Three Things You Can Do To Keep Your Twitter Account Active During The Holidays

You don't want to be that person this holiday season. You know the one... always sneaking peeks at your smartphone during Christmas dinner, or sending one last, quick tweet before a New Year's kiss. But you also don't want your whole social media presence to completely collapse because you're off enjoying a well deserved hot chocolate! Here are three tips to keep your Twitter account active during the holidays. Scheduling is your friend I've said it before, and I'll say it again: schedule your tweets if you're going to be away from Twitter for an extended period of time. Use a tool like HootSuite and write a handful of tweets, scheduling them to go live while you're on your ski vacation or lounging in your Christmas pyjamas. You want this content to be "evergreen", or still valuable to your audience pretty far into the future - it wouldn't do to tweet about Black Friday deals on December 23rd just because you felt like scheduling something, would it? You don't have to tweet as often while you're away, so don't feel the pressure to send 5 or 10 tweets a day during the holidays. Space them out, and tweet infrequently but consistently, and your audience won't even know you left! Pro tip: If you're going to tweet something that you think will see some significant engagement (like a question or a solid tip), you probably want to actually be on your smartphone to respond to all of the replies you receive. Think holiday-specific content If you've ever had brain-freeze while trying to come up with your seventh witty tweet of the day, worry no more. During the holidays, we all have access to a plethora of content that isn't available at other times. To help with your scheduling, why not tweet holiday-themed content? If you're using Twitter for personal reasons, go ahead and tweet about your Christmas lights fiasco or how excited you are for turkey dinner with the fam. But if you're tweeting on behalf of a business, you'll want to retain some professionalism: tweet about the office holiday party or even mundane things like your office hours during the break. Pro tip: Try to keep holiday-themed content specific to your industry for added value to your audience. For instance, if you work in marketing, why not tweet some of your favorite holiday marketing campaigns (check out this heartwarming one from WestJet, for instance)? Or if you're a professional knitter, tweet your best ugly Christmas sweater patterns. Don't forget to check in It can be tempting to espouse the "set it and forget it" attitude while you're away, especially if you know you've got some quality, holiday-themed tweets scheduled for the week between Christmas and New Year's. But if you're able to check in - even just a handful of times - your audience will thank you. You never know when someone will want to contact you for some reason or another, or when one of your tweets will go viral. You'll want to be around for when this happens! Don't tie yourself to your smartphone during dinner - we all need a break from technology from time to time! - but do check in once every few days when you've got some downtime. Pro tip: If you're not going to be checking in to your Twitter account for an extended period of time, especially if you're running a business account, you might want to consider temporarily including a notice in your bio that lets your audience know when you'll be back in action. (Couple on smartphones image via Shutterstock)

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Three Things You Can Do To Keep Your Twitter Account Active During The Holidays

Lauren Dugan

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Lauren Dugan