As a musician, our goal on social media is to engage our audience, get more exposure, and leverage our communities to come to shows, get involved, and earn more money in the process. We face the challenge to deliver high-quality and relevant content that will engage our audience, establish a loyal fanbase, and achieve our goals. Each season of our business as musicians presents unique opportunities to regroup and capitalize on current trends. The holiday season is no different. In fact, it can be argued that the holidays actually present even more opportunities to build your business using social media. The key is to tailor your social content to move with the trends and provide value to your audience while impacting your bottom line in the process.
This 60-Day Holiday Social Media Content Plan for musicians is designed to help you customize a content strategy that aligns with your brand and overall business needs.
Use the sample template provided below to
- Come up with a consistent flow of engaging content
- Inspire new content ideas
- Compliment your holiday marketing plan
- Diversify your holiday content and build a robust content calendar
By following through on this plan for the next month or two, you can fully captivate the magic of the holiday season on your social media platforms for your fans!
As with any marketing plan and content strategy, we recommend taking a look at your goals for the season first. What do you most need to accomplish in the next two months for your music? The end of the year is quickly approaching, so maybe you can use this content plan to help you reach those goals you laid out at the beginning of the year? Perhaps you wanted to gain more subscribers or more watch time on your YouTube channel in order to monetize it. Well, put out more videos and promote that you’re doing things on YouTube. Add content into your strategy to promote your channel. Or, maybe you’re hoping to bring in some extra cash this holiday season. Work on developing really cool merchandise items and come up with a strategy to unveil and promote them on social media. Or, sell your services. We’ve included weekly promotional posts each week where you can do just that! The key is to decide what you need and customize your content strategy to help you achieve that.
theThe other thing you should think about is what hashtags you’ll be using for your social media campaign. Come up with a set of hashtags you will use with each post. Make sure they are relevant and popular so that your posts will show up when people search for these topics. Be mindful that you might use some hashtags with certain posts, but not all of them. For example, if your post has to do with Christmas songs, then you’d use hashtags such as #popularchristmassongs or #classicchristmasmusic. But if your post has nothing to do with Christmas tunes, leave those hashtags out altogether.
What we’ve left out.
Since this list of content ideas is fully customizable and can be started at any point during the holiday season, we’ve left the major holidays out of our line up. But don’t forget to add them in when you’re planning your customized content strategy. By all means, don’t forget to capitalize on major shopping days!
- Thanksgiving (Last Thursday of November)
- Black Friday (The day after Thanksgiving)
- Cyber Monday (The Monday after Thanksgiving)
- Hanukkah (varies each year)
- Christmas Day (December 25)
Check out our Holiday Marketing Calendar for Musicians for more holidays and observance days to use in your social media content strategy.
Before getting started, there are a few post types that need a little extra explaining. For example, every week, we’ve included a Weekly Series Post. This type of content is awesome because it provides consistent and customizable content that can be refreshed each week. There are so many things you can do as part of your weekly post series such as sharing a holiday cover song, reviewing a classic Christmas song, talking about fun activities your fans can do with their kids, a live stream, a weekly giveaway, sharing holiday-themed motivational messages, holiday-themed trivia, etc. Just pick one or several and have fun!
Watch: 3 Holiday Marketing Ideas for Musicians
We’ve also included a weekly self promotions post for you to share each week. While you shouldn’t flood your social media profiles with obnoxious sales pitches and self promotions, you should maintain a balance of tasteful promotions that gently remind your audience that you’re a business along with value-centric and highly-engaging posts. Afterall, if you are in business as an independent artist, your goal is to make money. So every week, we recommend dedicating a special post to promote what you’ve been up to lately to help drive your goals for the season. For example, a simple post asking your audience to sign up to your mailing list is a great way to build your subscriber base, which is one of your keys to success by the way! Another self-promotional post you could try would be to share your latest YouTube video – extra cool points if your video happens to be a holiday themed one. Same goes for promoting a latest release. You can also showcase your latest merchandise item or promote your services.
