8 winning holiday marketing strategies for 2024

The holiday shopping frenzy isn’t confined to crowded malls. It’s happening online, and social media is the storefront.

According to a Q4 2024 Sprout Social Pulse Survey, a whopping 89% of shoppers say that brands’ social media content directly influences their holiday purchasing decisions. And this holiday season, 42% of consumers surveyed say they plan to use social media more than they did last year to find gifts, making holiday marketing even more essential to your revenue strategies.

That means your seasonal social media marketing has the power to make or break your holiday sales. To make an impact this holiday season, you’ll need to have a clever and well-timed holiday marketing strategy to stand out.

In this article, we’ll explore how your brand can lean into holiday marketing to make the most of the elongated festive season—from early Black Friday campaigns to the beginning of the new year.

8 holiday marketing strategies for 2024

From the coziness of autumn to the magic of a winter wonderland, seasonal marketing campaigns call upon the strong emotional connection we feel toward end-of-year holiday traditions.

Nostalgic for joyful memories of holidays past, people got into the spirit early in 2023, a trend we expect to see continue. Traditionally, consumers celebrate this special time of year by splurging on gifts for loved ones (and themselves). While folks are still planning to shop, customers will be more discerning with their dollars.

Around 40% of consumers anticipate spending less this year, and another 47% say they plan to spend the same as 2023, leaving little room for sales increases in 2024. With just a 2% increase in YoY sales predicted, marketers will need to be creative and nimble with their holiday content and proactive marketing efforts.

Brands that perform well this holiday season will depend on strong social campaigns and personalized AI-powered customer care experiences to help them stand out from the crowd.

To make the most of their holiday marketing efforts, brands need to take note of key consumer trends.

Plan your holiday marketing campaigns early

When’s the best time to start planning your holiday marketing campaigns, if you haven’t yet? As soon as you finish reading this guide.

Your holiday marketing approach should follow an omnichannel strategy, taking all customer touchpoints into consideration. Content across social, digital and advertising should tie back to an overall holiday theme and approach.

For example, IKEA leveraged early holiday marketing with print and social ads that promoted their early sales with cheeky images of holiday trees not yet big enough to hold ornaments.

Start your research by reviewing your 2023 campaigns and assessing what worked well and what didn’t. What can you learn from? From there, dive into expert sources on 2024 holiday trends (just like this article!) and review the competitive landscape.

As you develop your 2024 campaign, be sure to plan out content scheduling and map out key dates (holidays themselves, Black Friday, etc.). Having posts ready to go and scheduled in advance will ensure smooth sailing during the busiest holiday shopping times.

Create holiday-themed visuals and posts

Part of the reason those holiday decor discussions start earlier each year is that people love getting into the spirit of the season. From ugly holiday sweaters to themed food, many people adjust some part of their lives each year to fit the “theme.” Your brand’s social media content is no exception.

Craft static posts and videos that feature holiday motifs, color palettes and themes. It’s a good idea to ensure each one fits into your overall holiday aesthetic for the year so your audience gets a cohesive experience with each piece of content you post. Make sure these posts follow your brand guidelines, yet are distinct from the rest of your content this year.

In this example, Target incorporates their dog mascot, Bullseye, into animated, holiday-centric video posts.

Personalize your messaging

Personalized messaging is the gold standard for all marketing. But it’s extra important during a season full of nostalgia, family time and hope for the coming year. Any time you directly reach out to a customer, you have an opportunity to personalize and curate that experience.

Break down your audience in specific groups, and design a messaging approach for each. This includes email marketing and communicating on messaging apps, like Facebook’s built-in messenger.

According to a study by Facebook, 63% of people across generations prefer messaging over calls or emails when talking to businesses. Your audience wants to reach you directly and quickly, and they want it to be a personalized experience. Given the predicted tighter budgets this year, a personalized messaging experience can be the distinction your brand needs over the competition.

