The ultimate Christmas planning guide for social media (with 17 ideas from experts)
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Posted: Tue 30th Sep 2025
8 min read
It’s the end of September and we haven’t heard Mariah Carey sing All I Want for Christmas yet. But it is time for small business owners to start planning social media content for the holiday season.
Cheri social founder Kahina Belamri says:
“When we think about Christmas, we think about December and advent calendars. Actually, you should be posting straight after Halloween and you need to plan a month in advance of that point.”
We spoke to four of our expert Enterprise Nation advisers to find out how you can maximise sales this year – our gift to you is the ultimate Christmas planning guide for social media.
It includes how to develop your strategy and measure its effectiveness, and lots of ideas for social media content to inspire your planning process.
Skip to the 17 social media ideas for Christmas marketing.
Planning your business’s Christmas campaign
Before you start brainstorming Christmas ideas, you need to have the basics in place, advises Kahina.
“To plan, you need to have a strategy. That means understanding your competitors and the market.”
If you’re starting from scratch, our guides on creating a social media strategy and social media assets will help.
If you have an overall plan in place, the next step is to think about content pillars for the Christmas season.
What content pillars can we use at Christmas?
Content pillars are the main themes you reuse again and again. They make planning easier, and ensure everything connects back to your audience and goals.
Kahina outlined four potential pillars for Christmas social media content:
Storytelling: Share what it’s like to be a business owner during the Christmas period.
Educational: Raise awareness of the problem you’re solving and the issues around it – and how that fits into the season.
Inspirational: Post content of your products or services being used. For example, someone wearing your clothes at a Christmas market.
Emotional: Talk about the Christmas traditions you love. That could include you, your family and your team.
While planning a month in advance makes it easier to manage a social media account, Kahina adds it’s important to be flexible and take advantage of trends.
It’s also useful to add all of the important seasonal dates to your content calendar:
Black Friday: 28 November
Cyber Monday: 1 December
Small Business Saturday UK: 6 December
Royal Mail last posting date (2nd Class): 18 December
Royal Mail last posting date (1st Class): 20 December
What goals can we set for our seasonal content?
We want your Christmas content to have a big impact, so it’s important to measure its success.
That’s likely to mean setting one or two specific objectives for this year’s campaign.
Kahina recommends starting with what worked last year:
“Are you trying to push a specific product or service? Who do you want to reach? Every time you post, you need to have a reason.”
How can we get the content ready for the Christmas period?
One of Alison Battisby’s biggest recommendations is to have a Christmas shoot, so you have enough video and photography to get you through the season.
Alison, who founded social media agency Avocado Social, says:
“Your social media content does need to be festive. You need to be using specific photography and videography.”
Alison recommends ring-fencing a day and having an organised shot list of what you need, so you have time to decorate, get models in etc.
What about working with influencers?
If you’re planning to do work with any influencers on Christmas campaigns, you need to get in touch with them as early as possible, advises Alison:
“They get booked up for Christmas and want to organise their shoot days. They want to know ASAP, particularly if there’s some mailing involved.”
Okay, you’re ready to start planning your Christmas content. Here are our experts' ideas.
Please tag Enterprise Nation if you use any of them and we’ll amplify the content through our own accounts.
And, yes, we know there are a few that aren’t strictly just for social media. Think of those as the extra gifts in the stocking that you didn’t expect.
1. Offer gift vouchers and experiences
Gift cards and workshop vouchers are flexible options that shoppers love, especially when they’re unsure what to buy.
For creative businesses, selling vouchers now for workshops in January–March also helps cash flow in quieter months, says The Design Trust director Patricia Van Denacker.
“That allows you to get sales, which is good for your cash flow, and run them at a time of year when you're normally very quiet.”
2. Create gift bundles
Gift bundles can increase the size of your average sale, says Quibble Content managing director Anna Morrish.
“This works really well for people who are either panic buying or don't know what to do.
“Create gift bundles for them. Make it simple. Think about the products that you've got – what could you match together?”
