A tentpole is a date the whole market plans around: the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Prime Day, Black Friday, Christmas. Brands build creator campaigns for them because the audience is already thinking about the moment, and a creator can talk about it in their own voice faster than an ad can.
The part that gets planned least is when the post goes up. A brief says “for Mother’s Day” and the creator posts on Mother’s Day, which is a fine day to celebrate a mother and a poor day to sell her a present.
We counted when US creators posted about nine of 2025’s tentpoles, from 90 days before each one to two weeks after it, on TikTok, long YouTube videos and YouTube Shorts. That is close to 2 million posts. The moments split into three kinds, and each needs a different brief.
Gift days happen on the day
Father’s Day is the clearest case.
Show the numbers
| Day | Posts |
|---|---|
| Sun May 18 | 76 |
| Mon May 19 | 127 |
| Tue May 20 | 121 |
| Wed May 21 | 107 |
| Thu May 22 | 148 |
| Fri May 23 | 126 |
| Sat May 24 | 104 |
| Sun May 25 | 85 |
| Mon May 26 | 114 |
| Tue May 27 | 192 |
| Wed May 28 | 239 |
| Thu May 29 | 235 |
| Fri May 30 | 271 |
| Sat May 31 | 212 |
| Sun Jun 1 | 244 |
| Mon Jun 2 | 378 |
| Tue Jun 3 | 404 |
| Wed Jun 4 | 464 |
| Thu Jun 5 | 453 |
| Fri Jun 6 | 487 |
| Sat Jun 7 | 373 |
| Sun Jun 8 | 368 |
| Mon Jun 9 | 564 |
| Tue Jun 10 | 658 |
| Wed Jun 11 | 707 |
| Thu Jun 12 | 885 |
| Fri Jun 13 | 1,354 |
| Sat Jun 14 | 1,917 |
| Sun Jun 15, Father's Day | 16,028 |
| Mon Jun 16 | 2,601 |
| Tue Jun 17 | 765 |
| Wed Jun 18 | 449 |
| Thu Jun 19 | 260 |
| Fri Jun 20 | 221 |
| Sat Jun 21 | 159 |
| Sun Jun 22 | 135 |
| Mon Jun 23 | 142 |
| Tue Jun 24 | 111 |
| Wed Jun 25 | 77 |
| Thu Jun 26 | 88 |
| Fri Jun 27 | 54 |
| Sat Jun 28 | 47 |
| Sun Jun 29 | 58 |
Of the 34,326 posts that named Father’s Day in the three months around it, 47% went up on June 15 itself, more than 40 times as many as on the Sunday a week before. The other gift days looked the same. Mother’s Day had 42% of its posts on the day, the Fourth of July 39% and Valentine’s Day 32%. Prime Day, which ran for four days, had 65% of its posts on those four days and only 10% more than a week before.
Here is the split for all nine moments, as shares of each one’s posts from 90 days before to 14 days after:
| Tentpole | Before | On the day | After |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super Bowl | 49% | 18% | 33% |
| Valentine’s Day | 55% | 32% | 13% |
| Mother’s Day | 43% | 42% | 15% |
| Father’s Day | 38% | 47% | 15% |
| Fourth of July | 34% | 39% | 26% |
| Prime Day | 29% | 65% | 6% |
| Halloween | 72% | 15% | 13% |
| Black Friday | 70% | 14% | 16% |
| Christmas | 82% | 9% | 9% |
On these days, half of everything posted up to and including the day went up on the day itself or the one before it. Valentine’s Day spread a little wider, with half of its posts in the last three days.
That is how creators celebrate an occasion, and it is right for awareness. It is wrong for a gift that has to be ordered and shipped. A post on Mother’s Day morning reaches people who have already bought a present or given up. If the post is meant to sell, the date has to be in the contract: seven to ten days before the occasion, early enough to order and receive it. Expect to ask for that date by name, because it is not when most creators would post on their own. About a quarter to a third of posts on these days went up in the two weeks before, so the early slot is available. It is just not the default.
Halloween and Christmas run for a month or more
Seasons behave differently. More than half of the posts about Halloween went up more than a week before October 31, and a quarter more than a month before. Christmas ran longer still: 62% of its posts went up more than a week before December 25, 26% more than a month before, and only 9% on the day itself. Half of everything posted up to Christmas Day had gone up by December 9.
