Plan your 2022 Marketing Calendar on TikTok

When you're growing your business and building your brand, timing is everything. While holidays and seasonal moments create excellent opportunities to reach customers, fill shopping carts, and spread goodwill; it can be a challenge to know which moments to plan for and how to break through the noise and stand out. Since it’s always time for a celebration on TikTok, we've created our 2022 Marketing Calendar so your brand can discover and plan the right moments throughout the year to join the conversations on TikTok. 

How to use this marketing calendar

• Plan ahead. By deciding in advance which holidays to focus on, you’ll be better prepared to develop an effective marketing strategy.

• Prioritize. Choose two or three major holidays that best align with your brand. If you sell jewelry, for example, you may want to capture the crowd’s attention on Mother’s Day. If you run a custom stationery business, then back-to-school sales would be a good fit.

• Launch your campaign early. A good rule of thumb is to get the ball rolling on a major holiday initiative up to two months ahead of the actual date. This gives you plenty of time to capture users’ attention and build momentum before they begin to take action.

 Q1: January, February, March

✊🏿 Black History Month (February)

While we believe the best time to#SupportBlackis all year round, February in particular is all about celebrating Black achievements and elevating Black voices, and that includesBlack-owned businesses.In the United States, there are anestimated 134,567Black- or African American-owned businesses with a combined annual revenue of $133.7 billion. Use this month to share the story and inspiration behind your Black-owned business—or highlight others that have been an inspiration to you. It's also a great time to partner with Black creators on TikTok and help uplift their voices.

🎆 Lunar New Year (February 1-3)

Also known as Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, the Lunar New Year is now celebrated not only across Asia but all in cities around the world. For brands looking to join the celebration in 2022, start by understanding how your brand aligns with the values and history of the holiday. As a holiday that symbolizes the start of Spring as well as a new year and a fresh start, look for opportunities to show how you can help your customers.

❤️ Valentine’s Day (February 14)

If your brand sells a product or service, Valentine’s Day is for you! As a day intended to show appreciation for those you love - whether that’s a partner, spouse, parent, friend or even a pet - Valentine’s Day offers the perfect opportunity to show your love for your customers through unique promotions, discounts, and thoughtful messages.

Inspiration: UK retailer Marks & Spencer collaborated with three popular TikTok creators to promote their Valentine’s Dine In meal special; each produced a hilarious take on the brand’s classic “this is not just” style to reach an audience of 18.5 million. Sustainable beauty biz gitti conscious beauty skipped the romance on Valentine’s Day to spread a positive message of self-love instead—a breath of fresh air that earned their campaign a 20% engagement rate.

📅 Summer Travel Planning

March is when many in the United States and northern hemisphere start to look at planning that big summer vacation for themselves and their families, with April becoming the peak booking season. For destinations like theme parks, hotels, and travel-adjacent products and services, it’s the perfect time to focus your campaigns on raising awareness and offering early bird deals to convert customers just as they’re beginning to plan.

😎 Spring Break (March 11-25)

The mid-semester break at US educational institutions is a major opportunity to engage with the student community, either through promotions or top-of-funnel awareness campaigns. Students are away from school, on their devices more, and open to engage.

Q2: April, May, June

☪️ Ramadan (April 2 - May 2)

For the 1.9 billion-strong Muslim population around the world, Ramadan represents a month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community. Focus your campaign efforts during this month on these ideals by showing support for your community and offering help over profit.

🌏 Earth Day (April 22)

First celebrated in 1970 to raise awareness of environmental issues, Earth Day is a day when people around the globe stand together in support of protecting our planet from deforestation and pollution. Focus your campaigns on this day to highlight your business’ sustainability efforts as well as to re-commit to helping the environment where you do business.

🤱 Mother’s Day (May 8)

While this holiday celebrates moms, you may want to aim your campaigns at the family members who are buying them gifts, like their children and spouses. Don't just focus on sales, share your own Mother's Day post as an appreciation to all your hard-working mom customers!

Inspiration: My Jolie Candle doubled down on creativity to promote their unique candles (with surprise jewelry inside) as Mother’s Day gifts: glossy product footage with split-screen editing, faux text conversations, and still images with animated captions. It worked: a whopping 49% of their targeted viewers clicked through.

🏳️‍🌈 Pride Month (June)

While this holiday celebrates moms, you may want to aim your campaigns at the family members who are buying them gifts, like their children and spouses. Don't just focus on sales, share your own Mother's Day post as an appreciation to all your hard working mom customers!

