Whether you’re a brand, influencer, small-business owner or creator, social media marketing is fundamental to increase brand awareness and reach your target audience. Our top tip is to plan social media marketing campaigns (even if it’s just in your stories) around trending social media holidays! Not only will your posts reach more people because the hashtags are trending, but sometimes we just need a bit of content inspiration and social media holidays offer just that.

November is the official start of the holiday season and with holiday creep well underway and the holiday’s flagship shopping days occurring in the month this year (December, in the case of Cyber Monday), social media marketers should be looking to create as many opportunities as possible throughout the month to engage their customers. And while, broadly speaking, holiday shopping as a theme should dominate your content strategy, there are advantages to leveraging other holidays and events along the way. Look to the below for inspiration on how to stand out amongst the holiday marketing clutter and create unique reasons to engage your customers.

A question we often get asked, why promote holiday or seasonal content? A Sprout Social customer survey discovered when brands share irrelevant information, 41% of people tend to unfollow the company on social. This insight is important to any organisation’s bottom line, especially since 57% of consumers are more likely to purchase something from a brand they follow and 75% have made a purchase because of social. So use the celebration days that mean something to you and remember if your brand operates in other countries outside of New Zealand to research key holiday dates to engage with your customers in each market. So, let's dive into the ideas.

There are plenty of great ideas to tackle for the month of November, between all the interesting awareness days and the holiday season coming up. Here are five content concepts that you can make your own to fit your business on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, blogs, emails, and other marketing channels. We believe one of the best ways to build a connection with current and prospective customers is by posting content worth sharing. Use these ideas as a jumping-off point to add a few new things to your content calendar this November.

Cliché Day (November 3)

When you have lemons, make lemonade. There’s no better day than today to whip out your favorite overused clichés!

• Share the truth behind a popular, maybe overused cliché
• Talk about how a cliché relates to a story or your product/service
• Try to fit as many clichés into a post as possible

Stress Awareness Day (November 7)

Stress is a constant presence in everyone’s life. This day is a great way to build awareness surrounding the importance of managing stress in a healthy way.

• Talk about things you don’t have to stress about when working with your products/services
• Share tips for alleviating stress from your life
• Celebrate or honour one of your valued members of your community by giving away a spa package or something that relieves stress

Global Entrepreneurs Week (November 18-24) #GEW2019 #GlobalEntrepreneursWeek

Each year, Global Entrepreneurship Week reaches millions of people through local, national and global events and activities – often framed by key global themes that shine a spotlight on leading topics in entrepreneurship.  Below are the 2019 global themes and how you can showcase them:

• GEW Education | #GEWeducation - GEW Education works to share resources, raise awareness and provide skills training to potential entrepreneurs around the world. This theme celebrates the tools and programmes communities use to foster entrepreneurship. Why not offer free resources or training programmes during the week to help foster entrepreneurship and show your entrepreneur spirit.
• GEW Ecosystems | #GEWecosystems - GEW Ecosystems aims to inspire communities to collaborate and share their networks and markets to help their rising start-ups thrive. This theme celebrates the shared challenges and triumphs of entrepreneurship communities and hubs around the world. It’s time to talk not just about the wins you have made in business, but some of the hurdles, challenges and mistakes which have got you to where you are today. Being in business isn’t all rainbows and kittens, highlight the challenges and share how you overcame them.
• GEW Inclusion | #GEWinclusion - GEW Inclusion will highlight the work startup champions are doing around the world to minimise barriers and obstacles for entrepreneurs by maximizing inclusion. This theme celebrates diversity in all forms, including women and youth in entrepreneurship. Activities, workshops and speaker series held around the world will explore the obstacles entrepreneurs from underserved populations may face, and discovering solutions through access to success stories, training, capital and mentorship. Do you have resources and stories to share, or are there entrepreneurs whose stories have inspired you, share them and inspire more people to chase their dreams.
• GEW Policy | #GEWpolicy - GEW policy will highlight the work of governments and policymakers to help entrepreneurs everywhere start and scale. Share programmes and policies which are helping entrepreneurs in New Zealand or if you don’t think enough is being done in New Zealand to foster entrepreneurship, use this week to campaign for change.

