Once the turkey and the pumpkin pie have been given a good home, attentions in the US tend to turn toward holiday shopping. Those Black Friday deals are likely calling your name.

If you run a business, it’s go-time – and you hopefully have been putting some effort into your online presence. Stats from eMarketer show that 17% of all consumers use social media in their shopping decisions. According to the same group, online holiday shopping has grown this year by 5.4%, impressive when you consider the economy has seen better days. That works out to an estimated $30 billion in online gift spending for November and December this year. Forget pumpkin – we want a piece of that pie!

We recently provided some links to tips for improving your e-store, and believe us, those are handy. But what about ways to harness content marketing and social media to drive promotions?

Here are some examples of what some notable brands are doing with Facebook Connect:

Walmart: The Christmas List Workshop
What aren’t they doing? Through their promotion, you get to “Christmas Yourself”, put together your list, get a sense of what these friends and family members want and then hunt down the deals at Walmart.

Walmart: The Christmas List Workshop on Facebook

Toys R’ Us: You Vote, You Save!
The name says it all. Give Toys R’ Us a little input on what offers you like the best, and you get a coupon to purchase gifts at a special low price. It blends what people like best: sharing their opinion and getting a deal.

Toys R' Us: You Vote, You Save on Facebook

Gap: Holiday Factory
Sort of like a personalized Mad Lib, this app grabs your profile details to create a holiday centered around you. You can then add this holiday to your events calendar, invite friends and presumably coo over Gap fashion. And of course, there are deals to be had on “your” day. You can take a look at my own Jensgiving, a holiday that involves one of my main hobbies:  Eating.  How true:

Celebrate Jensgiving with Gap's Holiday Factory on Facebook

Be sure to take a look at the list Mashable came out with of interesting Facebook promotions. Their list includes Intel, JC Penney, Sears, Best Buy and Macy’s. Some of what they found are beautifully simple – like Fan-Only promotional offers – and others are more involved like Fan Challenges – the more people who sign up as fans, the lower the price of a product drops. They’re all great examples of how Facebook and content marketing can be used to create engaging, sharable promotions to stand out from the competition.

Gobble Up These Ideas! Image from Zazzle.com

Thanksgiving is mere days away – and just as we suggested that Halloween can inspire your content, so can the All-Mighty Turkey Day. Articles, webinars, widgets, blog posts, podcasts – you name it – are at your disposal to spread some very timely tidbits to readers (just the sort of thing they’re looking for right now)!

Short on ideas? Here are a five free content marketing tips from us to you!

Let Them Gobble Up Some Thanksgiving Tips
Provide Thanksgiving tips for your readers that relate to your business. There’s something for everyone – let us show you: Run a daycare? Provide how-to’s on some easy kids’ crafts for centrepieces. Do you make soaps and lotions? Tell people how to put together a nice collection of bathroom goodies for guests coming over for dinner. If you’re an accountant, now may be a good time to show people how they can budget for Christmas purchases over the next 30 days.

Trivia: Thanksgiving Style
Just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean people aren’t keen to learn something new. Have a bookstore? Promote a new American history book by providing snippets. Are you an aromatherapy guru? Let people know how the traditional smells of Thanksgiving (like pumpkin, apple and cranberry) can impact their mood. Sell movies? Put together a list of the biggest “turkeys” out there (hint: Battlefield Earth).

Give Thanks – Your Way
Take a moment to send a special message to your clients or readers to thank them for their business and interest. Be sure it’s done in a style that suits your corporate culture. Maybe your team is known for being a bit goofy. Any chance your CEO is willing to dress up as turkey for a Thanksgiving video? Or maybe a heartfelt blog post is more your style? A little good will goes a long way!