Take advantage of user-generated content

One of the best ways to showcase your brand’s holiday offerings is through authentic user-generated content. Whether a video at your brand’s brick-and-mortar location or a holiday video featuring your brand’s products as part of a user’s family celebrations, user-generated content can often convey warmth and realness in a way ads can’t.

Encourage your audience to share their holiday experience with your brand by asking questions about holiday planning and celebrations, and how your products may tie into them. For example, if you’re a food company selling pasta sauce, ask your audience if they’re using your sauce in any holiday meals and tag you in photos or videos of their dishes.

You can also find user-generated content through social listening, and request permission to reshare when you find positive content about your brand.

Collaborate with influencers

The holidays are a perfect time to launch a new campaign with influencers you’ve worked with before, or work with new-to-your-brand influencers. According to the 2024 Sprout Influencer Marketing Report, almost half of consumers make a purchase at least once a month because of influencer posts. You can expect that to remain true during the holidays.

Many influencers do holiday gift list suggestions that your brand may be able to be a part of. You can also craft campaigns specifically around your brand, showcasing one or more of your products or services through an influencer’s content. In this example, Danny Freeman of Danny Loves Pasta partnered with Rao’s to make beautiful, brand-themed raviolis for a holiday meal using their beloved pasta sauce.

There are a lot of angles to work with for holiday influencer campaigns. Beyond the common “top holiday gifts” ideas, you could create a campaign around holiday travel, meals, parties or self-care for the busiest season of the year.

Run festive contests and giveaways

With tight budgets this holiday shopping season, giving something to your followers free might be just the thing your brand needs to boost awareness of your holiday offerings. Consider running a festive contest or giveaway on your social channels, spotlighting the products or services you’re prioritizing in your holiday marketing. You can have the audience enter via comments, shares, etc. – keep in mind that the less barriers to entry, the more participants you’ll have.

Contests can be a great way to collect user-generated content, too. You could consider having participants share a photo (or tag your brand on a previous photo) featuring one of your products as a requirement for entry, and share the winner’s content on your feed.

Share behind-the-scenes content

As your team rolls out your holiday marketing campaigns, don’t forget that your internal celebrations are of interest to your audience, too. Consumers value authenticity in a brand, and one way to show that is to let your audience get to know the people behind the products.

Share photos of your organization’s holiday parties, office decorating, gift swaps or potlucks to add more of a human element to your marketing. In this Instagram video, Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow shares a look at how Goop’s holiday photo shoot came together.

Gear up for a high-demand customer care season

Consumers take their holiday purchases seriously, and a lot of effort can go into finding the perfect gift for a loved one. This means the holiday season can be the busiest time of the year for customer care teams, and consumers have high expectations.

Our 2023 Sprout Social Index found that 63% of consumers say their loyalty to a brand is significantly impacted by the quality of customer service they receive on social media, and 70% expect brands to provide personalized responses to their inquiries. Make sure your marketing approach accounts for this and includes a thought-out approach to customer care.

One tool available to help is chatbots/AI customer care platforms. According to a Q2 2024 Sprout Pulse Survey of 2,000 consumers, about 74% of consumers strongly/somewhat agree they’re comfortable with brands using AI to deliver faster customer service on social.

Additionally, 33% of those who have interacted with a chatbot said they were very satisfied with the interaction, and 51% said they were somewhat satisfied. Consumers know chatbot marketing is becoming more common, and are comfortable with them as long as it means quicker and personalized interactions.

Having a platform like Social Customer Care by Sprout Social, or using an integration like Sprout + Salesforce Service Cloud to manage your customer interactions can relieve the burden from your team. Our platform gathers insights automatically to help you understand customer care’s impact on revenue, and offers real-time alerts so you can avoid a crisis–especially critical during the holidays.

Sprout’s Social Customer Care also taps the power of AI to help you better delegate new cases with the case auto-assignment feature. It enables your teams to prioritize customized care based on message sentiment and set up actions based on case status.

