| Scott Hicken 
If you’ve turned on a news broadcast, opened up your tablet or paged through a magazine lately, you’ve probably noticed a few holiday listicles and product round-ups already popping up. As I wrote in 5 Tips for Landing Your Brand an Invite to a Holiday Product Round-Up, these articles offer a valuable opportunity to gain media coverage for your company’s product or service. However, the media shouldn’t be the only audience you’re targeting with holiday-themed content. Press release distribution and content syndication services enable you to directly reach and win over your target customer with a clever holiday tale. Inspired by the popular carol of a similar name, here are "12 Days of Content Ideas" to fill your press release and editorial calendars with holiday-themed treats for everyone. 1. Give the Gift of Inspired Gift-Giving: We all know that picking out the perfect gift can be overwhelming. And, as the success of the traditional product round-up demonstrates, gift guides are often a welcome source of inspiration. Take a note from the media and publish your own list of gift ideas this holiday season. Match different products from your brand’s offerings with the different types of friends, coworkers and family members on someone’s shopping list. If your product appeals to a specific niche, you could compile a guide for the ‘Hard to Shop For’ hobbyist similar to this holiday lookbook for crafters. And if your own product line isn't broad enough, additional gift ideas can be drawn from other products that pair well, but don’t compete with your own. 2. Help Create a Treasured Holiday Memory: The end of the year often finds family and friends coming together. Does the conversation, "What do you want to do?" "I don't know. What do you want to do?" sound familiar? Provide the answer to those questions by showing your customers different ways they can spend their holidays. I loved REI’s press release announcing that it was closing its doors on Black Friday and inviting customers to “OptOutside” with an entire website dedicated to outdoor activity ideas. While encouraging your customers to spend a day not buying products from you may seem counter-intuitive, helping your customers remember the true meaning of the holidays can build goodwill for the rest of the year. 
3. Share a Recipe for Success: It's hard to not associate the holidays with food, and an interesting (and tasty!) recipe for a holiday pot-luck is something a lot of people wish for. If you sell comestibles, cooking tools, or home entertainment items, it will be easy to pull together a few recipes that put your products to good use, which is what this press release from SC Johnson does. Even if you don’t sell a food-related product, there are still ways to leverage this type of content. For instance, you can cook up something personal on your company’s blog or social media channels by showcasing the recipes or culinary traditions your employees enjoy. 4. Save Your Customers Time: Time is a luxury that most consumers don’t have, especially during the holidays. Showing how your product or tool can be used to save time can be a helpful differentiator. When coming up with their holiday-themed content, Jennie-O Turkey Store didn’t stop at providing a couple of turkey recipes. They’ve dedicated an entire section of their website to how-to videos, menu-planners and other resources that take the work out of organizing a holiday meal. 5. Serve Up Some Fun: Everyone has a lot on their minds during the holidays and it can be very difficult to catch your audience’s attention. Sometimes the best way to break through is by providing a quick, but memorable distraction. Although this may mean letting your product take a backseat, it can be worth it as demonstrated by realtor.com's Dream Homes Turn Into “Scream” Homes release. Realtor.com’s digital haunted house builder isn’t trying to sell houses, but it offers a moment of fun, which is something we all could use. 6. Promote Your Expertise: No one wants to think about tooth decay during Halloween; however, a cavity is one of those things we all fear. Fortunately, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry is here to help with these tricks for a tooth-friendly Halloween. By sharing research and advice connected with a holiday, the AAPD builds awareness around their mission and reinforces their authority on the topic. Consider what advice you can share that will help your audience out. 7. Ask Others for Help: People want to feel like they’re a part of something, and the holidays are a great time to give them that chance. User-generated content, audience polls, and contests are not just a fun way to add life to your holiday campaign, they’re also a gift that keeps on giving. Send an announcement seeking entries, like AARP’s press release launching their 'Random Acts of Kindness for Caregivers' contest. Then, follow up with a second round of content that reveals the winners. As this tweet demonstrates, spotlighting someone else’s contributions opens the door for promotion from them as well. 8. Give Back: Don't let the "Season of Giving" pass you by without doing some good and getting the word out about it. If you are a non-profit or other service-based organization, talking about what you do should be easy. But, since today’s buyers often choose one product over another for reasons beyond price, it’s important for all organizations to show how they care by sharing their corporate social responsibility news. 9. Thank Someone: You can also use the holiday season to thank your hardest working team members. Even if you don’t have an official awards program like the one featured in this National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization press release, recognizing your superstars can go a long way in showing your employees, customers and other stakeholders that you appreciate them. 10. Reflect on Year-End Trends: Providing valuable insight about industry trends can set you apart from your competition in the new year. Salesforce’s 2015 State of Analytics Report is an excellent example of how to recap your industry’s biggest trends and look ahead at what’s to come. Another idea is to review the content you created in January and highlight predictions that held up over time. 11. 365 Days of Holidays: If you find that you’re trying too hard to fit a piece of content to the holiday season, don’t force it. There are many more holidays to work with over the months. From St. Patrick's Day to Talk Like A Pirate Day, a quick online search will show you there’s a holiday for every day of the year. 12. 360 Degrees of Holidays: And let's not forget that we live in a global economy. Have you considered the unique holidays of the international markets your brand reaches? Although it’s easy to become wrapped up in your own holidays when looking at your calendar, research holidays beyond your borders and see if there are relevant and respectful ways you can be a part of those. Compelling content deserves a robust distribution plan. Download our white paper Why Content Marketing's Really a Question of Marketing Your Content and develop a plan that will help you reach new audiences and sustain your content’s visibility over time. Scott Hicken is PR Newswire's product manager for iReach, microlists, feature news service, SocialPost, Customer Account Post, and capital markets visibility lists. | 
