The holiday season is the hardest month to win attention and the easiest month to waste money. Every local business in LA and Orange County is posting gift guides, extended hours and last-minute deals at the same time. A repost campaign still works in December — it just has to be planned earlier, briefed tighter and measured harder than a campaign at any other time of year.
Start in October, not December
The single biggest holiday mistake is timing. Businesses start thinking about Christmas promotions around Thanksgiving, which means they are booking distribution into the most crowded two weeks of the year. Start the campaign brief in October: lock the offer, the creative and the delivery schedule while inventory, pricing and holiday hours are still decided calmly. Campaigns that go live in early December with a defined offer beat campaigns that go live on December 18th with a rushed one — the distribution window is the same, but the preparation is not.
Pick one holiday offer, not five
December creative usually tries to say everything: gift cards, holiday menu, New Year bookings, extended hours, party catering. A repost campaign amplifies one message — give it one. The strongest holiday offers share a pattern: they are time-bound, easy to act on from a phone, and tied to the calendar everyone already feels. “Book your December table this week” beats “come celebrate the holidays with us” because it names the decision. Read how to pick which posts to boost and apply the same filter, with the holiday deadline as the tiebreaker.
Brief the creative for a December feed
Your post will appear between everyone else’s holiday announcements, so the first second matters more than ever. The creative that performs best in holiday campaigns is simple: one clear visual of the offer (the gift card, the holiday dish, the seasonal product), text large enough to read on a phone held at arm’s length, and the deadline in the image itself — not buried in the caption. Holiday shoppers are deciding fast; do not make them dig for the what and the when.
Schedule two waves, not one
One holiday campaign wave is a gamble. Two waves are a strategy. The first wave goes out in late November or early December and builds familiarity — people see the offer, the brand, the name, repeatedly, from accounts they follow. The second wave goes out the week before the decision matters: the week before Christmas for gifts, the days before New Year’s Eve for dining and events. The first wave makes the second wave convert. Businesses that run both waves consistently report that the second one is where the tracked bookings and “mention this post” redemptions concentrate.
Staff the attention you are buying
Holiday attention arrives when the store is busiest and the team is thinnest. Before the campaign launches, decide who answers Instagram comments and DMs during the wave, what the bio link points at (the holiday offer, not the homepage), and how the team records which sales came from the campaign — a simple “how did you hear about us” at checkout beats a sophisticated dashboard that nobody checks. The campaign’s job is to create the decision moment; the business’s job is to be ready for it.
Measure December revenue, not December likes
A holiday campaign measured by engagement will always feel successful, because December engagement is cheap. Measure it like a retailer instead: track the offer code, count the bookings that name the post, tally gift-card sales during the delivery window, and compare the weeks to the weeks before. That is the honest scoreboard. If the offer was strong, the timing was right and the accounts were genuinely local, the numbers show up there — and if they do not, the measurement tells you which of those three failed. See how to measure a repost campaign for the full framework.
The holidays reward the businesses that planned them. One offer, briefed for a crowded feed, delivered in two waves by accounts local customers actually follow — that is the whole playbook. Delilah runs holiday campaigns across LA and Orange County with coordinated timing, real local accounts and completion proof on every placement, so the busiest month of the year does not have to be a gamble. See the businesses we work with, and start the brief while October still gives you room to get it right.