Holiday marketing strategies by platform

When choosing social media platforms to use for your holiday marketing campaigns, it’s most important to consider where your audience spends their time on social. Posting on the channels they use most frequently is the best way to ensure they see your holiday promotions.

Some of the most popular holiday marketing social networks according to our 2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report are Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and TikTok. Let’s dive into the benefits of each, and how you can tailor your content to perform well on each platform.

Instagram is your holiday marketing priority

The 2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report found that 84% of all consumers use Instagram. Though Gen X and Baby Boomers rank it lower than Millennials and Gen Z, it’s a top 3 channel for all age groups. This means Instagram is your best bet for reaching a majority of your audience for your holiday marketing campaigns.

Instagram is also a popular platform for holiday influencer campaigns that move the needle for your brand. Trust in influencers is holding steady, if not on the rise: half of consumers trust influencers as much as they did six months ago, and another 30% trust them more. A key reason for Instagram’s continued popularity with influencers is its visual-first nature.

To tap the power of Instagram like an influencer, share static images and Reels of your products on the app to promote your holiday offers. Elevate your best deals, promos and events by featuring them in your bio links and shoppable posts. Provide shopping inspiration for your followers by creating holiday gift guides. Take it a step further by reposting user-generated content (UGC) and influencer content of people using (and loving) your products. You can also tap into UGC to find relatable holiday-themed content that will delight your community.

Don’t forget to shine the spotlight on the nonprofit organizations your brand is partnering up with this holiday season. Share photos/videos of your team volunteering and infographics about the organization’s impact.

Make Facebook your holiday customer care headquarters

Facebook was just behind Instagram with 83% of consumers actively using it. More importantly, 66% ranked it as their top choice for customer care on social media. When your audience has holiday customer service questions or concerns, there is a high likelihood they’ll reach out to you on Facebook.

Integrate AI tools into your tech stack to increase your workflow efficiency and scale customer care on Facebook. This will enable a stronger customer experience and ease internal collaboration.

While consumers turn to Facebook for customer support needs, they stay on the app for attention-grabbing content (think new holiday products, deals and promos). You can even kick-start holiday shopping conversations on Messenger with ads that click to message. Maximize the performance of your organic and paid content by experimenting with video and ephemeral content, and use your analytics to identify your best-performing content early in the holiday season so you can replicate your success into the new year.

Maximize holiday trends on TikTok

Gen Z uses TikTok as their preferred search engine (and nearly half of all consumers, 68%, use TikTok according to our research). To reach them this year, consider how your holiday marketing can meet their search intent. Educate them about problems your products can help them solve (example: how to decorate for Hanukkah like a pro). Note: the holiday season is a great time to partner with TikTok creators who are already creating this content.

Even if your audience doesn’t include Gen Z, you can still use the app for your holiday marketing efforts. Reach a wide audience by tapping into trending sounds and going all-in on holiday aesthetics (you can also re-share this content as Reels on Instagram).

To maximize your profit on TikTok, add products from your website to your TikTok Shop. By creating a TikTok Shop, you can showcase products through in-feed videos, lives and product showcase tabs.

Influence holiday purchases with YouTube

YouTube can help you reach audiences of all ages with your holiday campaigns, but particularly Baby Boomers and Gen X who rank YouTube in their top three platforms, according to our report. There are a variety of tactics you can implement on YouTube, from full-length videos on your brand’s channel to ads that appear on other popular content.

YouTube is also a good platform to include in your influencer approach. YouTube’s full-screen layout allows for more in-depth content than YouTube, and the right influencers can create professionally shot, quality videos that feature your product in some way: think reviews, recipes/how-to’s and travel vlogs.

Holiday marketing strategies on Pinterest

Pinterest is a true wonderland of ideas during the holidays, featuring highly scrollable content for users to save in curated boards.

