The holiday season is just around the corner, which means it’s time to start planning your seasonal Thanksgiving social media content.
Consumers are buying more during this period than at any other time of the year. They search for the perfect food, décor, and gifts to present to their friends and family during the holidays. In fact, online shopping is likely to increase by 29% this year alone.
Thanksgiving content is an important way of keeping your brand front of mind. Your customers will search for helpful and inspiring content to prepare for the holidays, and you want them to stumble across something you’ve published.
Now, Thanksgiving content can take various directions depending on your brand, but it should offer fresh takes on an old tradition and tie your brand into the warm and fuzzy feeling of the upcoming holiday. The content you publish during this season must be of the utmost quality if you want your brand to succeed because there will be a lot of hot competition.
In this guide, we’ll help you come up with memorable and unique Thanksgiving content ideas and topics that will capture your audience’s attention.
4 Social Media Content Ideas for Thanksgiving
Not sure what to include in your Thanksgiving content marketing plan? Here are eight ideas your audience will love.
1. Fresh Takes On an Old Tradition
Around Thanksgiving time, many people are looking for new ideas that they can apply to an old tradition. One of the most successful recent fresh takes on an old holiday is the concept of Friendsgiving.
This refers to a low-pressure dinner with friends after Thanksgiving. Social media posts surrounding the idea of Friendsgiving may be appropriate for brands that cater to young people.
According to a new study, 7 out of 10 young Americans reported that they preferred the idea of Friendsgiving to Thanksgiving.
Modern consumers are increasingly single, childless, or living far away from their relatives, so Thanksgiving can be a bittersweet or neutral time of the year. Friendsgiving content can help these individuals feel more optimistic about the upcoming holidays and create excitement amongst a group who don’t feel ties to the Thanksgiving tradition.
It’s important that businesses market directly to customers who may not fit in with the Thanksgiving cliches. These consumers still want to feel included in the positivity surrounding the holiday.
Offering a fresh take on an old tradition is a tried-and-true way of creating interesting content.
Before the internet existed, Campbell’s Soup searched for a way to make content. The company wanted its brand to be relevant to the Thanksgiving festivities. As a result, they came up with the Green Bean Casserole recipe in 1955.
This recipe was in magazines, newspapers, and even on their labels. To this day, 50% of all Cream of Mushroom soups sell between November and January. It’s served at an estimated 20 million Thanksgiving dinners each year!
In 2022, many opportunities to transform the holiday exist. For example, there are a lot of people who follow vegan, gluten-free, or keto diets. Offering a Thanksgiving-themed recipe that fits with one of these diets can draw a lot of attention, especially if it is a good one!
Proponents of a healthy lifestyle will love healthier versions of classic recipes. Your content can also offer low-calorie ideas for all those leftovers. Folks who don’t enjoy the taste of turkey may appreciate content about Thanksgiving meat alternatives. Your content can be as simple as suggesting adding a rotisserie chicken to your Thanksgiving lineup. Or it can be as interesting as the concept of obtaining and cooking a Turducken!
For recent immigrants celebrating their first Thanksgiving, you can highlight ethnic twists on classic American recipes. These can add new flavors to Thanksgiving and generate a lot of interest.
Furthermore, globalization and the internet draw people together from all around the world. It is fun to point out that many other cultures enjoy their own Thanksgiving this time of year! For example, every year in autumn, Koreans celebrate a harvest festival accompanied by a feast known as Chuseok.
The ability to write basic phrases in other languages, such as Korean, Spanish, or French, can widen your audience. Combining that with an inclusive approach to Thanksgiving can bring more people to your brand.
Your content should invite those from all different backgrounds and cultures to partake in the American holiday spirit. This approach can help create compelling and unique Thanksgiving-themed content.
2. Fitting Your Brand Into Thanksgiving
Fun recipes and new Thanksgiving ideas are great, but what do you do if your brand has nothing to do with Thanksgiving? What if your company doesn’t offer relevant products for this holiday? Well, this doesn’t mean you can’t harness the good feelings that accompany the holidays!