Week 1 of Holiday Posts
Day 1: Holiday Motivation. The holidays can be a depressing time for a lot of people. While so many people are going to parties and getting together with friends and family, for others the holiday season can be a reminder of a previous loss. The holidays can be a special trigger for mental illness due to the stress and anxiety it can bring. Be mindful of this and share some tips you may have used yourself, or tips from reputable sources like Psych Central’s informative piece about beating the holiday blues. (Tip: This can also be used as a weekly series post that can be shared each week with a new motivational message.)
Day 2: Promo photo, lyrics, logo, and website. This type of post is all about the visual! Use a free photo editing tool like Canva to create an image with your promo pic that highlights a lyric to one of your songs or one of your favorite quotes and a link to your website. These types of posts are great because they are easily shareable. If you have a cool story behind the photo or song you’re featuring, all the better! Include that in the caption of the photo.
Day 3: Share your fave holiday movie. Talk about any childhood memories you have associated with that movie. Ask your audience to share theirs.
Day 4: Share your holiday set list. This is a subtle way to promote the fact that you are available for holiday parties. You can also use this as an opportunity to ask your audience for any song ideas that you can add to your set list.
Day 5: Share a holiday photo. It could be of you with Santa, or you practicing your christmas set in a Santa hat.
Day 6: Weekly Series Post
Day 7: Weekly Self Promotions
Week 2 of Holiday Posts
Day 1: Highlight a fellow artist. Co-promoting can go a long way even if sometimes it’s one sided. Pay it forward by highlighting a recent song or livestream you enjoyed from a fellow artist. This can help broaden the pallets of your own audience while establishing a positive rapport with the other artist (don’t forget to tag them). Who knows, maybe they’ll reshare your post or even better, highlight you in reciprocity.
Day 2: Post a picture of you in your ugly Christmas sweater. Play up the gimmicky Christmas traditions and add your own bit of style and pizzazz. Why not sing a song in your ugly Christmas sweater? Or, host a photo contest on your social media platform? Use these Christmas traditions to achieve your ultimate business goals.
Day 3: Share a holiday song. It doesn’t have to be yours. It could be one from mainstream music or an obscure one. Talk about who wrote the song and why you like it or don’t like it. Talk about why the song made an impact on you.
Day 4: Talk about what the holidays mean to you. Share a candid shot of you or your band along with it.
Day 5: Share some interesting trivia about Christmas Carols.
Day 6: Weekly Series Post
Day 7: Weekly Self Promotions
Week 3 of Holiday Posts
Day 1: Talk about what happened in music history on this day. Perhaps you can even find some holiday history that is music related. Alternatively, it doesn’t have to be music-related. The beauty of social media is that everything doesn’t have to be about music. Play up your own interests, passions and hobbies especially if you’ve included these elements in your overall music branding! This can help you solidify yourself as a brand and resonate with your audience on even deeper levels.
Day 2: Share a favorite holiday cookie recipe. One of the best things you can do for your audience on social media is to bring value. That means thinking outside of the music box and curating content that provides knowledge, information, or fun stuff for your audience to do or engage in. But it’s very important to only provide content that you think your audience will respond to. In our music business, we determined that our fans are mostly adult women with families. So a cookie recipe would be perfect for them. But for your audience, you may find that sharing a list of electronic deals for an upcoming Black Friday sale might be more appropriate. Find out the inner workings of your ideal audience or fanbase by going through our Ideal Fan Targeting Worksheet here.
Day 3: Share a holiday comic. They say that laughter is good medicine for the soul. Express your humorous side by sharing a holiday-themed comic or joke. Or make one of your own.
Day 4: What holiday songs are you currently practicing? Give your audience a glimpse into your practice routine by sharing videos, pictures, and captions of what holiday songs you’re currently practicing or want to practice in the near future.
Day 5: Holiday events in your local area. Another way to provide value to your audience is to share what holiday events are being featured in your local area. To be more consistent with the times, you may want to include any special virtual events that look good to you as well.
