Bah humbug to a 2021 Christmas 🎩

I looked at some typical festive activities, to see how engaged we are, and have been, with all-things-Christmas.

Here are my top insights from the data:

1. Festive activity content reached peak engagement in 2019. This was largely due to news headlines reporting on Melania Trump and her Whitehouse Christmas decorations, or Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s first Christmas card featuring son Archie.
2. “Christmas decorating” engagement built from as early as August in 2020 (see the green line), but overall engagement was at its lowest point in three years.
3. Despite this, “Christmas carol” content piqued our interest more than ever before in 2020 (see the purple line) – and that was thanks to The Muppets. A lost song in The Muppets Christmas Carol was rediscovered and worked back into the film. “Caroling protests” led by actor Kirk Cameron during the pandemic also contributed to this engagement.
4. Yes, we got crafty in 2020, but “Christmas crafts” were not at the top of our list. Engagement around this activity fell by 85% from 2019 to 2020.
5. Unlike other years, where engagement built at least a couple of months before the main event, this year there’s been minimal interest around festive activities in the lead up to Christmas.
6. BuzzSumo’s Content Analysis Report data shows a possible reason for this: A complete lack of content. For example, the top category (“Christmas decorating”) has seen 93% less coverage than in 2020.

Whatever the reason may be for 2021’s low engagement, I’m going to take it as a sign that – like me – no one is prepared for Christmas this year 😌

Knowing these kinds of insights can help you determine whether there’s an appetite for your seasonal content ideas.

And finding engaging sub-topics is a great way to inform your Christmas campaigns.

Take a look at my next insight to see what I mean…

I dived into the topic of “Christmas recipes” in BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer, to find out which types of food and drink ideas we have shared most over the last five years.

It was easy to spot the winning delicacies and tipples by studying the subtopics featured in the most engaging headlines.

It seems we’re super keen to share drink recipes (ie. “Christmas punch” at #1 and “Christmas margaritas” at #2) at this time of year.

But the most adored recipe is “Christmas biscuits & gravy” (#4).

This is great insight to work into yours or your clients’ campaigns, if you want it to generate big engagement.

Or, if your objective is to create content that lands links, you can sort by “Number of links” in the Content Analyzer, and get slightly different sub-topic ideas:

1. Christmas margaritas
2. Christmas slime
3. Christmas mocktails
4. Christmas yule log cake
5. Christmas mimosas
6. Christmas salt dough

Then just cherry-pick the topic that works best for you or your client.

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