It’s the holly-est, jolliest time of year and that means your social media marketing strategy needs to get in the holiday spirit. Whether your business frequents Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or LinkedIn, you need a holiday-specific strategy that keeps your business relevant and current with your customers. Holidays are a great time to connect with your followers online in an authentic way, but also a way that helps you sell more of your products and services….which is kind of the point.

Solve a Problem

Solving problems is what makes you sales. During a hectic time of year, problems arise for people and if your company can solve those problems, that’s a big win. Even if your holiday content isn’t celebrating a specific holiday, you can focus on solving holiday-specific problems.

For example, if you sell pillows, talk about how your pillows help hectic holiday hosts get a good night’s sleep. Or how your pillows are the perfect gift for that person who has pretty much everything. Or do a giveaway where you let people nominate somebody who could use a good night’s sleep after their in-laws leave. 

There are so many holiday-adjacent things that you can do if you don’t want to celebrate a specific holiday, but the most important thing that you can do is start solving problems for people. Solve problems they didn’t even know they had. And so problems that they did know that they had. Solve all the problems! 

“…the most important thing that you can do is start solving problems for people. Solve problems they didn’t even know they had. And so problems that they did know that they had.”

What to Post: 

So while you’re out there solving problems right and left, you are also going to need some post ideas. The best posting ideas are going to come from you and your team sitting down and deciding the kind of content that your specific audience wants to see from you. Whenever you read advice online with posting guides, know that even great advice can only go so far. Because the best kinds of posts are the kinds of posts that you know work really well for your audience.

So sit down, and look at the posts from the past that have performed really well. Can you identify what was magic about those posts? And can you recreate that magic with a holiday twist? Tailoring holiday content to your audience is always going to go further than a generic list can take you, but we’re not going to leave you totally hanging. 

Looking for some of our sample posts ideas and see how you can tweak them to make them work for your audience? Copying is lazy; flattering, but super lazy. And laziness never brings great results. So look at our ideas and then go out and make them your own. 

10 Easy Holiday Post Ideas That You Shouldn’t Just Copy Straight Off This List: 

1. A picture of your team in holiday wear, working on packing orders
2. Your products shot with holiday props
3. A blog post about how your product makes a great gift
4. A BTS look at your company holiday party
5. An IG reel with your product being wrapped for Christmas
6. A public post thanking your employees for the hard work they put in throughout the year
7. Shipping date cutoff reminders in a not-so-pushy way
8. A graphic with a holiday saying
9. Let your audience vote on the best gingerbread houses designed by you and your staff
10. Offer giftcards at a discount for late holiday shoppers who need a last-minute gift

Holiday Assets

Not to be a downer, but you need holiday-specific assets on social media. Using the content that you use throughout the rest of the year doesn’t make your post stand out at all. Regardless of the platform that you’re posting on, something about your holiday-specific content needs to feel different. Maybe that’s having a photoshoot with holiday-themed props and your product. Or maybe it’s just changing up your graphic layouts a little bit. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to make it roll a little differently. 

Holiday Social Media Advertising 

Like it or not, there is a very commercial aspect associated with the holidays. How obvious you want to be about the commercialization of holidays is up to you, but you should definitely be taking advantage of it – whether it’s noticeable or not. Social media advertising works great all year round, but especially during the holidays — it’s something you should be taking advantage of.

Remember how we told you that you need to be solving people’s problems? Well if people don’t know that they have a problem that you can solve, tell them about it with an ad. Really effective ads fit seamlessly into the feeds that they’re infiltrating. Think of it like you’re going undercover. So when you’re picking the creative content for your ads, make sure that you’re picking content that looks like it would fit perfectly into your target market’s social media feeds. And then tell them why your product is awesome, and why they need it for the holidays.

And don’t get hung up on a budget. You don’t need to be emptying your savings account to run effective ads. If you’re smart about it, and really strategic, you can make your money go a very long way. Sales and discounts are a great way to get people to interact with your ad, but you can also just run basic holiday ads and find success. 

The Holly, Jolly Balancing Act

Now, all of this being said, a full holiday overhaul is not for every business. For a lot of businesses, it would be weird to post about the holidays constantly and could even potentially alienate large segments of your online audience. So take all of the knowledge we’ve just dumped on you and be smart. Find a balance between reindeer and regular content that works for your business. Find a way to incorporate the perfect amount of festivities for your core audience, and you’ll be able to connect with them in a way that makes your business seem more like a person — which is actually a really good thing.