Day 6: Weekly Series Post
Day 7: Weekly Self Promotions
Week 4 of Holiday Posts
Day 1: Share a throwback holiday picture. Letting your audience get to know your persona can create a strong bond and promote stronger support among your fans. One of the ways to do that is to share what your life was like before being the musician you are today. Especially, if you have stories that tell about your coming of age. Share a throwback photo of you during the holidays. Talk about what you’re doing in the photo and what memories you have associated with it.
Day 2: Share a holiday playlist. We recommend creating one from scratch. That way you’ll get to share your favorite holiday songs while also including any of your songs in the mix, if applicable. You can also include songs from fellow artists in the playlist as well and get them to help you promote it. Co-promoting this way will give you a chance to share exposure and get new fans.
Day 3: Share your custom holiday gift guide. Are you an expert on gift giving? Even if you’re not, it’s always fun to create a gift list that can inspire yourself and others to give great gifts. You can either select gift options from Amazon, or use this as an opportunity to highlight small business owners who make crafts, skin care products, fashion, jewelry, chocolate, and other great gift items. As a matter of fact, you can create a blog post or two with personalized themes such as My List of Great Christmas Gift Ideas For Mom Under $30. Don’t worry, we won’t be mad if you steal this exact blog post topic. Besides, Mom probably deserves all that love and more. Share your posts and be sure to tag any small businesses you feature in your lists. Here’s ours for inspiration.
Day 4: Share a simple holiday cheer. There are lots of quotes and images that celebrate the festive season. Take a moment to share something that promotes the holiday spirit.
Day 5: Ask a question. What’s more engaging than asking a question to your audience? These types of posts are a sure win when it comes to building engagement and starting a real dialogue about something. Ask about their favorite Christmas song, eggnog recipe, holiday dessert, etc.
Day 6: Weekly Series Post
Day 7: Weekly Self Promotions
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• Email Newsletter Template
• Blog Post Template
• Pre-Designed Social Media Images
• Pre-written Post Captions
Download the Musician’s Content Bundle for the entire month of August 2024! You’ll have access to pre-designed posts that are fully customizable and curated specifically for musicians along with pre-written post captions! Plus, for the month of August, we’ll include a pre-written email template and a pre-written blog post to keep your newsletter subscribers and website visitors engaged.
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• Entire Month of Observance Days
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Week 5 of Holiday Posts
Day 1: Create a holiday ornament out of music supply scraps like guitar picks or strings. Share it with your audience. Give it away to a special fan.
Day 2: How to support local music during the holidays. Since you’re a musician, positioning yourself as a local music expert is a great way to generate exposure and engagement. Use this opportunity to talk about ways your fans can support local artists or if you’d like to keep it general, you can talk about supporting independent artists. What are some ways you can think of to support independent artists during the holiday season? Share those ideas and open it up for discussion among your audience.
Day 3: Create a digital gift packet and promote it as a way to get new subscribers. The gift package can include an EP or a few of your songs (extra points if they are holiday songs), a printable wall poster or bookmark template signed by you, a signed holiday e-postcard, an exclusive video, and a chance to win a private virtual holiday show for themselves and their family.
Day 4: Share your FAQs, the holiday version! If you don’t have any questions people have frequently asked you regarding your music and the holidays, just make them up. Use this as an opportunity to share things with your fans about your holiday entertainment services. If you have any holiday songs you’ve recorded, now is a good time to talk about that. Talk about any special holiday merchandise you have. Also, feel free to share your list of personal favorites such as songs, movies, retailers, gifts, etc.
Day 5: Join a charity and post about it. Encourage your fans to do the same! There are all kinds of holiday drives such as food drives, toy drives, and granting someone’s holiday wish. Find something that resonates with you. Nine times out of 10, it will also resonate with your fans.
Day 6: Weekly Series Post.
Day 7: Weekly Self Promotions.
