We’ve all seen businesses use awareness days on their social media - a fair few sharing their office recycling efforts on Earth Day and others discussing equality on International Women’s Day. Some even publish their love for hot dogs on National Hot Dog Day!
While some awareness days are all fun and games, it’s important to consider their relevance to your business and ask yourself if you are making the most of awareness days, and whether you are choosing the right ones for your business.
Choosing the right awareness day for your business
When deciding which awareness days you should include in your social schedule for the month, you ought to consider exactly what the day means to you, and how it reflects the personality of your business.
There’s no use sharing it’s Global Running Day on your socials and not specifying exactly why that’s important to your business, or why your consumers should even care about it!
This day may be relevant to your business if you run a gym or sell trainers, but for many it simply has no relevance.
Jumping on the bandwagon
We all know of a business that’s jumped on the bandwagon with awareness days as though they are afraid to miss out on the potential consumer engagement it could generate.
Unfortunately, this behaviour often highlights the ways a business doesn’t align with the message they are sharing - think round peg, square hole - as opposed to the intended outcome.
This tends to be the case with ‘woke advertising’ which is when a business capitalises on social and environmental matters - such as #MeToo, #SaveThePlanet and #BlackLivesMatter.
If the business has expressed conflicting views in the past, or if they don’t demonstrate how they are genuinely supporting these matters, it can seriously backfire, generating more negative feedback than good.
And nobody wants that!
Seasonal awareness days
Alongside certain days of the year, there are seasonal trends, events and days you can align your business with.
For example, Wimbledon happens every year so companies that sell associated products or services (such as M&S selling strawberries and cream, or Nike selling tennis rackets) may hone their communications in on this in a bid to increase sales or brand awareness.
Similarly Love Island is annually shown on TVs across the country which is why many of the phrases coined in the series have been copied across communications, regardless of the business. This just goes to show the power of being relatable to your audience!
As soon as we reach the ‘ber’ months businesses typically begin sharing themed content - bringing out spooky logos to celebrate Halloween and festive ones to acknowledge Christmas.
Whilst this doesn’t necessarily have to be relevant to the business, it works in the minds of a majority of consumers as seasons can be experienced by everyone. Plus it can provide a little fun for the marketing team!
So, how can you incorporate awareness days into your communications?
Knowing how to use awareness days on your socials is one thing, finding them is another!
There are a number of websites you can use to discover upcoming awareness days, including the Sendible Social Media Holiday Calendar, the Twitter Marketing Calendar and Awareness Days (clue’s in the name for that one!).
Alternatively, you can get in touch with a member of Team J&PR. We are always looking for suitable awareness days for our clients so chances are we’ll know exactly which ones your business can utilise.
