Awareness Days (or Weeks or Months) were originally set up by charities and businesses to draw attention and support for their causes.
The growing popularity of Awareness Days means that today, they seem to cover everything you could possibly think of, ranging from specific health conditions such as World Cancer Day, to broader topics such as National Apprenticeship Day, through to the most bizarre of days such as Lost Sock Memorial Day!
Here are some suggestions on the best ways in which to use Awareness Days in your content marketing in order to remain relevant and authentic, and drive engagement and conversation with your target audiences.
1) Use Awareness Days which are relevant to your business or industry
Finding Awareness Days that are specific to what you do can provide a great opportunity for you to talk about your services and how you help your clients. For myself, that could be International Day of Marketing on 27th May or World Social Media Day on 30th June.
2) Use Awareness Days which are relevant to your target clients
Think about who you primarily work with and the specific types of customers you are looking for. For example, if you are a website designer who loves to work with restaurants, you could post content about your business and services on National Hospitality Day on 29th September. Explaining why you love to work with businesses in this industry and sharing relevant images, case studies or testimonials from happy hospitality clients on this day can help to build your credibility in this area and increase awareness of your specialisms.
3) Use Awareness Days which are relevant to you personally
Helping your clients to get to know you on a more personal level is so important in the competitive business world we live in. Particularly for service business where ‘you are your business’, your client is buying into you. This is a great way in which to spark some curiosity with your audience and build a relationship with potential clients. For example, if you fundraise for a charity, you might choose an awareness day relevant to that charity’s cause and explain why it is close to your heart. Or if like me, you love a glass of your favourite red at the end of a long day, posting today, none other than International Shiraz Day, can provide a little glimpse into your world outside of work, and act as a conversation starter and connection builder.
4) Use the right hashtags
The vast majority of Awareness Days will have one or more hashtags associated with them. Using these hashtags on your social media posts related to Awareness Days can help increase your awareness through Reach and Impressions, putting you in front of an audience who may not already be following you.
5) Plan your content marketing in advance
As Awareness Days, Weeks and Months are usually fixed or set ahead of time, you can plan, write and schedule your content in advance. Allow yourself the time to find relevant days, create imagery, copy and captions which explain the relevancy of the day, and research the best hashtags to complement your content.
www.awarenessdays.com or www.daysoftheyear.com are just two of many websites that can help you find the Awareness Days relevant for your business or industry. Failing that, or if you are looking for something very specific, Google is a pretty good place to start.
I help small businesses to grow with social media training and marketing consultancy in Kent and beyond. Find our more about my services here.