For brands beating the drum for Cyber Monday, social media has become one of the most productive channels. Working on a strategy to promote your deals on social media is going to give your marketing efforts a huge lift. Feeling overwhelmed trying to catch up with all that? Don’t worry. We’ll talk about Cyber Monday marketing on social media in this blog. We’ll particularly focus on ideas for Story posts. Because every day about half a billion people on Instagram use Stories. And Stories are great for engagement too! 

Should Your Brand Take Cyber Monday Seriously?

We often talk about Cyber Monday in connection with Black Friday and yet they are two very different events. While Black Friday has been about in-store shopping deals, Cyber Monday was originally the event for online shoppers. 

There was a time when online shopping was not a widespread trend. And ironically, it was mostly small brands with tight budgets that did business online. So, a dedicated event like Cyber Monday made better sense. But today, the boundary between online shopping and in-store shopping has been getting thinner by the day. Brands like IKEA have even started exploring futuristic technologies like augmented reality to deliver more memorable experiences to their customers. 

In this evolving world of retail, online shopping carnivals like Cyber Monday are definitely a big deal. Speaking about the penetration of this trend, Cyber Monday is observed in several parts of the world. Even if the country where your business serves does not take Cyber Monday seriously, it still gives you a chance to reward your customers with some attractive deals. After all, there is no stringent cultural or historical background to this annual event. 

So, investing in Cyber Monday marketing can indeed help brands looking to switch things up or those looking to gain the attention of the target market. 

Cyber Monday Marketing – Story Ideas That Work for Every Brand

Creating posts for social media can be overwhelming. Images, carousels, videos, Reels – there’s a lot to keep up with. But Instagram Story posts are in a league of their own. Engaging, exciting, and effective – these are great tools to convince new users to follow your brand page and existing users to continue to engage with your page. 

Though Instagram Stories are loaded with features and more interactive, a majority of young social media users watch Stories on Facebook. So, it would be a good idea to reuse your Instagram Stories on your Facebook page too. 

That said, let’s dive right into the ideas. 

1. Trivia quiz 

“Finding information” is one of the top uses of the internet. 

So, informative posts never go out of style. And especially with occasions like Cyber Monday, most brands are focusing on the deals. So, if you focus on the roots, you stand out. Talk about the origins of Cyber Monday. 

Did you know that Cyber Monday was first ever observed in 2005? This became a popular idea because the Monday after Thanksgiving recorded some of the highest peaks in sales. And the occasion was meant to give online retailers and smaller businesses a chance to take part in the shopping madness. 

Facts like these are sure to make your customers stop and take a second look. 

KIMP Tip: Using the Poll option to let your customers guess the answer is one way to do it. Another will be to create a simple infographic that captures the essence of history you wish to focus on. This way you have something that is easy to share. 

With a KIMP Graphics subscription, you get unlimited designs every month. With one subscription you can take care of social media posts, infographics, and all other types of designs that can boost your brand engagement. 

2. Shareable templates 

Branded Story templates are some of the most interesting ways to boost your brand’s visibility. You can come up with custom templates with a Cyber Monday theme where customers could fill in the blanks and share on their Stories, tag their friends, and also your brand. This opens up a bulk of user-generated content for you to share on your Stories as well. 

Use your imagination to come up with a creative set of questions for customers to answer. Here are some ideas to spark your creativity:

• One thing you regret buying on a Cyber Monday sale
• The one thing you plan to buy this Cyber Monday 
• What’s the maximum you’ve spent on a Cyber Monday purchase? 

Fun and engaging questions convince people to share your template on their Stories. 

Here is a fun template that Pepi shared on a different occasion. But a similar idea works in Cyber Monday marketing too. 

3. Share statistics that evoke FOMO 

According to Amazon, the hottest-selling categories on Black Friday 2022 were home, fashion, toys, and beauty. Find out similar stats for your business from the previous holiday seasons.

Facts like these tell shoppers what they are missing out on. Or you can also focus on brand-specific statistics like the revenue your brand made or the percentage increase in sales last Cyber Monday. Or focus on the categories that people were most interested in. Statistics like these have the attention of people who are looking to buy what’s in trend. 

You can extend this idea and share updates on the currently trending categories and products after your Cyber Monday sale begins. This is another place where an infographic format comes in handy. 

4. Show them what’s happening behind-the-scenes

Regularly sharing behind-the-scenes content is one of the most effective ways to humanize your brand. So, doing this during a Cyber Monday season would mean a boost to your Cyber Monday marketing + a boost to your brand image. 

You can share glimpses of how you are getting ready for the sale. This includes videos or photos of how your warehouse is getting ready. Or how you are stocking up to avoid items from getting sold out. In short, you can show customers how you are fine-tuning your process to enhance their experience during the sale. 

5. Let customers turn brand ambassadors 

Use Instagram Stories to share customer stories. Share reviews from customers who shopped during your Cyber Monday sales in previous years. Highlight the reviews that talk about the experience. Focus on reviews that talk about items that were on sale for the first time. Use customer reviews to convince customers that shopping during your Cyber Monday sales would help them save a lot of money. 

KIMP Tip: Finding sale-specific reviews is not always an easy job. One way to tackle this will be to send a follow-up email to customers who shop during your sale. This way you will have content to use for your next year’s campaigns. 

Want to optimize your marketing emails for your Cyber Monday marketing strategy, get in touch with the KIMP team today. 

6. Use your Story to populate your email list 

37% of brands are increasing their email marketing budget. Are you? If not, add it to your to-do list for Cyber Monday marketing. Instagram Stories can be used as a free and effective resource for building your email list. 

