How to Plan Content for the Holiday Season: FREE Content Calendar

Did you know that you should be posting content EARLY on Pinterest?. . . Like 45 days early?

Trends last longer on Pinterest, which is especially important leading up to the busiest season of the year, the 4th Quarter (aka, Q4).

For example, the Coastal Grandmother trend that started in early 2022 on TikTok has all but disappeared from most social media platforms, but as of September 1, 2022, it’s still getting over 100k searches a month on Pinterest.

In addition to trends lasting longer on Pinterest, seasonal trends also start earlier. Keep in mind that Pinners are planners and use Pinterest to plan important life events, including holidays.

Your content can only be helpful to your audience if it’s available to them when they’re looking for it. 

Having a clear plan of action is so important for content creators leading up to the end of the year.

Download this guide as a way to plan your fall and winter content:

• Look at all the holidays and dates relevant to you as a creator.
• Make a list of the topics you want to be sure to cover
• Use the 45 and 21 day marks to make sure your content is posted on Pinterest with enough time for it to be found in a search*

*PS: Content has “indexed” when it can be found through search, just like the glossary of a book. It’s a fancy way of saying that the Pinterest algorithm has had enough time to make sense of your content and categorize it so it goes to the right people. A ton of info is used in the indexing process, but keywords in your content are a big part of that!

Why post 45 days in advance?

While posts can typically index within 30 days, we recommend posting even earlier (particularly for Static Pins). Remember that seasonal searches start earlier on Pinterest, so if you wait until people start searching for seasonal content to post, you’ll need to account for time for your content to index. To make sure that your content not only indexes in time but also has a chance to rank amongst the top searches for your keywords (like we know you will, you absolute content queen), we recommend a solid 45 days for Static Pins!

Why post 21 days in advance?

45 days is ideal, but at 21 days prior to a holiday, you’re still likely to index in time for your content to be searchable, even though it might not have enough time to rank highly in searches. We picked the 21-day mark because it’s historically the height of searches for holiday keywords leading up to a specific date. If a Pinner is actively searching for ideas, they will likely spend extra time on Pinterest and be exposed to even more content, so it makes sense to make sure your content is available during that time frame. For anyone who can’t or just doesn’t want to post 45 days prior to a holiday (because we get it – posting about winter in September might feel a little weird if you’re used to the shorter living content on other platforms), 21 days is still plenty of time to be seen by your target audience!

Why post 7 days in advance?

If you want to know why it’s important to post your content 7 days in ahead of important dates throughout fall and winter, you’ll have to download our Holiday Content Planning Guide.

What if I miss a date?

As a content creator, you always have a lot going on, making it easy to miss all of these dates. But don’t worry, we’re giving you the full scoop about what to do if you miss a date in our annual Holiday Content Planning Guide.

Thank you for downloading this guide!

We can’t wait to see you make some waves on Pinterest.

💌 Whitney + Allie