4 Reasons Why Holiday Posts are Crucial to Your Social Marketing Plan

Many social media marketers see holiday posts as “fluff” – content that doesn’t really mean anything, but is easy to create and post. The truth is, holiday posts and newsbreaks can be some of the most valuable content you produce. And, with the right tools, it could be easy to produce, but it should never be overlooked as a crucial part of your social media marketing plan. Let’s look at the four main reasons why holiday posts are so important to a social schedule together with some tips on how to create successful social media posts.

Why are holiday posts and holiday marketing on social media so important?

Holiday Posts are Easy To Create

Original content creation can be resource-intensive, but holiday posts are easy to create – IF you have the right tools. The first thing you need is a reliable holiday calendar so you know what to post, when. There are a number of websites that offer information like this, and several social tools. You can also do research via social media channels and blogs.

You need a means with which to create visually appealing posts. Tools like:

• Canva
• Pixlr
• PromoRepublic
• PicMonkey

can help you create great-looking posts without the need of a graphic designer.

Holidays are a great way to connect with your social media audience. As long as you keep your audience in mind, and approach social media marketing with some heart, you’ll get the engagement you seek.

There is one tool (the only one in its niche) that is designed specifically to help you create, launch and maintain social media holiday campaigns. PromoRepublic has a library of templates that you can customize via a drag-and-drop tool These templates, designed by professional graphic designers, match up with current holidays, trends, news breaks and more.

PromoRepublic also allows you to autopost right from the tool, so you can grab a template, drop in your logo and text, and then share it via Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. It’s easy to create holiday posts for your social marketing plan, and there are analytics tools to see how well those posts perform. And then will perform well. Why? Let’s look into some of the reasons.

Holiday Posts Have Emotional Appeal

Matt Killingswath, the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar and creator of the Tracking Your Happiness app, collected data from more than 2000 people and discovered that, despite all the posts about holiday depression, people are actually happier than average on holidays. Despite their religious leanings, people tend to be happiest on Christmas, with Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve not far behind. Of course, there are plenty of other holidays that make people happy. Best Friend’s Day, National Donut Day National Social Media Day…there are so many holidays and pseudo-holidays that create wonderful emotional touch points in your marketing campaign.

Holiday posts also foster a sense of community. Sure, you might take this opportunity to offer a super deal to your audience, (people tend to spend more money around the holidays) but a well-crafted holiday post can encourage people to feel a part of something bigger. Especially when your post encourages them to give back to the community, to share for greater rewards, or to remind them what’s really important during the holidays. Interactive posts are also good for encouraging participation and community.

From a pure marketing standpoint, major holidays are usually bigger shopping days for most of your audience. And, since people make most purchase decisions with their emotions first, a post that appeals to them in that way has the best chance of converting a promotion into a sale. But, that’s not all there is to holiday marketing.

Let’s look at the next key reason why holiday posts are so important.

Holiday Posts Are Timely and Relevant

One of the biggest challenges facing a social media marketer is the creation of content that has context. That is, it is delivered to the right person, at the right time, via the right channel. And, it has the right message. We’ve all heard of brands who get too aggressive with their autoposter and let a “Merry Christmas” post slip through in March. That’s a bad sign to your audience that you are not engaged and not paying attention to what you’re posting. That’s why it’s important to post holiday messages in a timely manner. Don’t be too early or too late. You can certainly post teasers leading up to a holiday promotion, but don’t jump the gun on your powerful holiday post.

And, don’t miss an opportunity to promote a fun holiday in between national holidays.

Another important thing to remember about holiday social posts is that the same post doesn’t work every year. For instance, if the current Pokémon Go explosion is still a thing come Labor Day, feel free to create a related post telling people to go out on their day off and find Pikachu. Next year? Probably not a good idea.

It’s also a good idea to post holiday content that is relevant to your industry.

Why else are holiday posts so important?

Holiday Posts are Sharable

People love to share holiday posts. The Best Friend’s day post below encourages users to tag their friends. That increases engagement and, ultimately, can increase page likes. A caveat – no social post is shareable without:

• Stunning visuals
• A well-placed message
• An interesting call to action

Studies show that people who don’t post that often tend to post more during the holidays. So, it stands to reason that if you give them engaging holidays outside the norm, they might be inclined to share those as well. Not buying that? What about this one?

Unless someone’s a Star TREK fan, they might be tempted to share this post. Holidays that bring people together provide you with an opportunity to create simple, visually appealing posts that are shareable.

As Star Wars Day indicates, you don’t have to wait for big holidays – events and reasons to post are everywhere. You can use celebrity birthdays, trends, sports events, historical days and trendy holidays like the example above to get likes and shares.

And don’t forgot that you can create Facebook Ads with holiday content, as well. An ad that gets shares is an ad that reaches even more people. Use a tool like AdEspresso to create a custom audience and see how your reach grows.  Facebook Ads are only one of many Facebook holiday marketing ideas.

To help you monitor events and holidays, check out:

• National Day Calendar
• PromoRepublic
• Days of The Year

What else?

How to Successfully Include Holiday Posts in My Social Media Marketing Campaign

It’s a simple formula. Know your audience, then aim to surprise and delight them. You can engage your fans and followers and generate more likes and shares with engaging content – and holiday and event posts are some of the most engaging. Tie them in with a sale, quiz, special offer, discount or another incentive to get a lot of oomph. Here are some posts that have done well:

Finally, a Word From The Field

We talked to a few marketing professionals to ask them why they think holiday posts might be the future of social media marketing. Here’s what they had to say:

Mike Alton, the genius behind The Social Media Hat and good social media friend of mine, had this to say: “As a coach and resource to other bloggers, I say that if you can identify just one holiday or season for each month of the year, and create rich, evergreen resources around that topic, you’ll enjoy steady traffic growth and interest over and over again.”

Elizabeth Fickenscher, freelance social marketer and copywriter, said that holiday posts provide a great way for her clients to engage with their social audiences without a hard sell. “So many of my clients want foot traffic, or for people to buy one of their products. It’s hard to balance those types of posts WITHOUT holiday and event-related posts. Holidays and special events give me the chance to create posts that people like and share, in a way that makes them feel good. I use this tactic with every client I’ve got, and always will.”

Don’t wait. Create a holiday post today.

Do you use holiday posts for social media as part of your overall social media marketing strategy?

FTC disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I only work with products, events and/or companies I believe my readers will benefit from. All opinions are mine. This is disclosed in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash