Soon, it will be Christmas again—the festival of love, contemplation, peace, and thanksgiving. But if you are unprepared, it can quickly turn into stress. Both privately and professionally. Q4 is often a stressful time in marketing, and last-minute ROI is on the chopping block. All the more reason to take a long-term view on social media advent calendars. It may sound like much work, but Instagram, Facebook, and Co. make planning easy.
Why should you make an advent calendar on social media?
There are many reasons: charity. You like it because your children want it. All of which are less likely to impress your boss. Here are some solid business reasons why it's worth the effort:
- Encourage engagement: Advent calendars are a tradition in the run-up to Christmas and a fantastic way to encourage interaction with your target audience. By sharing exciting content, offers, or competitions each day, you boost your followers to participate actively. Likes, comments, and shared posts significantly increase your visibility and reach. For a full article on increasing engagement around Christmas, including tips and formats, click here.
- Create excitement and anticipation: The idea behind an Advent calendar is to build anticipation for Christmas. You can bring that anticipation to your brand by making your advent calendar creative and exciting. Let your followers wait in anticipation to see what's behind the next door and create positive emotions and loyalty to your brand.
- Build customer loyalty: An Advent calendar can also build customer loyalty. Offer exclusive discounts or gifts only available to your social media followers. This will make your community feel especially appreciated and favor your business in the long run.
- Increase sales: You can also use the social advent calendar as a classic sales promotion: Each day, a new offer, discount, or exclusive gift is revealed, building curiosity and attracting customers. This is a great way to promote special and exclusive offers and eliminate slow sellers. Have you ever heard of Social Commerce? If not, or if you want to prepare for your holiday campaign, grab a hot chocolate and watch our social commerce webinar to learn more.
Content is king:
Advent calendars on Instagram, Facebook, and the like are an excellent way to boost engagement in the run-up to Christmas. People spend much time online looking for gifts and escaping the gray weather. Your advent calendar aims to keep users engaged so they return daily to open the next door.
To make it easier for them, try offering signups for an email reminder. It's a win-win situation because they won't forget, and you have engagement. But to get your followers to the point where they become fans of your advent calendar, the content must be right because it is and always will be king (not only for your Instagram advent calendar but across all networks and seasons).
So here are some concrete content ideas for you, listed by effort:
Theme ideas for social media Advent calendars:
Idea 1: The Sunday Series
Do you need more time because you forgot to prepare your content but still want to offer something to your followers during Advent? Do you have time for a complete partial social media advent calendar?
Here is a little hint: This could be a better excuse because, on Instagram and Co., it's possible to implement it at super short notice. However, if you're stuck on year-end coverage and are already in the holiday spirit, limit yourself to the four Sundays of Advent.
Create a four-part series of posts; you know best what works for your business. Your four favorite Advent recipes, four movie tips for Advent Sundays, your four favorite things to do in winter, your four favorite books or to pick up on employer branding: four reasons to work with you... The ideas are endless!
Bonus tip: If you work in B2B and your Advent calendar takes place on LinkedIn, you might want to choose another day of the week than Sunday 😜
Idea 2: Social about social: User-Generated Content
Super clever, especially when time is short, is to fill a social media advent calendar with user-generated content (U.G.C.). This kills several birds with one stone, as it's a great way to increase interaction with your community while creating authentic and engaging content. It also saves you much time in the creative process when choosing your visuals.
To draw attention to the content you've created, could you ask your community to use a specific hashtag or comment directly below one of your posts? That way, your followers can send you images and share stories now. Rewards, contests, or the ability to share their stories will increase the posts' participation and quality.
The idea of a UGC Advent Calendar is a creative solution that will further connect your community to your business.
Note: Just because the images were shared with you does not give you the right to use the user-generated content. ALWAYS ask for permission.
Idea 3: All I Want for Christmas is Music
The best part of Christmas for me is the music. And the same goes for many people. Music brings the anticipation of Christmas into your followers' daily lives. TikTok and Instagram, in particular, offer a wonderful opportunity to create a musical Advent calendar focusing on a legendary Christmas song each day.
This series brings the festive spirit to life by showcasing classic and contemporary Christmas music hits. You can add music to your TikToks or Instagram posts, reels, and stories. You can support the Instagram posts and Stories with appropriate text elements, but add the song to get the anticipation (and earworm) jumping. Need music ideas for your Advent calendar?
- "Jingle Bells"
- "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
- "Frosty the Snowman"
- "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"
- "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"
- "White Christmas"
- "Feliz Navidad"
- "Winter Wonderland"
In addition to the daily Christmas song advent calendar via music posts, there are many more advanced ways to incorporate music into your social media advent calendar. Here are a few ideas:
- Karaoke Challenge: Start a karaoke challenge where your followers can sing Christmas songs and share their interpretations in their stories. Since the inhibition threshold is high here, motivate with prizes for the best/original arrangements.
