Every Day's a Party: Repurpose Holidays into Social Media Content Gold

1. Set Proper Priorities

The good news: There are a truckload of calendar holidays to choose from. In fact, there are over 200 observed holidays in the United States alone for the year 2015. The bad news: You can’t possibly cover all of them and maintain your sanity (and not annoy your followers). Unless you want to work yourself into an absolute frenzy, you’re going to have to determine which holidays are the most important for you to focus on, and let the rest of them slide.

Without a doubt, your list should include the “majors” such as New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas, but be alert to other holidays that may have specific relevance to your particular business. For example, if you sell accounting or personal finance software, April 15th would be a very important date for you (although it could hardly be called a “holiday”). But definitely keep in mind the major holidays that also have high retail significance, and don’t forget to add the “unofficial” holidays of Black Friday and Cyber Monday to your list.

2. Create a Holiday-Focused Social Media Content Calendar

Proper planning prevents poor performance, especially when you’re dealing with time-sensitive events. Accidentally overlooking a holiday due to not being organized simply won’t cut it; your social media calendar should include a note each day there’s a holiday. Not only should your calendar highlight the dates of the actual holidays, but there should be clear notations of when you will begin publishing content for each holiday. Definitely give yourself enough time in advance to create your social media content before the holiday comes, so that you won’t feel rushed when it comes time to actually publish it through all of your social media channels. For example, a good time to begin promoting Valentine’s Day content is in the last week of January, but no later than the first week of February. For St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th), start publishing or promoting your related social media content at least a week ahead of time. This will give your content time to be seen and “digested” by the Web.

3. Focus on the Overall Theme for Each Holiday

It’s one thing to run a social media Christmas promotion that features a holiday discount for a product, but it’s another thing to capture the overall essence and theme of the holiday, and then build your content around that. For example, when most people think of Christmas, they think of family gatherings, gift-giving, decorating the Christmas tree and so forth. You could publish a quick list of Christmas decorating tips, or share a few Christmas-inspired cookie recipes, etc., basically any type of content that puts people in the mindset of Christmas. This will help to create the type of emotional connection with the holiday that puts people at ease, which makes your marketing efforts appear more natural and less intrusive.

4. Use Humor and Inspiration

Holidays can often give us plenty of things to laugh about and things to be inspired by. During the holidays, people typically loosen up and focus on having fun, but holidays can also be difficult times for others due to various family or relationship situations.

Keep in mind that humor and inspiration are two of the most powerful ingredients that you can integrate into your holiday-themed content in order to engage your social media audience. For example, for Christmas, you could share the top 10 funniest Christmas gift reactions on YouTube. For Valentine’s Day, you could share a top 10 list of the most amazing wedding proposals on YouTube. Veterans Day would be a great time to share a message of appreciation for those who have given their lives to serve our country. Everyone loves a good laugh, and everyone can use a little encouragement every now and then; these two tools of content creation will never go out of style.

The tips listed above will help you generate leads and engage your audience, but keep in mind that your primary intention should not be to drive people directly to a product or a sign-up page; your goal is to make your brand memorable through sharing meaningful content. When you’ve made your brand memorable, people will keep coming back to you for more.