Social media holiday posts can be dicey for businesses. When done wrong, holiday social posts can bore, disengage, or annoy your audience. However, when done correctly, holiday posting can be an opportunity to provide value or connect with your audience.
Forge Apollo is a social media marketing agency in Philadelphia. In this article, our team of experts breaks down when to post on social media for holidays and when to skip them. Plus, get tips for making the best-performing posts (including real-world examples).
When Should Brands Post on Social Media for Holidays
Our social team believes there are only three cases in which brands should post on social media for holidays.
1. When You’re Providing Value
If you have a message that provides more value than celebration or well wishes, it’s a good time to post.
Highlight providing value to a community, like donating to a cause or giving back in some way related to the holiday.
You can also provide value to your audience, like running a sale, special promotion, or event.
2. When You Have Unique Content
If you have unique and engaging content related to a holiday to share, post it! Some examples of this type of content are:
- Employees dressed up for the holiday (like Halloween costumes or Christmas sweaters)
- Employee events for holidays (like a potluck for Thanksgiving)
- Holiday decorations in your business (like holiday decor in a hotel or a flag flying in front of your business for the 4th of July)
3. When It’s Related to Important Company Values
When a holiday relates to your brand’s core values, you should acknowledge it. For example, Forge Apollo’s Director of Digital Marketing, Becca Wallace, points out that “a company priding itself on employing veterans should definitely share something on social for patriotic holidays.”
As another example, a brand that prides itself on being women-owned should post on International Women’s Day.
Your social media channel is an extension of your brand’s identity, so it should stay true to your brand’s values.
Tips for Successful Holiday Social Posts
1. Create Unique Content
As tempting as it is to go with something easy, stay away from stock imagery and holiday post templates on services like Canva. As Wallace points out, hundreds of brands will use these posts, which “causes followers to feel fatigued when you appear in their feeds.”
Instead, make your content more unique by featuring photos of employees, your business, or a seasonal product or special.
2. Make it Fun for Your Employees
Good content starts from within. Create fun around holidays for your employees to fuel your social media content.
For example, Forge Apollo ran a gingerbread house contest for our employees in which we created gingerbread houses, shared them on Instagram, and encouraged people to vote by commenting.
This approach allows you to capture naturally unique and engaging content about your brand. People love to see the faces behind a company. It also encourages employees (and people they know) to interact with the content to boost its performance.
As a bonus, adding some fun boosts morale. Who doesn’t love some fun around a holiday?
3. Run Seasonal Promos
If nothing else, your audience loves content that benefits them.
4. Test Content in Different Places
Keep an eye on holiday post performance and adjust your strategy over time. You may find that your holiday posts perform better in different areas, like posting on a temporary story rather than a main feed.
Posting on a story instead of a feed is a tactic our team uses for our brand and recommends for other brands who may want to acknowledge a holiday but don’t get strong in-feed holiday post engagement.
Examples of Successful Holiday Social Posts
New Year’s Day Post for ICONA Resorts
This post celebrating New Year’s Day for ICONA Resorts performed well because it features the hotel’s holiday decor.
View this post on Instagram
Season’s Greetings from Forge Apollo
This post wishes our audience a happy holiday season. It did well because it’s fun and unique. We made a custom “holiday card” featuring our staff in festive ugly sweaters and at our holiday party.
View this post on Instagram
Example of a Failed Holiday Social Post
This in-feed post for Martin Luther King Jr. Day didn’t perform well for Forge Apollo because it’s very generic. Since realizing how poorly generic posts like this perform, our company started posting about holidays in our stories unless we had unique content to share.
View this post on Instagram
Get Social Media Strategy Advice
Posting on social media for holidays can be a great way to connect with your audience by sharing value or unique content. If done wrong, however, it can cause your followers to tune you out. As experts in social media marketing in Philadelphia, Forge Apollo is happy to provide your brand with strategic advice on holiday posting. Contact us today to discuss your brand’s social goals.
