Common mistakes business owners make with awareness days

August 23, 2022

Some people can be snobby about using awareness days to create social media posts. If you think that, you’re probably doing it wrong (sorry!)

Janet Murray Courageous Content Podcast Headshot

In this episode of the Courageous Content Podcast, I share five common mistakes business owners make when using awareness days in their content – so you can avoid making them.

If you prefer to read, there is a blog post version below.

Here’s what I cover in this episode:

Mistake 1: Mentioning the awareness day that inspired your content

You don’t have to mention the awareness day that inspired your post. Or ‘announce’ the awareness day at the start.

For example, starting a post about National Sausage Day with: ‘It’s National Sausage Day…what’s your favourite sausage?’

In fact, you don’t even need to mention the awareness day that inspired your content at all.

Here’s an example for Sunglasses Day (Jun 27):

 

 

Or use a relevant hashtag.

Using awareness days can sometimes allow you to ‘jump on’ to trending hashtags. But creating super engaging content for your audience is far more important than using the ‘right’ hashtags. Because hashtags can help get content that is already performing well – in front of more people. But it can’t turn bad content into good content.

Plain pale pink background on which there is a caption. The title reads: Avoid these 4 common mistakes business owners make with awareness days, read or listen

Mistake 2: Only using awareness days from your country

Many business owners believe (incorrectly) that you can only create content that relates to awareness days that originate in your country.

But this is just not the case. What matters is that the topic is engaging for your followers – not where the date originates from.

Mistake 3: Limiting the number of awareness days you use

There is no limit to how many awareness days you can use per week/month. As long as your content is engaging – and helps you achieve your objectives – you can use as many as you like.

Mistake 4: Only using awareness days that have an obvious connection to your business

In fact, using awareness days that aren’t an obvious ‘fit’ for your business can actually get you better results. Because your content is likely to be more creative, original and ‘stand out’ than your competitors’.

Mistake 5: Avoiding lighthearted or ‘silly sounding’ awareness days

You don’t need to avoid these kind of dates e.g. World Emoji Day, Lazy Day or National Laundry Day. Because you believe (mistakenly) you can only use ‘serious’ sounding dates.

Here’s an example of a lighthearted awareness day (Relaxation Day, Aug 15) that I used for one of my posts:

 

But you

You can totally use these kind of dates. And again – it can often be well worth doing so – because it will make your content stand out from your competitors.

So please chill out about using awareness days in your content. Instead get creative – and have some fun with them.

If you’re not sure how, don’t worry…Here’s some podcast episodes to get you started:

  1. How to use awareness days in your content (without sounding cheesy, cliched – or like everyone else online)
  2. Non cheesy ways to turn awareness days into social media posts
  3. 3 myths about using awareness days in your content

 

For more ideas on how to turn awareness days into engaging content for your business, do invest in my 2023 Courageous Content Planner & Content Kit. It comes with my Courators Kit which contains more than a 1000+  fill-in-the gaps content templates – based on awareness days – that will save you a ton of time and trouble with your content.

 

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