Black Friday has been the answer for these types of brands. Creating content that reminds people of the importance of friends and family can help you capture some of that spotlight. You can also hype up special Black Friday deals your brand is offering.
The point is to create content that isn’t entirely about Thanksgiving but incorporates the underlying Thanksgiving themes. Messages of kindness, community, and generosity are a surefire way to create successful holiday content.
For example, if you own a real estate company, you can create content about houses. Your content can mention the importance of choosing a home with great communal spaces and a kitchen that can make cooking easier for the holidays. If your brand is a fashion brand, you can develop content about what to wear for Thanksgiving or fun matching outfits for family photos.
As long as you follow the principles of good digital citizenship, such as inclusivity and considering the THINK acronym (is your content true, helpful, inspiring, necessary, and kind?), you can create content that evokes the same emotions that surround the holiday.
3. Creative or Useful Thanksgiving Content
What if your brand has nothing to do with Thanksgiving, and you don’t care to be subtle? You can find creative uses for your product or service and tie it to Thanksgiving.
For example, Coca-Cola has published arts and crafts ideas for children, which involved using their bottles for creating decorative Turkeys. They even created Thanksgiving recipes that use their drink! Cosmetics companies create Thanksgiving-themed makeup tutorials.
The possibilities are endless, and you can always find creative ways to make money with social media and holiday content.
If your brand has an easy tie-in to Thanksgiving, it’s generally best to offer helpful advice that people will be searching for around this time of year. Jennie-O, a popular turkey company, creates a lot of useful content right before Thanksgiving. They even offer a turkey hotline for those looking for help cooking the bird!
Your content can give your readers or viewers advice to help make their holiday event a success. If you have done this, you have won an important place in the minds of your consumers.
Real-life, practical information seems boring, but it can help you tie into your audience’s emotions. They will remember when it was your guide that helped them cook a perfect turkey for the first time!
Your Thanksgiving content can provide a simple step-by-step tutorial on how to cook a turkey geared for beginners. It can be an article about different methods to brine a turkey. Either way, offering practical value to your readers and viewers can build your reputation in their eyes.
Alternatively, consider creating content that others haven’t thought of. Ideas like how to set the table for Thanksgiving or how to decorate your home can increase your views.
4. Choose the Right Content Mediums and Platforms
The medium and platform you use for your Thanksgiving content are every bit as important as the content itself.
Videos are becoming the most popular medium for new content. Recent research shows that 88% of consumers want to see more video content from their favorite brands.
Choosing the right social media platform is also important. For example, the rising popularity of Tik Tok has altered the type of content we see online. Short video clips are used as a form of content delivery. They offer users a sneak peek that leads to more lengthy content. Reels are helpful because they are short, grabbing the consumer’s attention and enticing them to click on your link.
Working with influencers is another excellent method of creating interesting Thanksgiving content. Sponsoring content allows you to benefit from the creativity and unique voice that comes from working with an established influencer while also plugging your brand. It can help expose your business to new audiences and open up opportunities for the future.
Conclusion
It’s important to begin planning and timing your Thanksgiving content in advance. This is to help your brand benefit from all the good feelings that come around this time of year. Consumers spend a lot of money during the holiday season, so your company must stay front of mind as consumers begin planning Christmas shopping. They should think of your product or service when figuring out what to do for Thanksgiving dinner with the family.
Your content can offer creative and unique ideas for the Thanksgiving season. It can inspire your followers to incorporate something new into their traditions. Your posts can also be centered around providing your audience with the most value possible – tutorials, recipes, or tips and tricks for the Thanksgiving meal can be especially helpful.
What if your brand doesn’t have a direct tie to Thanksgiving? Using the timeless Thanksgiving message of love, generosity, kinship, and community can help you fit in with the warm and fuzzy feelings that occur around this popular holiday.
