An interview with Meghan Nichols of The Jolly Christmas Shop

facebook_letTell us a little about your target audience and why you use facebook to engage them.

Our target audience are women between the ages of 35-55 who love decorating for Christmas. We engage them by getting them excited about our products by showing pictures, playing contests, free item giveaways and even asking for feedback.

How many people like your facebook page currently and how long has it been up?

We currently have 9,349 likes on facebook. We started the page on July 2012, so not quite a year yet.

Before we talk about how you built up your facebook audience, how do you utilize this audience to sell more products and achieve business goals?

We use facebook to sell more products by making picture albums of new products describing each, telling the cost and also a link to where customers can purchase the pictured item. We also announce our store sales and post a link directly to our website where the sale items are.

We do a lot of facebook only deals (coupon codes and free items) which makes our liked audience feel they are getting an exclusive deal because they are our fan on facebook. We also will be starting a facebook store in the future which will allow customers to purchase products right from facebook.

We use facebook to drive traffic to our website. One way we like to do this is by hosting contests or announcing contests on Facebook. Recently we had an Easter egg hunt contest where contestants tried to find a hidden egg on our website, which in turn got us more traffic to our website.

How about fans who do lots of sharing on facebook, basically cheerleaders for your brand, do you have some of those? If so, how do you feed them with neat things to share?

Yes, we do have some fans that do a lot of sharing. Most of our “super fans” are people who have previously purchased from us or have won a contest. Some share sales, some share contest information and others share our new product pictures/information. In the furture we are going to hold a “share this” contest where contestants share a link we post and we pick one winner to give a prize to.

What other tips do you have for businesses who have a large following on facebook?

  • Give facebook followers information about your products and get them excited about it.
  • Give them some fun ways to interact with you by posting contests and games.
  • Let your followers give you feedback (Ask if they have any ideas to make your site better, what contests they enjoy, ask what products they like and which they don’t, etc).
  • Keep your facebook page active, don’t go a long time not posting or changing your page. You want your page to look like people are excited about your brand and are interacting with you and others on the site, otherwise why would new people like your page?
  • Try to post something at least once a week. On the other end, don’t bombard your followers with tons of posts. If you do this you’ll loose those hard earned likes pretty quickly.

Thanks Meghan, tell us about your business.

I own The Jolly Christmas Shop. On our website thejollychristmasshop.com we sell Christmas and Halloween home decor ranging from Christmas ornaments, wreaths and trees to collectible figures, lights, and yard decor. We stock our store with unique items you won’t find in larger chain stores.


Tom Shivers
Tom Shivers

I'm a ecommerce SEO consultant and President of Capture Commerce. I've managed digital marketing campaigns for scores of clients since 2000 and found that every business is unique with its own challenges and opportunities. When I see that I have contributed to the success of a business by helping them grow, it makes me feel awesome! That’s the coolest thing and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to do this.

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