But why would customers provide their email? What’s in it for them? That’s where your Cyber Monday sales come into the picture. Create an exclusive community, provide member discounts, and let customers know that they would receive a special coupon code in the email. Or you can also give early access to customers who sign up. If the offer is convincing enough, if they know that they would be able to save extra or gain other benefits, customers will be more willing to provide their email id. 

Promote this idea on your Instagram Story. And then link a lead-capture landing page to the Story making it clear as to where your customer has to click and where they have to provide their details. 

KIMP Tip: Your Story should be used as a visual anchor for your campaign. Avoid cluttering it with too much information. Provide all the details on the landing page instead. Ensure that the landing page has all the details about the deals, the exclusive privileges, and how to avail them. When all the information is in one place, customers will not navigate away from the form and therefore you have better chances of convincing them to fill it out. 

Ensure that your Cyber Monday ads and landing page designs are all visually cohesive. Working with a designated design team like KIMP makes this simpler. 

7. Use branded stickers 

Seasonal sales like Cyber Monday give you a good opportunity to build on your brand awareness. And one way to use Instagram Stories to do this is through custom-branded stickers. Create a channel for your brand on GIPHY and keep adding seasonal stickers. Talk about the new sticker collections on your Stories and encourage customers to use them. This helps in expanding the reach of your brand. 

KFC added a bunch of cool football stickers during the football season. 

You can create such digital stickers to add more value to your Cyber Monday marketing efforts. And then with the analytics tool, you can track the usage of your stickers. This adds a whole new dimension to your marketing. 

KIMP Tip: To announce your new sticker collection you can use a static image that gives all the details like the search term and the theme of the stickers. In addition to this, you can also add a quick demo video on how to find the stickers and use them in Stories. 

Did you know that you can also request basic GIFs with your KIMP Graphics subscription? So, if you plan to implement the idea of creating stickers for your Cyber Monday marketing, you can do so easily. 

8. Use memes to communicate 

If you do not have much time to come up with content and yet you want to keep the Story space active, memes are your best friends. And the best part is that you can share them both on your regular social media feed and on Stories. 

Memes are fun, easy to relate to and so people will share them. By customizing a meme with your copy and adding your brand’s visual flavor to it, you have an engaging piece of content to add to your Cyber Monday content calendar. 

Put yourself in a consumer’s shoes to understand what Cyber Monday looks and feels like. Focus on the struggles, the little joys in finding the right deals, and other relatable emotions to create the best memes for your Instagram Story. 

9. Keep customers informed 

Information about your upcoming sale and deals should be available in a more stationary space like your regular social media feed, email, or even your websites. But to focus on specific deals or create a sense of urgency, your Stories come in handy. 

For example, if you have sale windows where specific categories go on sale you can use your Stories to announce these deals going live. Use your regular posts to let customers know that they will get quick updates in your Story. This will motivate more users to follow your page so that they will not miss out on all the updates. 

Information tends to get text-heavy. But customers might not always be patient enough to read all the text in fleeting Stories. So, make it a point to use visuals to grab their attention. Even for something as simple as a “sale coming soon” announcement you can use relevant visuals for a scroll-stopping effect. 

10. Use Stories as shopping guides 

With several brands running Cyber Monday sales and with plenty of items running on sale, customers might find it difficult to make a choice. In fact, too many options confuse customers and reduce the chances of the customer placing an order. You can use your Instagram Stories to address this. 

Have you used seasonal shopping guides to drive traffic to your website? You can use this idea on your Instagram Story as well. Identify different themes and create shopping guides for your brand. The first Story can talk about the theme of the shopping guide or who would benefit from it. The subsequent Stories can then focus on product representations. And on each Story, you can add a link to the product page so that customers can directly navigate to the respective deal and place the order. 

For example, you can come up with a guide that talks about “the best Christmas gifts you can buy for your spouse this Cyber Monday”. And your Story posts can each recommend a different item that feels relevant for a Christmas gift. This way, Cyber Monday purchases will not feel like a burden but like an early Christmas purchase. You can then use upselling strategies to promote related items during your Christmas sales. 

Since each of your Story posts in this case will focus on one product, use clear product images to convey the information instantly. 

11. Let your customers decide what goes on the Stories 

The real-time interactions available through polls and questions on Stories make this space all the more relevant to brands. For example, if you have far too many ideas for your Cyber Monday marketing, you can use your Story to ask customers what they want to see next. 

For example, if you plan to reveal category-wise deals for the sale, you can create a poll on your Story and ask customers which categories they want to see first. But decisions like these should be made a few days in advance so that you can time your discounts accordingly. 

But gathering customer inputs and then curating the sales for them shows them that you value customer relationships. And this gives your brand an edge over your competitors, especially during the sale season. Along with it, you also get to know about customers who are genuinely interested in your deals. Thus you have valuable leads to target. 

12. Prepare customers for the sale 

Cyber Monday sales draw two types of customers. One – returning customers who have already used your website or app to make a purchase. Two – new customers who will be placing their first order. You need to have content for both of these customer groups. 

For the new customers who are planning to make their first purchase during your Cyber Monday sale, you should aim at making things simpler. For this, you can post simple demo videos on your Stories to show them how to find the best deals or how to add items to their Wishlist for quicker order placement during the sale. 

Design Your Cyber Monday Story Posts With KIMP

Other than the ideas mentioned above, you can have “countdown to the sale” posts, teasers for the upcoming sales, and even announcements about new product launches and all things exciting happening during the Cyber Monday sale. For all these posts and more, working with a professional design team can save you a lot of time. The team can also help you come up with creative branded templates that you can use to quickly add custom text and keep the interaction alive throughout the sale. 

Illustrations, GIFs, videos, and static images, your design team will help you explore all the content formats in order to find out what works best for your brand. 

Cyber Monday is not far away. Sign up for KIMP’s 7-day free trial today so that you can pick the right subscription later and get your workflow ready for the busy shopping season ahead.