During the holiday season, Pinners will be on the lookout for on-trend recipes, holiday outfit ideas, décor inspiration and more. Use your brand’s products to create visually appealing photos and short videos with these topics in mind. Include instructions on how to make it or wear it at home (including links to your website). You can position your posts as gift suggestions for your target audience, too (example: what to buy your best friend for Christmas).

Take it to the next level with shoppable Product Pins. These posts make it easy to go from searching for inspiration to buying something—all within the app.

Target B2B shoppers on LinkedIn

LinkedIn might not be the first network you think of when you think of holiday sales, but there’s plenty of opportunity to explore. Many companies send gifts to customers and partners around the holidays, often featuring fun or gourmet items. If you’re a brand with food products, especially something with great packaging, you can use LinkedIn to target corporate buyers.

Gift cards also make great gifts for a wide variety of people, including coworkers, bosses and business associates. Advertise and post about your brand’s gift card options to help those unsure what to get for a work colleague with an easy idea.

Additionally, if your brand offers a B2B service that might be impacted by the holidays, these months are the time for your marketing to shine. Fetch, a service that helps property managers handle the delivery of packages for their residents, kicked off their 2024 holiday marketing season with a post highlighting how holiday times have changed for property managers due to e-commerce.

4 examples to fuel your holiday marketing

Make the most of holiday marketing on social with content that resonates with your audience and conveys the essence of your brand.

Use these social media holiday marketing campaigns as sources of inspiration.

Evoke nostalgia and holiday joy

Coca-Cola’s 2023 holiday campaign featured the tagline “The world needs more Santas.” The brand posted a short film with the same name to YouTube, featuring a city with 100s of Santas bustling about, helping each other and completing holiday tasks. By the end, it’s revealed that the “Santas” were actually just everyday people tapping into their inner “Santa” to spread holiday joy.

Your brand can take inspiration from Coca-Cola’s campaign by looking for ways to use nostalgia and promote community. One of Coke’s most famous brand images is that of a classic Santa drinking a bottle of Coke, and last year’s campaign is a specific call back to that image. Consider what holiday images your audience finds nostalgic, and incorporate the idea of community and family into your campaign.

Make your customer care stand out

Beverage brand Cutwater went above and beyond for its customers in 2023 by offering a “Cutwater Holiday Concierge” hotline that could be reached via call or the company’s Instagram. The hotline offered tips and tricks to making perfect holiday beverages and was paired with a $10k home bar sweepstakes.

For your own holiday social campaigns, consider how you can improve customer care while also thinking outside the box. Cutwater’s hotline offered customers ways to use their products in new ways and sent a strong message of “we’re here for you” to their audience.

Find playful ways to tap into trends

Walmart got a lot of attention last year for their holiday ad featuring the stars of the cult classic film “Mean Girls,” but their Instagram content throughout the holiday season was also well done. In this example, the brand taps into the ever-popular ASMR trend via a Hanukkah table setting featuring products from Walmart stores.

This holiday season, think of ways your campaigns can use trends both new and old in a playful way. Walmart’s ASMR version stays true to its brand with an approachable video showcasing affordable products.

Spotlight user-generated content

User-generated content doesn’t have to be freshly posted to be relevant for your brand’s holiday campaigns. Make sure you have permission from the user to re-share, and find unique ways to tie in user content from earlier in the year to your holiday posts. For example, resharing of X (formerly Twitter) or Threads posts in a “meme” format is popular on several channels and can be an easy way to promote user-generated content about your brand.

Have a merry, bright and successful holiday marketing season

More people are turning to e-commerce and social shopping, and the most wonderful time of the year keeps getting longer. That means more pressure on social teams to design attention-grabbing campaigns and answer an influx of customer care inquiries.

As you gear up for the season, optimize your holiday marketing strategy by aligning your content to audience preferences, based on each social network. Download our 2024 Social Media Content Strategy Report to guide your network strategies this holiday season.