Thanksgiving (November 28) #Thanksgiving

While it’s not a Kiwi holiday, Thanksgiving gives us the opportunity to give thanks at this otherwise sales focused time of the year. There are a variety of ways to have your brand resonate on this most thankful of days.

• Thanksgiving is a big holiday for getting together with family; talk about how you value your work family’s employees or generational connections
• Share something you’re thankful for, or things your team is thankful for
• Share your favorite Thanksgiving tradition
• Post a link to a Thanksgiving recipe

Black Friday (November 29) #BlackFriday; Small Business Saturday (November 30) #SmallBusinessSaturday, #ShopSmall; Cyber Monday (December 2) #CyberMonday; Giving Tuesday (December 3) #GivingTuesday

November is the time of major shopping days. Take advantage of the shopping buzz by participating in the day that fits best with your business, whether it’s Cyber Monday or Giving Tuesday.

• Donate or support a local or national non-profit for #GivingTuesday and post about it
• Create a round-up list of the top Cyber Monday or Black Friday deals
• Give away a free resource to small businesses for Small Business Saturday
• Spotlight one of your partners or a local business you admire leading up to Small Business Saturday
• Share a stat about how much shopping goes on during this week
• Post your deals for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday or Cyber Monday

Seasonal Days are perfect for the small business owner struggling with what content to share. Whether it’s World Vegan Day or International Men’s Day, every day has something to celebrate online.

Seasonal Days for November:

1:           World Vegan Day #WorldVeganDay #VeganDay

1:           Authors Day #NationalAuthorsDay

3:           Sandwich Day #NationalSandwichDay

3:           Cliché Day #ClicheDay

4:           International Candy Day #CandyDay

5:           Guy Fawkes #GuyFawkes #fireworks

6:           Nacho Day #NachoDay #Nacho

7:           Stress Awareness Day #StressAwarenessDay

8:           S.T.E.M/S.T.E.A.M Day #STEMSTEAMDay

9:           World Freedom Day #FreedomDay

10:         Forget Me Not Day #ForgetMeNotDay

11:         Armistice Day #RemembranceDay #ArmisticeDay #LestWeForget

11:         Singles Day #SinglesDay #Double11Day

13:         World Kindness Day #WKD #WorldKindnessDay

14:         World Diabetes Day #WDD #WorldDiabetesDay #Thinkdiabetes

15:         Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day #CleanOutYourRefrigeratorDay

16:         International Day for Tolerance #ToleranceDay 

17:         International Students Day #InternationalStudentsDay

19:         Entrepreneurs Day #EntrepreneursDay

19:         International Men’s Day #InternationalMensDay

20:         Universal Children’s Day #UNChildrensDay

21:         World Hello Day #WorldHelloDay #WordsNotWar

21:         World Television Day #WorldTVDay

21:         World Philosophy Day #WorldPhilosophyDay #UltimateTruth

25:         White Ribbon Day #WhiteRibbon #MakeThePromise

28:         Thanksgiving Day #Thanksgiving #IGiveThanks

29:         Small Business Saturday #ShopSmall #SmallBusinessSaturday

29:         Black Friday #BlackFriday

November is the month for:

• Movember (Men’s Health Month)
• World Vegan Month
• Peanut Butter Lovers Month
• Adoption Month
• Novel Writing Month
• Manatee Awareness Month

Also look out for

• Global Entrepreneurs Week (November 18-24)

This month there are so many options to participate in worldwide conversations – that is how you grow reach and authority and even vanity “likes” and “followers”.  So capitalise on these valuable opportunities if they align with your branding, but please, do not JUST use the hashtag on top of something irrelevant, this won’t build your social media profile.

Remember, be sure to check back in the next day or two for our Christmas content ideas. We have over 100 ideas to spring your Christmas marketing into action.

Need help planning your monthly content? Connect with us today and take the stress out of your social media marketing.