Navigating holidays on social media is a crucial aspect of brand engagement. A common qualm of a social media manager is figuring out which social media holidays to celebrate on your brand’s social media pages. All too often, the decision to post is out of obligation, which usually comes off as impersonal and rarely resonates with your audience.
Social media managers must ask these questions when considering holiday content:
- Does it resonate with my audience? Is it relevant to what we do as a brand?
- Are we celebrating this holiday as a company?
- Am I being authentic?
Post Only If It’s Relevant To Your Audience
I previously managed social media for B2B healthcare marketing brands. We often posted about health awareness days like Rare Disease Day or Lung Cancer Awareness Month to engage with our audience and increase brand awareness about work the brand was doing in different therapeutic areas. My clients today, though, are mostly in the automotive industry, specifically in electrification and mobility. Much to many social media managers’ chagrin (including mine), you can’t just take a social content calendar from one brand and transfer it to the next – even within the same industry, the appropriate holidays don’t always align with the different audiences.
As a brand manager, you must find the holidays relevant to your audience. Do automotive audiences care that it’s National Children’s Dental Health Month? No. Instead, automotive audiences would be interested in National Drive Electric Week or the anniversary of the Mustang, something healthcare audiences wouldn’t know (or care) much about.
Find holidays that reinforce your brand and let your audience know what kind of company you are. When posting on Telemetry’s social media, for example, finding holidays that are work-from-home focused allows us to showcase the benefits of being a fully remote agency for our employees and clients.
Recognizing relevant holidays on social media can even increase the size of your audience if you jump on the related hashtags and push your brand into the conversation.
Show How Your Brand Is Celebrating
When posting for a holiday, it’s best to show your actual employees and pictures of them celebrating are even better. Seeing your employees humanizes your brand, showing potential clients the faces behind the work and potential employees your company culture backs up recruiters’ claims.
If your company is having a donut break for colleagues in the cafeteria for National Donut Day, post pictures of your colleagues eating together. If your company is celebrating in some authentic way, then yes, share those celebrations. Otherwise, a nonauthentic post won’t boost—and might even hurt—you in the social media algorithms.
When it comes to religious or cultural holidays, it’s important to do your research, especially if it’s a holiday you’re unfamiliar with. Would a social media post be appropriate for someone celebrating? Are you giving your employees time off or special accommodations to celebrate? You shouldn’t recognize a holiday on social media if you’re not recognizing it for employees in terms of time off or office celebrations.
If approached correctly, different holidays can enhance your organization’s diversity and inclusion goals by making space for the voices you want to highlight. For example, there are tons of holidays about women in STEM. Can you use these holidays as an opportunity to show your organization’s diversity by interviewing women engineers? Or show how your company is furthering its mission of supporting women in STEM? Posting about this holiday can center your brand’s D&I initiatives and show what you’re doing to support them.
Your Audience Can Tell When You’re Being Fake
Authenticity is the most essential part of posting on social media. With the rise of AI and how ubiquitous social media now is, brand authenticity is paramount to audience engagement. You need to stand out amidst the constant scrolling everyone is doing. You won’t do that by using a template graphic or posting a generic post with no meat on the bones!
Today, any organization can simply take a “check the box” approach of posting for a holiday with the easy accessibility of stock images and Canva. And many feeds are inundated with these impersonal posts that blend into our endless scrolling. If the purpose of your post is to check a box, you’re better off not posting. In fact, posting in this way could be detrimental to your brand. A recent example was after “Black Out Tuesday” in 2020, when organizations posted black squares on Instagram to support the Black Lives Matter movement, many were called out for posting a black square in support despite donating to organizations actively fighting against this cause.
If you find a holiday that is appropriate to post about, do your research to make your post authentic. Your colleagues are your best resource. Asking a colleague celebrating Hanukkah what you should post for the holiday can make it much more personal. For example, would it be more impactful to say “Happy Holi!” or wish those celebrating fun as they participate in dye throwing, a common practice on Holi? Also, I’m not against Canva graphics, but if you use one, try inserting your brand’s color palette or design elements to make it identifiable for your company.
Authenticity is the key to making impactful social media posts in an era dominated by screens and scrolling. By posting holiday content that resonates with your audience, humanizing your brand, and maintaining sensitivity, your organizations can create more genuine connections.
Avery Zimmerman is Telemetry’s Account Manager, bringing cross-industry expertise in content marketing, social media and brand storytelling. Trained under meticulous copyeditors, Avery ensures polished and effective client communication strategies. Having navigated diverse sectors ranging from higher education and biotech to engaging both B2C and B2B audiences, she excels in the art of translating technical information into accessible content and crafting compelling brand narratives.