you. Don’t hesitate to email us or book a call from here.
Make it About Christmas
Add some Christmas content to your podcast. No matter what your genre is, you can always find a way to slip it in. Here’s some recommendations:
1. Add some Jingle Bells to your intros and a new Christmas carol/song to your outro every new episode. It will get your audience in a good mood as soon as they start listening and will keep them excited for the next episode’s song.
2. Add a segment in your show to talk about Christmas. You can discuss the holiday movies, the music hits or you can talk about Christmas traditions, stories and the history behind them (such as the Grinch story, the Mistletoe, the North Pole and Santa) It will definitely keep people interested and will bring back the feeling of having a long night of chatter and discussion between cousins when we were little.
3. If you are a Crime Podcast Host and the holiday spirit doesn’t really fit in your content, it’s a good idea to talk about crimes that happened during Christmas (or related to it) to stick to the theme.
4. If you are into merchandise, it would be interesting to release Christmas themed merch for your loyal listeners. That would really increase your visibility and make your brand trendy as well as target a newer audience. Who wouldn’t want an ugly Christmas sweater or a cute Beanie?
5. Give some Christmas last minute shopping tips and ideas, and if you have sponsors or affiliate codes, that’s the best segue into talking about a sponsorship or a collaboration.
6. If you have a Mailing List, send a festive Newsletter for your audience, send positive quotes, pictures of your favorite meals or just a personalized note for your fans. That will definitely create a special connection with them to keep them listening and coming back for more.
7. Talk about the charity campaigns going on, share links and invite your audience to to donate and to give back, especially in these difficult times. What’s a holiday without helping those who need us? Start by yourself and your listeners will follow.
Include Your Audience
There’s a lot of different ways you can include your listeners and get them to participate in spreading the festivity and Christmas vibes:
1. Create a social media Hashtag (#) and ask your fans to share pictures of their favorite trees, meals, gifts, etc.. under that Hashtag. Best way to create an inside joke that only you and them knows about!
2. Ask your audience to send you their best / cringiest / funniest/ most embarrassing Christmas stories. That would make a creative and funny segment.
3. If you have a smaller audience, you can still get them involved by simple gestures like creating a group holiday themed Pinterest board where you and your community can pin and save your favorite things from Christmas, that can create beautiful interactions and bonding moments.
4. Plan meaningful Giveaways and announce the winners on your podcast.
Be Personal
Holidays are about being reunited with loved ones and spending quality time, enjoying each other’s presence.
Due to the Covid19 pandemic, Christmas is going to be so different this year, it will be lonely, away from the people that we miss the most, without the traditions that we always loved and cherished.
For that reason, it is important, as a Podcast host, to bring people together and make them feel a hint of warmth they used to experience every single Christmas.
Be there, be personal, invite your friends and family as guests on your podcast and share holiday stories. Talk about the importance of keeping in touch and checking up on each other even virtually. Go live and broadcast a familiar and warm voice, send some positivity towards those who need it the most. Remind everyone that we are quarantining and social distancing so we can stay safe and meet again faster.
When you get genuinely personal with your audience, open up, and show affection and care, that’s how you build a loyal fanbase that will support you no matter what and keep pushing you forward.
Christmas is very beautiful, it’s a wonderful holiday that has the most emotional value. It’s a great opportunity to get to know your listeners on a deeper level and let them get to know you as a person, who you are, not just someone they listen to once a while.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and as always,
Stay safe.
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