All We Want For Christmas Is An Organic Social Trend

The Power Of Perennial Content

By: Grace Midtgard, Social Media Manager & Meg Rosenoff, Senior Copywriter

Anyone who’s ever been to the garden center at Home Depot has probably been confused by the words “perennials” and “annuals”? No? Just us? Anyways, perennials are the plants that come back to life year after year. And certain types of social trends are kinda like that too, especially when those social trends happen around the holidays. But wait, this blog isn’t about plants; it’s about cookies. ‘Tis the season, after all.

What started as one mom’s annual Christmas photo of her baby quickly became a trend that took over social media. Each year, people excitedly wait for the holiday menu to drop at Starbucks, and when the (now iconic) snowman cookie was first released, one creative mom broke off the snowman’s head, realizing the cute photo op it created. After she snapped a picture of her baby to create a snowman illusion, she shared it to her socials, and just like that, it organically became a trend. Each year, moms, babies, dogs, and more participate in the quick and easy trend, garnishing millions of impressions (and free word-of-mouth marketing for Starbucks.)

Now, the organic part is the thing that should be grabbing your attention. And no… we’re not talking about plants again. Starbucks was lucky enough to become the conductor of this sweet trend. Keyword: lucky. Organic trends on social, especially TikTok, are the best kinds of “free marketing.” Remember, organic means the brand didn’t put any money behind the efforts. And more often than that, it truly is luck behind a brand’s success on social. And that’s coming from us: people who dedicate their whole careers to creating thoughtful and effective brand strategies. Even we can admit that a little bit of luck is the best add-on to any social media strategy.

What’s the most impactful part of this, however, is not the cookie sales themselves but the increased brand affinity and word of mouth. Brand affinity is all about the emotional connection between humans and the brands they love. And if the people around you love something, you usually want to love it, too. Now that’s what you call the hive mind, collective consciousness, etc… And when you get the hive all thinking/talking/laughing about your brand, that’s a win.

Now, if we had a client with any kind of cookie product, we’d recommend that they “trendhack.” Put simply, trendhacking is when any social media user jumps in on a hot topic or trend to gain more exposure. We actually find it surprising that other brands haven’t jumped on the trend and claimed it as their own. (If you’re down to try it, drop us a line.) That’s the beauty of social media trends—they’re not owned by anyone, and every brand has the opportunity, and dare we say responsibility, to make it their own. The truth is you don’t even need to be a cookie company to capitalize on this. We went ahead and took a stab at how we would jump on the cookie trend—no babies required. Look at our pics on our facebook page to see the cutest Snow-women around.

Happy trending and season’s greetings to all!