Week 6 of Holiday Posts
Day 1: #12 Days of (you fill in the blank). This is a variation of the famous 12 Days of Christmas song. We’ll start this series off with 12 Days of Christmas Tunes. But you don’t have to limit yourself to that. You can do 12 Days of Christmas Cocktails, or holiday decor lessons, or “gifts to my fans,” etc. Today marks the first day of this series and you can use this day to highlight a song you perhaps performed at a Christmas concert when you were little. Share a photo, share the YouTube version of it, or perform it yourself.
Day 2: 2nd Day of Christmas Tunes Post. In the morning, share a small snippet of a song and ask your audience to guess that tune. Let everyone guess all day and keep the conversation going. Give clues along the way. At the end of the day share the answer. Give a little history about the song and any impact it’s made on your life. Thank everyone for participating and tease tomorrow’s post.
Day 3: 3rd Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Share your favorite Christmas song and the history behind it. Who all covered it, where you first heard it, and why it’s your favorite.
Day 4: 4th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Do a cover of a song, but do it in a completely different way. Put your own touch on it. See our post 20 Christmas Songs You Can Cover Without Worrying About Copyrights and pick one that suits you and your fans best.
Day 5: 5th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Highlight a Christmas song from a different genre than yours. Talk about what stood out to you about the song and use this as an opportunity to highlight diversity.
Day 6: 6th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Do you have a Christmas song that you wrote? Share it here! If not, make one up and perform it for your fans.
Day 7: 7th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Write a new verse for Jingle Bells.
Week 7 of Holiday Posts
Day 1: 8th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Create a special image highlighting lyrics from a Christmas song, a related photo, a special quote from you and a link to your website.
Day 2: 9th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Share a video of carolers and open the dialogue about this interesting holiday tradition. Some people think it’s outdated. Some people love it. Some people hate it. Ask your fans their take.
Day 3: 10th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Highlight a Christmas song from one of your favorite mainstream artists.
Day 4: 11th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Share a Christmas music or lyric video.
Day 5: 12th Day of Christmas Tunes Post. Host a party. Do a livestream. Perhaps feature some of the songs you’ve been showcasing for the past 12 days. Make it an event. Host a giveaway and do trivia! Make it fun and interactive for your fans!
Day 6: Weekly Series Post
Day 7: Weekly Self Promotions
Week 8 of Holiday Posts
This is the last week to share your 60 Days of Holiday content for social media. Depending on when you got started, it’s possible that Christmas Day has come and gone by now. But there’s still lots of opportunity to share some holiday cheer.
Day 1: After Christmas Blow-Out Sale. Put your entire shop up for discounted deals. Take advantage of the retail blitz that comes right after Christmas and cash in on the last bit of bargain hunting of the year.
Day 2: Share your Christmas day photos. Did you celebrate? How did you celebrate? What did you get? What did you give?
Day 3: Caption This! Share a candid shot of you opening a gift or playing in the snow. Ask your audience to provide the captions. This is another great way to boost engagement.
Day 4: Share something motivational relating to the end of the year. Perhaps it’s time to start thinking about new years resolutions or a goals or dream board for the next year? What can you do to motivate your fans to dream big?
Day 5: Share your plans for the upcoming year. As a business person, there’s always room to grow, improve, and step up your game. Do you have any special plans or hopes and dreams for your music career next year? Don’t be afraid to share that with your fans.
Day 6: Weekly Series Post
Day 7: Weekly Self Promotions
We know it can be super hard to be consistent on social media. It seems like such an easy and fun thing to do, but life happens, we get uninspired, and stuck in ruts. With this comprehensive list of engaging posts for the holiday season, you don’t have to feel pressured to come up with everything on your own. Use it as is, or use the list as a base to come up with your own ideas. Either way, go with your gut and trust that it knows what will resonate with your fans.
By the way, this holiday social media content plan is a great compliment to our Holiday Marketing Calendar for Musicians! Use both to put together a full strategy and marketing plan for your music that will help you reach your goals. You can download it here.
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This is about as thorough and detailed as can be. Thank you Anitra for putting this together. It’s awesome!