Beyond the Christmas countdown: 7 festive social media content ideas for brands and agencies
Written By:Liz Malone-Johnstone
October 29, 2026
October 29, 2026 
Share This PostThere’s plenty competing for your audience’s attention in the run-up to Christmas. And if you’re managing social media, there’s probably plenty competing for yours too, from festive campaigns and last-minute requests to arranging cover while the team takes a break.
A few well-chosen content ideas can help you connect with your community, answer useful questions and celebrate the people behind your business. You don’t need a Christmas product range or a big campaign budget to get involved.
Here are seven ideas to make your festive planning a little easier (and not an advent calendar in sight).
1. Answer the questions already arriving in your inbox
When is the last order date? Are you open between Christmas and New Year? Who can customers contact if they need help?
Your community management and customer service teams will know which questions come up every December. Use that insight to plan content that gives people the answers before they need to ask.
A simple carousel, short video or pinned post can make essential information easier to find. For businesses without a retail focus, think about service availability, year-end deadlines or what clients need to prepare before the break.
Keep an eye on the responses too. If people are still asking the same question, the information might need to be clearer or easier to find.
2. Introduce the people behind the festive preparations
There’s a lot of work behind a successful Christmas campaign, and some of the people making it happen rarely appear on your channels.
Introduce the team packing orders, preparing displays, supporting customers or keeping services running over the holidays. A few photographs and a short conversation can give your community a glimpse of what their working day involves.
Ask something specific: What’s the busiest part of their day? What are they most proud of getting ready? What would make their job easier this Christmas?
Let their personalities come through, and make participation optional. An honest account in someone’s own words will usually tell you more than a carefully scripted seasonal greeting.
Top tip: Try B-roll footage with a voiceover
If your team are camera-shy, try filming some B-roll footage of them at work or busy with Christmas preparations, then add a pre-recorded voiceover to tell the story.
3. Give your community a say
Christmas offers plenty of opportunities to invite people into a conversation. You could ask followers to choose a festive design, suggest a seasonal product name or share the challenge they would most like your experts to tackle in January.
Choose something you can act on, and make it easy to contribute. One clear question is usually enough.
Then come back with the outcome. Show the chosen design, explain which suggestions you’re taking forward or turn a thoughtful response into a follow-up post, with permission.
That follow-through helps people see that there’s someone listening behind the account.
4. Share a little festive know-how
What could your business help people do more easily at this time of year?
A food brand could share recipes for leftovers. A homeware business could offer simple ideas for hosting. A professional services firm could help clients get their year-end admin in order, while an agency could share tips for handing over campaigns before annual leave.
If you have enough useful material, turn it into a short series. Five tips or three practical guides can give your audience something to look forward to without leaving your team with 24 advent posts to produce.
Choose a format you can deliver well, and leave room in the schedule to respond to the questions it prompts.
5. Celebrate what your community is creating
Your customers and followers may already be sharing festive ideas, projects and traditions that others would enjoy seeing.
Invite them to show how they’re using your products, preparing for Christmas or bringing people together. You could feature a customer’s seasonal window display, a creative project or a festive event they’ve organised.
Give contributors credit and tell a little of their story. What inspired them? How did they make it happen? What advice would they give someone trying it themselves?
Always ask permission before reusing someone’s content and agree how they would like to be credited. If you invite submissions, be clear about how you plan to use them.
Top tip:
If you’re inviting people to submit content publicly, make sure you have a plan for reviewing submissions and managing responses too. Good moderation helps keep your community safe and welcoming, particularly when seasonal campaigns attract more attention than usual.
6. Look back at what your audience helped you learn
An end-of-year round-up can be a chance to recognise the role your community has played in shaping your business.
Did customer feedback lead to an improvement? Did a recurring question inspire a new resource? Did a conversation change how your team approached something?
Share a specific example and explain what happened next. An agency might revisit a lesson from a campaign, while a brand could show how it acted on a customer suggestion.
You can celebrate the year’s achievements while giving your audience something useful to take away. It’s also an opportunity to thank the people who took the time to share their views.
7. Give people a helping hand for January
As the Christmas break approaches, some of your audience will already be thinking about what comes next.
A useful checklist, template or guide can help them return with one less thing to work out. Think about the questions you tend to receive in the first few weeks of January and whether you could answer them now.
For an agency, that might be a simple campaign planning template. For a product business, it could be a guide to getting started with a new purchase.
Keep it manageable, and make clear that it will still be there when people return.
Plan for the conversations as well as the content
Once your posts are scheduled, there’s one more part of the plan to check: who will be there when people respond?
Before the team heads off, make sure:
- Holiday information is up to date. Check opening hours, response times and contact details across your channels.
- Comments and messages have cover. Agree who is monitoring each channel, including evenings, weekends and bank holidays where needed.
- The team has what it needs to respond. Share campaign details, common questions and clear instructions for anything that needs escalating.
- Someone can review scheduled posts. Make sure there’s a way to amend or pause content if things change.
We saw just how important this can be when supporting Action for Children’s Christmas fundraising campaign, providing community management and moderation during busy periods, including evenings, weekends and Christmas Eve. Read how we helped keep the conversations moving while protecting their online community.
You don’t need to fill every day of December. A realistic plan gives you time to enjoy the conversations, thank the people taking part and help those who need a response.
Give your team a proper Christmas break
Your scheduled posts might be ready, but comments, questions and customer concerns can still arrive while the team is off.
Talk to us about Christmas social media management and moderation cover, so your team can switch off knowing your channels, communities and customers are in safe hands.