Enhance Your Holiday Branding With Your Elf on the Shelf

Entry No. 20

When it comes to The Holidays, many merry-makings & delights are geared toward children. Take The Elf on the Shelf, for instance, it's part story, part toy, geared to make children 'behave & believe' this time of the year.

However, adults, entrepreneurs, & small business owners can use their own Elves as vessels to further share their brand, services, skills, & products.

For this post's purpose, I'll use photographers as the primary example, but these Elf on the Shelf tips to enhance your holiday brand & business can be applied to anyone in any field.

Use Yor Elf to Show Behind the Scenes: On any social platform, followers love to see the 'behind-the-scenes' portion of our lives & careers. While photographers, as used to posting the final photo, using your Elf to 'show' the behind the scenes of your day/business, is a smart strategy. An example would be showing an image or video with your elf on your tripod or in your camera bag, as you're setting up your shot, framing it just right.
Use Your Elf's Voice: The whole point of The Elf on the Shelf is to name him or her & give that elf a personality. Make your elf an over-the-top extension of your personality & write your captions featuring your elf in his/her voice. Here, you can re-introduce your brand/business to followers through your elf & further deliver your mission statement in a fresh new way.
Drum Up Excitimnet: You can give followers more reasons to follow your daily stories by highlighting different locations where your elf 'appears' each day. Make these locations creative, but also make them further show more depth & insight to your business. So, having your elf appear to edit photos in Lightroom makes sense for photographers.
Run a Contest: You can use your elf to run a holiday contest either in-feed or in stories to have others engage with your holiday content. Whether you're giving away a preset, photoshoot service, or an elf for someone else, it can be a cool way to drum up momentum.
Be Consistent: If you're going to go all-in with your elf, don't just post one photo & forget it. You have to commit & bring your elf's story either daily or every other day. I say start the day after Thanksgiving & carry on to Christmas Day.

Follow on Social

I'll be sharing my Elf on the Shelf Holly Berry, @Katelynchefphotography_

Holly is a freelance photography assistant from the North Pole who is aspiring to be a portrait photographer. She has a summer internship lined up in the South Pole & is using this time with Katelyn Chef's Photography to complete her first internship requirement.