A season is a run of posts, not a date. Creators make costume ideas, decorating, recipes and gift guides for weeks, and an audience keeps watching that content for weeks. A single post booked for the day misses almost all of it. Book two or three posts across the season instead, and give each one its own job: the early one to put the product in front of people while they plan, the late one to remind them before the deadline.
For Christmas, the holiday shopping trends post breaks the season down by gift topic, and the holiday influencer marketing tips turn it into a December plan.
Black Friday sits in between
Black Friday has a shape of its own. Only 14% of its posts went up on the day, a third went up in the week before it, and another third earlier than that. Half of everything posted up to and including Black Friday had gone up by the Sunday before it. It is a sale, and sales are announced in advance, so creators post early access, deals that have already started and plans for the weekend.
That matches what we found when we counted Black Friday sponsorships day by day, where the busiest days were Monday to Wednesday of Thanksgiving week. The Black Friday campaign timeline has those counts and the week-by-week plan that follows from them.
Some moments keep going after the day
A third of the posts about the Super Bowl went up after the game, the most of any moment we counted. The audience talks about the halftime show, the ads and the result for days, and creators make that content. The Fourth of July had a quarter of its posts in the two weeks after it.
For a Super Bowl campaign, the post after the game can be as useful as the one before it. If your brand runs an ad, a creator reacting to it the next morning reaches people while they are still talking about it. For a product tied to a game-day party, the useful posts are the ones before the game, when people are shopping for it.
Long videos go up earlier
The platforms keep different calendars for the same moment. On Mother’s Day, 47% of TikToks about it went up on the day, against 37% of Shorts and 22% of long YouTube videos. Before the Super Bowl, 39% of long videos went up more than a week ahead, against 18% of TikToks.
A long video is planned, scripted, filmed and edited, so it goes up when it is finished, and a gift guide or a buying video for an occasion is finished early. TikToks and Shorts are made closer to the moment. So book long videos for the run-up and short video for the days around the moment itself, and give the long video’s creator the earlier deadline.
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Streamforge supports campaign operations alongside discovery and audience vetting, including creator CRM with custom stages, deliverables and deadlines, so each post date in a tentpole campaign is a deadline someone owns rather than a line in an email.
Read the moment as it happens
Once the campaign runs, two things are worth watching: what your competitors post around the same moment, and how your own posts did against the date they were meant to serve.
Market timeline
Your competitors and market, day by day, newest first
Fri, Oct 9
Corsair ran a sponsored post with
Rap Techinstagram · 14.2K views
Thu, Oct 8
Razer ran a sponsored post with
always_a_failure_tiktok · 20.7K views
Tue, Oct 6
Corsair ran a sponsored post with
Hello Pixelsinstagram · 26.5K views
Key metrics
Content
24
Total views
2.2M
Total comments
867K
Hours watched
1.4M
Content timeline
ViewsContentOct 3 to Oct 15
What to ask for, moment by moment
| Kind of moment | When creators post | What to ask for |
|---|---|---|
| Gift days: Valentine’s, Mother’s and Father’s Day | Mostly on the day | A buying post 7 to 10 days before, named in the contract, plus the day itself if you want it |
| Sales: Prime Day, Black Friday | The days of the sale and the week before | Early-access posts in the week before, and the sale days |
| Seasons: Halloween, Christmas | For a month or more | Two or three posts across the season, the last before your order-by date |
| Events: Super Bowl, Fourth of July | Before, on and after | Before for anything people buy for the day, after for anything people talk about |
How we counted. We searched the posts Streamforge holds for US creators with at least 1,000 followers or subscribers on TikTok and YouTube, keeping only creators whose stored posts reach back before November 2024, so that every window is complete for them: 573,464 TikTok accounts, 308,489 YouTube channels for long videos and 235,735 for Shorts. A post counts when its caption, title or description names the moment (“Super Bowl”, “Valentine’s Day”, “Mother’s Day”, “Father’s Day”, “Fourth of July” or “4th of July”, “Prime Day”, “Halloween”, “Black Friday”, “Christmas” or “Xmas”); a hashtag on its own does not. Each window runs from 90 days before the day to 14 days after it, by US Eastern date: February 9 for the Super Bowl, February 14, May 11, June 15, July 4, July 8 to 11 for Prime Day, October 31, November 28 and December 25, all in 2025. These are mentions, not sponsorships, so they show when creators post about a moment, not when brands pay them to. In a blind check, two AI reviewers read 54 random counted posts, six for each moment, separately, and both judged all 54 to be about the moment they were counted under.
