Tis’ the season

The holidays are upon us.

And updating BuzzSumo’s Halloween and Black Friday marketing guides the other week got me thinking…

Out of all the big calendar events, which one actually provides the biggest opportunity?

I turned to BuzzSumo’s Content Analysis Report tab, used this website of US based calendar events, and analyzed a range of metrics to find out.

Here’s a few things I gleaned from the data:

• If you want to build links in an uncompetitive space, Valentine’s Day is the way to go. Despite having the lowest total engagement, average engagement and links are higher, as far fewer articles get published around this event.
• If you want as many eyeballs on your content as possible, it’s all about Christmas. Christmas sees the highest total engagement, and is published about the most. There is a big, engaged audience here. But, if you’re looking to generate PR, you won’t earn as many links as you could by covering other holidays.
• If you want to generate interactions, Thanksgiving is the one for you. Thanksgiving offers the highest average engagement of any calendar event, and is also a great link building opportunity.

There are obviously many factors – far beyond the realms of content engagement – that will help you decide whether to participate in a seasonal event.

But having this kind of data means you can prioritize the right holidays, and rest easy with your decision.

Plus, it’s not all about the big calendar events. You can analyze engagement and find new content opportunities around national awareness days, and niche, recurring events.

Mental Health Awareness Month, for example, generates double the amount of average links of a firmly embedded holiday like Valentines Day (6 links per article).

If you want to replicate this kind of analysis, use BuzzSumo’s Content Analysis Report tab.

It wouldn’t be fall without pumpkin spice – the flavor that’s taken over our tastebuds ever since Starbucks premiered its pumpkin spice latte back in 2003.

We looked back at the last year of search and social trends to see whether interest was still going strong.

The answer is a resounding: Yes.

In August this year, 480K articles were published around this topic, with average of 270 engagements (likes, shares, comments, upvotes, pins etc).

What’s even more interesting to note is that social engagement has seen sharper uplift than search volume.

This doesn’t mean that there’s more activity on social than on search but that, when compared with previous months, it has seen more pronounced growth.