3. Record a personal message
Record a quick video thanking your customers and wishing them a merry Christmas.
4. Update your social media links
Alison advises adding a link to your Christmas shop into your social media bios:
“Whether you’re using a provider like Linktree or changing the main URL to go straight towards your Christmas shop, you want to remove friction.”
5. Post about your environmental credentials
Highlight eco-friendly or sustainable elements of your products.
6. Develop festive gift guides that boost SEO
Create themed gift guides like “Gifts for coffee lovers” or “Presents under £20” to help shoppers find you through search and social.
They also double up as evergreen content for the rest of the year, says Anna.
The guides can be something broad like “Gift ideas for husbands” or more specific like “Gift ideas for bike lovers”.
Kahina added that you can add a lot of value by mentioning other brands.
“It looks more natural. It’s good for brand association. You could mix what you sell with other premium products, for example.”
7. Share festive tips
Post a festive tip series. That could include gift ideas, hosting tips or self-care reminders.
It can be tied to your business by featuring products or simply being filmed in your shop or around branded content.
8. Segment your email list
Anna says the Christmas season is a good opportunity to get more value from your email list:
“You've got your prospects, but you've also got those that are already customers. So you want to try and encourage that repeat business.”
That could mean targeting people who ordered last year with a special reward or tailoring suggestions to different demographics – what about promoting those festive gift guides?
9. Decorate your physical shop to make it more festive
This is an obvious one, but it has to be on the list. Decorating your shop or business premise is an opportunity to drive more foot traffic and create content.
You could even share a timelapse video of your team decorating your shop, studio or office.
10. Make your website feel Christmassy
Updating your homepage or product photography can create the emotional spark that encourages shoppers to buy, says Anna.
“Give yourself a festive revamp. It’s really, really simple to do. You’ll probably see from now on up to Christmas that people are going to start adding things like Santa’s hat to a logo. People are going to realise you're getting into the spirit.”
11. Take advantage of TikTok LIVE’s popularity
TikTok Shop is becoming more and more popular. The festive season is a great opportunity to take advantage of going LIVE, says Alison.
“Going live on days like Black Friday works really well. Make it as Christmassy as possible. What’s the presenter wearing? What’s behind you?
“You could think about special Christmas offers that you’re running with your guests.”
If you want to learn more about TikTok Shop and going LIVE, read our article TikTok Shop: The ultimate small business guide (updated for 2025).
12. Send DMs
An increasing number of businesses are sending followers DMs with links rather than asking people to visit their bio.
Christmas is a great time to take advantage of that trend, says Alison, who advises using a tool like Manychat to automate the process.
“It increases engagement and it’s frictionless. Sometimes the main call to action is to comment ‘Christmas’ below and I’ll DM you the link.
“If you’re talking about stocking fillers, for example, you can say ‘if you comment “stocking” we’ll send you a list of our top ten products under £20’.”
13. Run a Christmas competition
Offering a festive giveaway is a great way to get engagement, says Alison.
She adds that you can launch it as a Collab with an influencer, where the content appears on both of your feeds.
Instagram’s Collab feature has been available for some time and TikTok recently added one.
14. Share a special advent calendar
Create a “12 days of Christmas” campaign showcasing a different product or service each day.
15. Run a Christmas-themed poll
Run a poll asking customers to vote for their favourite Christmas gift or tackling a seasonal talking point. Bonus points if you follow-up with a DM with an offer based on how people vote.
16. Make the order deadline clear
The first question last-minute shoppers are going to ask is, “Will my gift get there in time for Christmas?”.
Make their lives easier and give them a reason to buy now by sharing important dates on your social media posts.
17. Develop a signature series
A signature series is a reoccurring content type that tells a story and encourages people to follow your journey.
It has to be recognisable, says Kahina, which often means adding a tag line:
“Pick something you can easily reproduce. It could be about your first Christmas as a business owner or your mission to shop locally all season.”
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