Make An App For That
Give your customers something to be thankful for. If you have the means and if you can find a tie-in to your business, consider developing a mobile app or a widget people can use this time of year. How about an iPhone app or online calculator that lets you select a menu and time the cooking of your food so it’s all ready at the same moment for serving? Maybe an app that lets people “Pilgrim themselves” – a quick online program that allows people to place pilgrim hats and garb on Facebook and Twitter pictures. If you’re reading this today, you probably don’t have time to launch these ideas this year – but maybe these can give you inpsiration for next Thanksgiving – or even this Christmas!

Treat Them to a Thanksgiving Contest
People love prizes, free stuff and pretty much any opportunity to win something cool. Ask people to comment in your blog post what they’re thankful for, ask for their best stuffing recipe, or ask readers to submit a picture of their holiday centerpiece – whatever makes sense to you. Put together a fun prize that will get attention – maybe a great download (instant gratification for the winner and no shipping costs for you!).

We have lots of additonal content marketing tips available – check them out!

Ready for Cyber Monday? Image from Maximumpc.com

We’re a week away from Cyber Monday – the day that supposedly marks an upswing in online shopping for the holiday season (apparently, those who didn’t find their deals in stores on Black Friday go hunting for discounts and ideas on the web). So our question is – how prepared are you?

We don’t mean preparing yourself for carpal tunnel, exercising your “clicking finger” or finding a new hiding spot to put your credit card statements. Rather, if you run an online business or e-store, ‘tis the season to optimize content and get your shop in ship shape. Now, more than ever, you should ensure your website uses engaging language and keywords relevant to online shoppers, that your website will come up in searches and that the transaction process on your e-store enhances the shopping experience.

Along with ideaLaunch’s free Content Marketing Download Center (which is stuffed with free information you can implement today), take a look at some super-relevant content marketing tips:

• Creating Content For Search Engines
• Tips for Hiring Writers
• Tips to Improve Conversion Rates
• Tips for Shopping Cart Abandonment

And of course, if you’re in a pinch and need to outsource SEO and other content marketing techniques, a content marketing company like ideaLaunch can always be of service!

We’re all aware of how much brick-and-mortar stores and shops prepare and cater to seasonal and holiday shopping – but how does a virtual storefront do the same? With less than two weeks before Halloween there’s still time for you to pull together a great blog post, video or even more. Here are a few ideas for optimizing your site for Halloween by creating relevant and fun web content marketing pieces:

Host a themed contest (or point to other contests online). Another client of mine, HomeFixated.com simply blogged about a pumpkin-carving contest being held on another well-respected site and saw a lift of nearly three times the traffic from Twitter alone that day.

Provide Halloween-related tips. Gee, where did we get that idea? Nearly every industry can find some way to contribute to readers’ interest in the spookfest and a tip center or blog are great ways of doing that. Have a health and fitness site? Give tips on which candies in the Halloween bucket are the lesser of all the evils. Have an online fabric shop? Talk about great costume ideas or safety-minded ways to add light reflections to get-ups. Own a cleaning supply company? Blog about ways people can get out various Halloween-related stains (fake blood, melted chocolate, that egg that got thrown at your house when you ran out of candy …).

Create a Top 5 list. Similar to the tips idea, you can provide your audience with entertaining and helpful info through relevant lists. Have a site that features hand tools and woodworking? Give your top five ax-murder horror movies. Own a graphic design company? Show the top five spooky fonts. Blog for a dating website? Give the five best costumes couples can dress up as.

Give the people a digital treat. Think about what you have at your disposal, what would be of value (even short term) to people and go from there. Build (or point to) a cute application that can place a Halloween mask on Twitter avatars or profile pictures. Create an animated “Happy Halloween” gif that people can place on their websites. Put together one of those videos I hate that has you staring for something in the picture, only for a freaky zombie to pop up.  For bonus points (and if you can do it smoothly without disrupting the value), brand it!

Capture The Halloween Party. People like companies that encourage their employees to have fun. Host a Halloween party (or just support people to dress up during the day) and post pictures or videos of the crew on the company’s blog, YouTube or Flickr site.

Like the ideas but can’t see your team pulling them together in time? Maybe a certain content marketing agency could help?