Salty Social Media Vocabulary: How to Holiday Hashtag

It’s the most wonderful tiiiiime of the year! 🎶

Or the most stressful, busy, and cold, depending on how you feel about the holidays. Regardless of your level of humbuggery, social is alive with #holiday-related hashtags, and accordingly we’re providing this succinct guide to the most common holiday hashtags. While we’re covering a variety of holidays and considerations when using certain hashtags, do note that we will not be getting into particularly strong religious hashtags, as they are generally not used by most mainstream brands. Ultimately whether your brand will use secular or religious (or both) hashtags is entirely up to your team. For everyone’s sake don’t just recklessly throw these hashtags into your content without proper understanding of the context and usage.

Religious Holiday Hashtags

#Christmas, #Festivus, #Hanukkah (or #Chanukah), #Kwanzaa, #Mawlid & #Yule are all prominent western winter religious holidays—or in the case of Festivus, a fictitious secular holiday. Although Christmas tends to dominate in the Americas and many western countries, do keep in mind that your entire audience may not celebrate Christmas.

Should You Use Them?

When related and appropriate, feel free to use holiday hashtags. Again it would behoove your brand to know your audience (and a thing or two about the holiday itself) before using religious hashtags, as you run the risk of alienating part of your audience if your hashtag usage is not inclusive of multiple faiths—this is particularly important for international brands.

Should You Use #Festivus?

No, it’s tired and hackneyed.

Christmas Hashtags

#ChristmasPresents
#ChristmasTradition
#ChristmasTree
#Christmas[year]
#TisTheSeason
#SeasonsGreetings
#StockingStuffer

Hanukkah Hashtags and Chanukah Hashtags

#Dreidel
#Happyhaunukkah
#Hanukkahgift
#Hanukkahgifts
#Hanukkagiftideas
#Hanukkahparty
#Mazeltov
#Menorah

Kwanzaa Hashtags

#Africa
#AfricanAmerican
#BlackHistory
#KwanzaaPrinciples
#Kwanzaa[year]

Mawlid Hashtags

#Islam
#IslamicGift
#Muhammad
#MawlidMubarak

Yule Hashtags

#WinterSolstice
#YuleLog
#YuleTide

Non-Religious Holiday Hashtags

General #Holiday hashtags are great for accompanying festive content without delving too much into the potential pitfalls of religious holiday content. Although not particularly divisive, it’s worth noting that phrases like “holiday” have different connotations in different countries.

Should You Use Them?

Yes, when contextually pertinent.

Related Hashtags

#BlackFriday
#CyberMonday
#Decorating
#FamilyTime
#Gifts
#Holiday
#Holidays
#HolidaySavings
#WishList

#NewYearsEve has pretty universal adoption amongst brands and will likely not offend anyone. That being said, it’s also a competitive space, so if you’re hoping to reach a new audience with your NYE content, be prepared to put out some unique content.

Should You Use It?

Yes. On NYE.

NYE Hashtags

#newyearseve
#happynewyearseve
#newyear
#newyears
#happynewyear
#happynewyears
#newyearnewme
#newyearnewyou
#newyearsresolution
#Resolution
#NYE2018

Did we miss any? Which holiday hashtags are in your content calendar? Let us know in the comments!