10 Social Media Holiday Post Ideas To Fit Your Content Strategy

Happy Holidays! With all of the fun festivities for the upcoming season, why not take advantage of this amazing time of year for your small business? December is one of our favorite months for creating content. From entrepreneurship gift guides to local winter activity ideas, there is so much goodness to go around! So, where do we begin? How do we craft social media content for the holiday season that is fun, relatable, resonates, and drives business and sales? Let’s sleigh it with some uniquely creative social media holiday post ideas!

But first, let’s start with some of the social strategy basics. Because why even dedicate your time to social media if you don’t have a strong base, right!? We hope you just head-nodded there!

Why is social media content so important?

Authentic and strategic social media content is how we build brand trust. This is how you take your business to the next level and create an audience that will buy anything you drop. You don’t build this trust by selling or sharing generic content. You do this by delivering quality, educational content that infuses storytelling and authenticity, all while posting consistently. Did we lose you? Don’t worry – crafting your own personal social media strategy that delivers just that is easier than you think.

It starts with real valuable content that you post consistently each week. This is what truly sets you apart from other entrepreneurs and what makes you better. By creating content with real value, you’ll be able to cultivate an audience that is more likely to purchase your products or services. 

So, how do I create social media content that will actually increase engagement?

How do you create thumb-stopping social media posts that your audience wants to double-tap, comment on, and share? First, stop selling. At least stop selling all the time. When you sell, sell, sell, your audience won’t find you to be sincere, therefore diminishing any brand trust you’ve built. We recommend doing a 90/10 approach on social media. Delivering real value 90% of the time while selling your services and products the remaining 10%. Social media is not meant to be the space to sell. You can sell a little harder in other areas, such as your email list. Social is meant to be social. Let’s keep the fun here, friends! So, for the upcoming holiday season, these fun social media holiday post ideas are perfect for entertaining, inspiring, and encouraging your audience beyond sales.

What exactly does this look like out in the wild wild west? Take a peek at a big brand name who is not just selling, but delivering quality content: Glossier. Their social media posts are funny, witty, authentic, and engaging. With goofy and relatable memes, inspiring makeup looks, real consumer content, and encouraging quotes, Glossier is a fun account to follow regardless of if you are ready to buy or not.

So the real question now; how does your small business become the next Glossier? Time to grab your latte with a double shot of espresso… things are getting important!

Content Creation Made Easy with Content Pillars

Now that we know more about why we should be creating social media content, how do we actually fit this into our crazy schedules and execute it? As small business owners ourselves, we completely understand the struggle to do this! From time to time, we get in a funk and out of our normal content routines. Yet, we understand the importance of getting back in our groove. So, how do we do this?

We have a bucket of content pillars that lay the foundation of our strategy. Put more simply, these are literal buckets of ideas you can pull from to create original content that will resonate with your audience. Here are just a few examples of content pillars that fit our business:

• entrepreneurship motivation
• organic search engine optimization
• social media tips
• business and personal branding
• portfolio features / client success stories

When building our clients a social media strategy, we aim for 6-9 unique pillars that speak to our client’s audience, services, or products. They also must align with their business’ future mission and vision. Once you have these buckets in place for your business, the creation process becomes so much simpler. You no longer find yourself questioning, “What should I post today?” You have a clear vision and the confidence to build your social content more consistently.  

Developing a Content Calendar: Here’s How You Do It

Once you’ve identified your unique content pillars, you can start ideating the actual content. A social media content calendar will help you stay on track with a regular posting schedule, incorporate fun events and holidays, and deliver real value and education. You will also notice that this newfound strategy can help you track your metrics when looking back at the month to see what types of content worked best. We, of course, have a few secrets up our sleeve to make content creation a little easier. From batch working to repurposing content, we are big fans of working smarter and not harder!

Here’s The Good Stuff!

