Introduction
Social media is where a huge amount of holiday shopping starts. Long before someone clicks “buy,” they’re scrolling through gift guides, watching a product demo reel, or getting reminded that a brand’s countdown to Christmas has already begun. For businesses in Rhode Island and Massachusetts trying to make the most of the season, the good news is you don’t have to guess what works. Plenty of brands, big and small, have already shown what a strong holiday social strategy looks like. Here’s what they did, and how those same ideas can scale down to fit a local business.
Start Earlier Than Feels Comfortable
One of the clearest patterns among brands that win the holiday season on social media is that they start well before Black Friday, often before Halloween even happens. Lego began its Christmas countdown content on Instagram as early as mid-September, well ahead of when most people are thinking about gifts, in order to capture the shoppers who plan early. David’s Tea takes a similar approach every year, announcing pre-orders for its advent calendars in September and running countdown themed posts across the entire fourth quarter.
For a local business, this doesn’t mean copying a global brand’s six-week content calendar. It means recognizing that a countdown, a “coming soon” post about a holiday promotion, or an early peek at seasonal products gives your audience time to plan and gives your posts more time to be seen, shared, and remembered before the most competitive weeks of the season hit.
Turn a Single Idea Into Content Across Platforms
Cartier’s 2024 winter campaign is a good example of getting more mileage out of one creative idea. Rather than producing separate content for every platform, they built one strong piece of video content and repurposed that same footage across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, adjusting only the format to fit each platform’s audience and style. Sainsbury’s took a related but different approach on LinkedIn, sharing behind-the-scenes footage of how their annual Christmas TV advert was filmed, which let one asset serve both a consumer facing purpose and a more professional, brand storytelling purpose on a different platform.
This is a practical lesson for a small business with limited time and budget. One well shot video of your storefront decorated for the holidays, a product being wrapped as a gift, or your team prepping for a seasonal rush can be cut into a Reel, a TikTok, a LinkedIn post, and a handful of static images, instead of trying to create entirely separate content for every channel.
Make Gift Discovery Easy
A lot of holiday shopping stress comes from not knowing what to buy for who, and brands that address that directly tend to perform well. Amazon’s holiday Reels are organized around specific shopper types, like gifts for the home improvement enthusiast, the fashion lover, or stocking stuffers for kids, which makes it easy for someone to find relevant ideas fast instead of scrolling endlessly. Michaels took a similar audience first approach by posting Reels that walked through holiday cookie decorating techniques using their own in-store supplies, which doubled as both gift and activity inspiration.
A Rhode Island or Massachusetts business doesn’t need Amazon’s scale to use this idea. A short series of posts like “gifts under $25,” “for the coffee lover on your list,” or “last minute stocking stuffers” gives your audience a reason to stop scrolling, and it naturally showcases more of your product or service lineup than a single generic holiday post would.
Lean Into In-Store and Local Experience
Homesense built holiday content around customers discovering wishlist items while browsing in-store, which reinforced the appeal of the in-person shopping experience rather than competing against it. Orlando International Airport did something similar in spirit, though in a very different setting, by building a holiday photo display and encouraging travelers to share their own photos using a branded hashtag, turning a physical space into shareable social content.
This is one of the strongest advantages a local business has over a big national brand during the holidays. Showing your actual storefront decorated for the season, your team working the counter during a busy Saturday, or a customer’s real reaction to finding the right gift builds a kind of authenticity and community connection that a national ad campaign simply can’t replicate. Rhode Island and Massachusetts shoppers who are actively looking to support local businesses during the holidays respond to seeing the real people and real places behind a brand.
Use Giveaways and Countdowns to Build Momentum
PetSmart Canada’s “12 Days of Pawlidays” campaign ran a giveaway with multiple winners announced throughout the holiday season, which kept their audience checking back daily instead of engaging with a single post and moving on. That kind of sustained, structured content, rather than one big push right before Black Friday, is part of what makes a holiday campaign feel like an event instead of just another sale.
A scaled down version of this works well for a small business too. A “12 Days of Deals” series, a daily prize giveaway through the first two weeks of December, or a simple countdown to a bigger holiday promotion can be run with a modest budget while still creating the kind of recurring engagement that keeps your business top of mind through the season.
Don't Forget the Practical Posts
Not every holiday post needs to be a big creative production. The Body Shop’s approach of sharing holiday hours while tying it back to gift-giving messaging is a reminder that practical, useful information, dressed up with a bit of seasonal framing, still earns engagement and serves a real purpose for your audience. Customers genuinely want to know your holiday hours, your last shipping dates before Christmas, or whether you’re open on New Year’s Eve, and posts like these tend to get saved and shared precisely because they’re useful.
Building Your Own Holiday Social Calendar
The common thread across all of these examples isn’t a huge production budget. It’s planning ahead, repurposing content efficiently, making gift discovery easier for your audience, and leaning into what makes your business genuinely local and real. That’s a strategy just as available to a business in Providence or Worcester as it is to a national retailer, it just has to be planned with enough lead time to execute well.
Let DDL Handle Your Holiday Social Strategy
Building out a full season of holiday content while also running the day to day of your business is a lot to take on alone. At DDL Advertising, based in East Providence, we manage social media strategy and content for businesses throughout Rhode Island and Massachusetts, from planning out a holiday content calendar to producing the posts, Reels, and campaigns that keep your business visible through the busiest season of the year.
Reach out to DDL Advertising to start planning your holiday social media strategy before the season gets away from you.
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