At Social Studies, we’ve spent the last decade observing our client and agency counterparts taking a well-deserved break at the end of December (for all intents and purposes this year we are defining “the holidays” as Friday December 20 – Monday January 6th, 2025). Meanwhile, we’ve been good little elves, toiling away, available until the eleventh hour, painstakingly approving holiday content and queuing up “New Year, New You” messaging. As a strategic partner it is our mandate to be available for our clients in an always-on capacity, ensuring there was someone available to manage urgent needs from clients, creators, or managers.
Ten years in, I feel it’s safe to say we’ve never faced a major issue during this time. What actually has happened more times than not is I will get a frantic request from a client asking me to pre-bill them for work in the following year. I love these calls. As we look to 2025 we now have the data to support what we’ve suspected all along—creator content over the holidays (especially between Christmas and New Years Day) often gets lost in the sauce. The last two weeks of the year can and should be a celebration where everyone can focus on what’s most important: family, reflection, and preparation for the new year.
Moreover, “kids these days” are actually prioritizing time spent with loved ones IRL—youth studies and our internal research illustrate that most people in Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha actually wish TikTok was never even invented, but they participate for fear of being left behind. During the holidays in past years, we witnessed constant scrolling and posting because they were bored in the burbs—but these new opinions help anticipate a coming macro shift in user behavior, and we can be fairly confident that social media usage will decrease over the holidays in coming years. Accordingly, we’ve set up a study to report on this so stay tuned in Q1.
No One Wants to Be Sold to in the Last Two Weeks of the Year
By the end of December, consumers are tired of sales pitches. Optimove’s Insights Report on Holiday Shopping for 2024 found that 67% of consumers anticipate marketing fatigue as early as November 1st. They’ve already been through the lead to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday aka “The Cyber Five” period. Only 7% of buyers complete their shopping during the “Cyber Five” period, with most spending done earlier (ClickSend Blog). By the last two weeks of December, anything worth selling has likely been sold already. At this point, your brand should have built enough momentum to sustain awareness. Organic content should be pre-planned and sliced into automated paid social buys. No human creator, client, or account manager should need to be actively managing (hands on keyboard) or monitoring campaigns.
According to Social Studies advisor Sam Feher, “November 1–December 15 is my biggest time for affiliate revenue typically because I (like many creators) do gift guides. I prioritize this over paid campaigns during the holidays because it feels much more organic than the tired holiday messaging of paid campaigns, and it’s WAY lower lift. Linking 50 products per guide instead of producing custom content for each, and I share it all on IG stories instead of in-feed. More bang for my buck.”
Setting Social Up for Success: The Expert’s Guide
If you’re still scrambling to set up your holiday influencer strategy by November 1st, it’s already too late. Here’s a step-by-step timeline to ensure you’re prepared well in advance:
October: Ramp up content production and schedule all posts. Create evergreen content that can be repurposed or shared during the holidays.
- All internal creative briefs need to be approved by Oct 15th
- All initial internal influencer lists (who you want to work with for the first time / keep working with) approved and ready to email / call by October 30th
November: Test, iterate, learn, repeat
- Complete all influencer / creator list approvals, outreach and negotiations by November 15th
- Sign contracts and pass on creative briefs by November 20th
- Content approvals and automate the posting schedule
- Shift to monitoring mode to manage any unexpected changes and performance
- November 28th is Thanksgiving
December: With the stretch of time between December 1 and 15 you want to benchmark your performance and ROI analysis. Have a clear template for what success looks like and match that against what you saw over the “Cyber Five” period. Now the ‘Optimization Period’ can begin.
- By Friday December 6th meet with your team to decide which creators / influencers and types of content were most successful for you and solve for any messaging or CTA edits.
- The week of December 9th continue to monitor and make sure you are trafficking your best content and assets to your paid social team (if you are boosting with paid social)
- As things start to wind down in the calendar year the week of December 16th start to shift focus to strategic planning for Q1-2025 and use this downtime to reflect on the year’s successes and challenges.
Why It Pays to Pause
According to Business Insider, while the holiday season is crucial for marketers, the competition for consumer attention is intense, and this can lead to decreased engagement. In polling creators we work with the overwhelming consensus is to gravitate their posting strategy towards Instagram Stories rather than In-Feed posts where congestion from holiday content is highest – this is a ‘shotgun’ approach focused on getting in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Posting on Stories is more of a laser-guided tactic where true connection reigns and the likelihood of authentic “IRL” relationships is greater. The metric to watch here is not Engagement Rate or Reach, but Link Clicks that can drive followers towards specific actions.
Many brands are now focusing on the period known as ‘Q5 — the post-holiday season — where there is less competition for ad space and influencer fees are generally lower. This shift highlights the challenges brands face during the peak holiday period, such as high saturation and reduced ad performance.
Ultimately, giving your teams, influencers and customers much deserved time off during the holidays isn’t just a goodwill gesture; it’s a strategic move. It allows your brand / agency to maintain a presence without overwhelming your core audiences, and helps preserve the authenticity and energy of your influencer and creator partnerships. After all, a well-rested team—be it your brand, your influencers, or your audience—is always more effective.
A Final Thought
Maybe there is even a way to focus the power of the Creator Economy towards doing a little more good this holiday season. I’d like to recommend to brands that on top of their regular briefs and content output requirements that they also provide their Influencers and Content Creators with a way to give back. This can take the form of something as simple as sharing a link to raise awareness for the brand’s corporate social responsibility initiative, a meaningful cause to donate to (brand-matching dollars is even better), or perhaps an opportunity to put all that influence towards a higher calling via volunteer efforts where influencers participate and call on their vast audiences to show up alongside them.