It’s officially November, so whether you’re ready or not, the holiday content season is here! Chances are you’re busy preparing for your Thanksgiving traditions. With not even a full month to get ready for Christmas after turkey day, undoubtedly Christmas planning is underway too! And let’s not forget about the increased pressures at work as you close out the year.  Raise your hand if you’re stressed out just thinking about it.

While we may not be able to ease your personal holiday anxieties, we can help lessen the burden and set you up for success when it comes to generating last-minute holiday content ideas to engage your online audience and boost your brand. So, sit back, kick your feet up, grab your favorite holiday drink and relax while we share some ideas to ensure the holidays are successful for your business.

Holiday Content Ideas to Fill Your Calendar

No matter if you’re looking to promote a product or service, engage on a deeper level with your audience, or a combination of the two, you can incorporate these suggestions into any online strategy.

• Capture the Festive Spirit of the Season

From turkeys to snowmen, mums to poinsettias and the rustling of leaves to Christmas carolers, your supporting imagery should catch the sights and sounds of the approaching holiday.

• Food, Food and More Food

What holiday festivity have you attended that food isn’t at the center of the celebration. So, why not incorporate your team’s favorite recipes for the season. You can carry this type of holiday content from Thanksgiving into the New Year. From favorite Thanksgiving dishes to holiday cookie decorating, cocktails to ring in the new year and healthy options for January 1.

• Give Back and Spread Kindness

It can be easy to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays and forget that others may need a hand during this time. Organize a team volunteer outing, donate to a local toy drive or spread simple acts of kindness. Share what your team has done, provide additional ideas and encourage others to join along with you.

• Holiday Destressing

You may be feeling a little on edge from all the holiday activities. Not to mention the shorter days and cooler temps. Share how you unwind this time of year as a weekly holiday content tip.  

• Personal Development

As the year comes to an end, we start to think about our resolutions or goals for the new year. Share personal or company intentions and tips on how you plan to reach your objectives.

Get Connected with Holiday Content

The holidays are all about creating meaningful interactions and these ideas will get you started on making those connections. We hope you put your own personal spin on a couple of our suggestions and then put them into action.

Oh how the holiday retail landscape has changed over the past decade. It used to be that folks would leisurely enjoy their Thanksgiving feast, sleep off said feast, then line up on “Black Friday” at the crack of dawn to get in on the big deals they were after. While the Friday after Thanksgiving is still the official start of the holiday shopping season, things have certainly changed. Thanksgiving is no longer off limits – many retailers are open. In fact, consumers can shop at stores or online before the Thanksgiving meal has been cleared from the table.

While Black Friday still holds its own as the most significant shopping holiday on the calendar, there are now a multitude of shopping holidays competing for attention. Between Black Friday, Small Business Saturday (we on the Porch always encourage shopping small and shopping local), Cyber Monday, Free Shipping Day and Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas), it’s hard to know when the best time to do your holiday shopping is. These “holidays” were created to boost holiday sales and lure us in with the promise to save big on every item on our lists.

Here are some numbers to put things into perspective:

• The National Retail Federation expects holiday retail sales in November and December — excluding automobiles, gasoline and restaurants — to increase between 4.3 and 4.8 percent over 2017. Total spending is expected to range from $717.45 billion to $720.89 billion.
• According to NRF, for some retailers, the holiday season can represent as much as 30 percent of annual sales with hobby, toy and game stores reporting the highest percentage, accounting for approximately 30.1 percent of their sales during the 2017 holiday season. Overall, last year holiday sales represented nearly 20 percent of total retail industry sales.

Do you jump right in after Thanksgiving and knock out everything on your list? Or are you one of the 40% that begins holiday shopping before Halloween? Do you hold out for possibly better deals with the chance of not getting what you want? Or do you usually procrastinate and hope for the best? It takes all kinds!

The good news this year is that the gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas is long – 32 days whereas next year will only be 26 (although Hanukkah is early this year). That means retailers have more time to lure us in and those who usually wait to shop, well, you have more time to wait.

The forecast for holiday sales is good this year, but we’ll have to wait a few more weeks to see how the shopping season plays out. In the meantime, I’ve got some shopping to do!