Here are 10 social media holiday post ideas for small business owners to crush this season. A quick word of caution: all of these aren’t for everyone. Make sure they relate back to your own content pillars, mission, and vision before hitting publish. Resonating, understanding, and speaking to your audience is more important than just posting. Repeat that last sentence again, please!

10 Social Media Holiday Content Ideas

1. Create a holiday gift guide (stories, carousel posts, and/or Reels) with other small businesses that complement yours.
2. Run a charity campaign the week of Christmas where a portion of your sales goes to a charity you love that focuses on giving back during the holidays.
3. For all local businesses reading this; come together as a community finding other local businesses to partner with to start a fundraiser or drop-box to donate hats, mittens, and other items to be donated to local shelters.
4. Create do-it-yourself holiday Reels for your favorite recipes, decor, gift wrapping, and more. Do your best to find a DIY solution that relates back to your service or offering. Or maybe instead, it just gives your audience an inside look at who you are!
5. Create a ‘December To-Do List’ template using Canva and post to your stories, getting the inside scoop of what’s on your list and your audiences.
6. Host a favorite things giveaway. Our favorite photographer does this each year using only local products she loves.
7. Put out a funny holiday meme that is related to your industry. Here are just a few ideas to get the ideas rolling. Don’t forget to personalize them to your industry and encourage your audience to share and tag you.
8. Run a handful of holiday promotions from bundles, free shipping, discounts, gift card promotions, or bonuses when you sign up for a service before the year ends.
9. Friendly reminders to take action such as “insert date is the last day of shipping to receive your items by Christmas!” or “Our last couple dates for insert service this year”.
10. Host a virtual LIVE holiday party with your following where you can celebrate wins for all your fellow small business owners, friends, and supporters.

One of our favorite ways to support different holiday seasons is by adding our own unique flair to the generic “happy fill-in-the-season” posts. Here are just two of our favorite holiday posts ever for Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day. These posts make our SEO brains so happy and drove tons of engagement, shares, and conversation amongst our ideal audience.

8 Social Media Holiday Caption Ideas

Maybe you have the social media holiday post ideas down, but you struggle to create a call to action, also called a CTA, that resonates. If so, we have some fun examples for you. Remember, a call to action is necessary on every single post you have.

Plus, don’t forget that a call to action doesn’t have to be just a double tap. A save, swipe, profile click, comment, video view, and so much more are considered engagement metrics on Instagram. We as humans need direction to get our thumbs to stop scrolling mindlessly. So don’t forget to tell us what action you’d like us to take on your post.

Social Media CTA Ideas

1. Hallmark Christmas movies, corny yet we can’t live without them this season! Comment below and tell us, what character are you? Searching for love? Crazy family dynamics? Traveling to a far away paradise to escape?
2. Craziest White Elephant gift you’ve ever received? GO!
3. Time to shop! What are you wearing for your holiday festivities this year? Tag a business we need to shop at!
4. Save this list of our favorite holiday jams for your next work from home day… who said productivity and holiday music can’t go hand in hand!
5. Using only emojis, tell us what your favorite ? and least favorite ? holiday dishes are. 
6. Local [Fill in your state or city]’s what’s on your bucket list this season? 
7. “Santa! Oh my goshhhhh!” Name that movie! (do multiple swipes and a giveaway for the winner)
8. Let’s settle the debate: Egg Nog… yes or no?

Need some more help on writing copy for your social media posts? Get an inside look at our process on how we write captions that resonate. It can feel so awkward at first, but it only gets better as you go. We promise!

Is Your ‘Gram Holiday Ready?

There you have it: how to create engaging content with several fun social media holiday post ideas for any small business owner. We ho-ho-hope that you have a wonderful and safe holiday season, and be sure to tag us in your posts. We’d love to cheer you on!

P.S. If you are looking for more tips and tricks about organic marketing, social media, SEO, and branding, sign up for our Tuesday Tips and Sips. See you in your inbox!