- Christmas music trivia: Create stories with questions and riddles about Christmas songs and traditions. Let your followers answer in the comments and reward the winners. Dive into the topic of poll stickers.
Topic Tip 4: In the Christmas Bakery
In the Christmas Bakery by Rolf (A German classic) is also an excellent song for the playlist. Still, this theme idea is about the physical rather than the auditory part of your favorite recipes. Why not create a recipe collection (UGC again) and share it with your community?
Even if it's not directly related to your business, everyone will be happy to hear about delicious holiday baking recipes, cookie tutorials, stollen recipes, or tips for making a delicious chai latte or punch. You'll have great individual and regional recipes, whether homemade chai latte syrup or irresistible chocolate bread. Share these holiday treats with your community and spread some holiday cheer. After all, Christmas isn't just about business; it's also about pleasure and warmth.
Theme Idea 5: Year in Review
On a personal level, almost everyone knows it. You feel like you haven't accomplished anything over the year. It's like you've just gotten older. Companies are similar. Many are so immersed in day-to-day business that successes and milestones are quickly forgotten. Not only on a global level, like the BBC's year-in-review series, but you and your company can use annual reviews for your advent calendar. It helps to remind the community of the highlights of the year. Essential product updates, new bestsellers, new markets, new locations, new hires? How about a 12-part series of posts, with one post each month? Or how about a humorous year in review?
With a year in review, you can share your successes, help your community remember their accomplishments, and look back on the past year with pride.
Theme Idea 6: ABC's of Cat Running in the Snow
We have a popular children's song in German, teaching the ABC and talking about cats in the snow. So, if you still need an earworm, check it out. In addition to the playlist above, you can use it as an Advent calendar on social media: Create your own themed Advent alphabet and share a word starting with the first letter each day from December 1 to 24. You can explain the meaning or create themed images and graphics. Another idea is to collect 24 valuable tips and present them as an Advent alphabet. This creative approach adds a personal touch to your Instagram Advent calendar, as you can also share your favorite words with accompanying stories to get to know your community better and get them in the mood for the holidays.
Theme idea 7: Company history as storytelling.
If you're thinking long-term, you'll have plenty of time to prepare the 24 posts for December that you can publish as an Advent calendar on Instagram or other social media platforms. For example, you could show how you started your company in 24 sections, showcase a different product daily, or feature your best employees. As a founder, you can reveal personal aspects of yourself by providing 24 travel recommendations.
Of course, you can mix all these ideas, choose a different focus each week, or choose completely different themes for your advent calendar. You may have to sacrifice consistency, but your followers will get daily variety and surprise effects. Check out our blog post on holiday engagement for more stand-alone ideas and templates for your Advent calendar. For example, eat a red apple day on 1.12. or an ugly Christmas sweater content.
Choice of platform: Where does it work best?
You can use Advent calendars on almost all social media platforms to target your audience and use the pre-Christmas period for your marketing. Here is a small selection:
Advent Calendars on Instagram:
Instagram is a popular platform for Advent calendars. You can use daily posts, stories, or reels to create your calendar. Use hashtags and the "swipe up" feature to get more interaction. Since reels are especially popular with all age groups, they are a great way to increase reach and engagement with an advent calendar.
Advent Calendars on Facebook:
You can create advent calendar posts on Facebook and share them in groups or on your company page. You can also use Facebook Live to live stream daily reveals of your advent calendar. Facebook groups are especially great for targeted audiences.
Advent calendar on Pinterest:
Use Pinterest to create a visual Advent calendar. You can pin images of products, DIY ideas, or holiday inspiration and update your Pinterest board daily. Especially if you sell physical products, Pinterest offers great social commerce features.
Advent calendars on YouTube:
If you're into video and your audience isn't largely Gen Z and Millenials, YouTube is the place to be. For example, you can create an Advent calendar channel and publish YouTube Shorts with different daily content. DIY ideas are also great for YouTube.
Advent calendar on TikTok:
If your audience is younger, TikTok can be a great platform to create an advent calendar with short, fun videos. Especially with the "stitches" option, you can give your community a great way to interact and respond to your content. You can learn more about creating TikTok content in this article.
Advent Calendar on WhatsApp:
You can also share an advent calendar via WhatsApp newsletters or broadcast lists to communicate directly with customers or engaged followers.
Remember traditional email, too. It still has the highest engagement rate of all. You can send daily advent calendar updates to your email subscribers to keep them in the loop.
Bottom line on social media Advent calendars
A social media advent calendar can be an effective marketing tool for your business. It encourages interaction with your target audience, creates anticipation, and builds customer loyalty. Use the advent season to develop creative and engaging content that will increase your reach and positively impact your business. So what are you waiting for? Plan your social media Advent calendar and inspire your community in the upcoming holiday season!
Could you schedule all your advent calendar content days or months in advance or publish to multiple networks simultaneously? Even if you're still manually responding to incoming likes, DMs and comments on the networks, or your current tool doesn't support you optimally, don't hesitate to look closely at Facelift because we have a free demo. 👇
