While any given holiday may make you feel blissfully nostalgic, or eager to celebrate tradition, it’s still important to remember how wide-reaching social media is – and there are potentially thousands of people who are seeing your post, and digesting the day differently.

While your content should always be authentic to your brand, here are a few key checkpoints to make sure your holiday-related content isn’t actually giving your business a bad look.

Be Mindful of Different Experiences

Holidays are powerful times, and can hold incredibly positive memories – but can also hold extremely negative ones. That doesn’t mean you can’t use your page to share your positive ones, but always try to be mindful that there are millions of different people, all experiencing the same day differently.

Don’t Speak to Anything Inauthentically

If you don’t have an authentic connection to a given holiday, then it’s probably best to just stay quiet. Trying to loop into trends to seem more relevant will only alienate you further.

Never Commercialize on a Sensitive Holiday

Seems like a no-brainer, but speaking to the previous slide – if you don’t actively support what this holiday is celebrating, 365 days of the year, probably best to just hold off for the day – and then, re-evaulate your practices from there.

If You Want to Keep it Personal, Then Keep it Personal

If you want to share your personal experience during any given holiday on social media, then a great way to do that is to truly keep it personal. Don’t speak in generalizations, or assume everyone is going to have a shared experience, but you can invite your audience into your world by sharing yours!

Use the Opportunity to Give Back.

When in doubt – just use your platform to give back. Every holiday is paired with an opportunity to give somewhere. Christmas is a great time to donate to children who don’t get a Santa Clause. Mother’s Day is a wonderful opportunity to donate to all types of women-supprorting programs. Juneteenth is a perfect day to raise awareness for organizations who are promoting Black-owned businesses. And – the day, week, and month after these are also great times for this as well.

In conclusion, no one is saying not to take to social media to celebrate the holidays – but this is a friendly reminder that as a business, social media is not your personal page, and should always be used to promote love & inclusivity, but especially on the holidays.