Inspiration: Doritos® garnered over one billion views in one week with their #LiveYourFreedom Hashtag Challenge, which prompted users to perform a duet with a famous drag queen to George Michael’s song “Freedom.”

👨 Father’s Day (June 19)

Don't forget about Dad! While it may lag behind Mother's Day as a shopping celebration, expected per-person spending on Father's Day has been on a steady uptick for several years, according to the National Retail Foundation.

Inspiration: To stand out amid intense holiday competition in the handmade jewelry field, Tenengroup fine-tuned their campaign to target a highly relevant audience while decreasing the cost per action by 53%.

Q3: July, August, September

🌞 Summer sales

Shoppers in the Northern Hemisphere are looking for seasonal clearance bargains tokick off the summer seasonin advance of planned vacations and time off from school. In the US, the biggest of the Summer sales days is Independence Day. Customers have come to expect big discounts or promotions over the 4th of July weekend, especially around home goods, electronics, and CPG.

📚 Back to School

Parents of school-aged children and teenagers in much of the world will be looking to restock on school supplies, electronics, clothing, accessories, and snacks. Back-to-school can start as early as mid-August, but most schools will have started by early September.

Inspiration: Fashion brand Guess sparked more than 5,550 user-generated videos with a Branded Hashtag Challenge that urged TikTokers to showcase their best back-to-school look in denim.

Q4: October, November, December

🎀 Breast Cancer Awareness Month (October)

Brands around the globe have utilized Breast Cancer Awareness Month as an opportunity to showcase their dedication to giving back to the community and to their customers, often through charity work focused on eliminating breast cancer worldwide.

🧠 World Mental Health Day (October 10)

Started in 1992, World Mental Health Day has gained increased traction in recent years along with the growing focus on mental health all around the world. If your business has employees, it's a great time to think of initiatives that could help to relieve their stress or promote their well-being. While it's always good to promote awareness, walking the walk is what will win you true credibility and brand loyalty, especially in the TikTok community.

🎃 Halloween (October 31)

Halloween has primarily been a US-based holiday (not to be confused with Dio de Los Muertos in Mexico and Latin America), but has seen rising popularity in Europe, especially in the UK. Look for opportunities to embrace the spooky spirit of the holidays and have fun with treats (not tricks!) for your customers.

Inspiration:  Seizing the perfect holiday opportunity to have fun and get creative, Chupa Chups threw a virtual costume party, Parc Asterix collaborated with Creators to tell a haunted tale, and Mars Wrigley promoted its digital trick-or-treating app.

🛍 Black Friday & Cyber Monday (November 25 & 28)

Often the two biggest shopping days of the year, both for in-person and online retail. Proper planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday could make or break your performance for the year, so get started early. Many brands will start their holiday planning in mid-Summer or early Fall. Thanksgiving, celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November in the US, often signals the official kickoff of Holiday shopping season, though retailers have discovered that consumers have been starting their gift shopping a little earlier each year. More and more retailers have been closing physical locations on Thanksgiving Day, in favor of leaning into digital and online sales.

🏪 Small Business Saturday  (November 26)

In recent years the shopping season has expanded to include other dedicated marketing holidays. Celebrated between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday has been growing steadily in popularity and helped to encourage shoppers to consider supporting small businesses with their shopping dollars. If you're a small business looking to grow your brand on TikTok, check out our ultimate guide for the resources you need to get started.

🎁 Holidays: Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and other celebrations

Early December makes up the second part of the biggest shopping season of the year, with “Cyber Week” often falling across the tail end of November and first few days of December. With Thanksgiving coming a little earlier in 2022, December's marketing push will likely focus on those key shopping dates before the shipping cutoff—usually somewhere between 10 December and 18 December. Don't limit yourself to the major holidays—there are plenty of niche celebrations to align your brand with too!

Inspiration: El Corte Inglés department stores launched an Elf-themed dance challenge while Netflix, TIMVISION, and Amazon Prime Video Italy each turned to TikTok to drive viewers to their video streaming services.

Tapping into holiday marketing magic with TikTok

Whether you want to boost back-to-school sales or launch a scary-good product on Halloween, you’ll find a place to celebrate on TikTok. By planning ahead, prioritizing holidays, and starting campaigns early, brands can reach new customers and drive impressive results. Want to learn more? It just takes a few minutes to sign up for your account and begin growing your brand on TikTok today.