How to use awareness days in your content (without sounding cheesy, cliched – or like everyone else online)

August 18, 2022

Using awareness days in your social media content doesn’t have to feel cheesy…promise!

In this episode of the Courageous Content Podcast I’ll show you how to use awareness days in your content (without sounding cheesy, cliched – or like everyone else online).

Here’s what you’ll learn about in this episode:

The 4 styles of content you can create from awareness days

How to turn awareness days into social media content

Ways to make awareness days relevant to your business (even if there isn’t an obvious link)

First off, if using awareness days in your content feels cheesy – it’s almost certainly down to your approach.

Awareness days are there to spark ideas – and not to be used as a straitjacket that means you can only post about certain topics on certain days – if you live in the ‘right’ country.

As long as the content is of interest to your audience, it doesn’t matter where the awareness day originates. You don’t even have to mention the awareness day if you don’t want to!

And you don’t need to stick to awareness dates that have an obvious link to your business. In fact, NOT doing so is what will make you stand out from your competitors.

To show you what I mean, I’m going to take you through the process I go through when I’m planning content to show you what I mean.

I’ve deliberately chosen dates that will almost certainly feel irrelevant to your business – so I can show you how you can make them relevant. And yes that includes both product and service based businesses.

The 4 styles of content you can create from awareness days

News/trends: solves a problem and/or answers a question for your ideal customers/clients and is timely and relevant at the time of publication

Inspire: reassures your customers/clients and inspires them to take action (including buying your product/service)

Community: nurtures your relationship with your audience

Educate: answers a question for your ideal customers/clients

I share more on these four styles of content and give examples in my Courators Kit (which comes with my Courageous Content Planner).

How to turn awareness days into social media content

There are several ways you can use awareness days to generate content for your business.

First off, if you’ve identified a date that feels super relevant to your business, you can take a very ‘literal’ approach.

For example, if you’re a hairdresser and Love Your Hairdresser Day is approaching, you can create a news/trends or educate post that answers your ideal clients’ questions and/or solves a problem e.g. how to find a hairdresser to style your hair for a summer wedding (news/trends) or how to find a hairdresser who specialises in curly hair (educate).

Questions like: ‘How long have you been with your current hairdresser?’ ‘How often do you get your hair cut?’ or ‘did you cut your own hair during Lockdown’ make engaging community posts.

To create an inspire post you could share a relatable and/or humorous meme, quote or story. Or share a special offer for your services e.g. a colour sale or priority booking for Christmas/New Year.

Ways to make awareness days relevant to your business (even if there isn’t an obvious link)

Many awareness days won’t have an obvious – or relevant – link to your business. But many will have relevant themes. For example: I Forgot Day (Jul 2)

Examples

3 things you shouldn’t forget if you’re organising your office Christmas party this year (news/trends)

Why forgetting my partner’s birthday was the best thing that happened to me (inspire)

What do you forget most often when leaving the house? (community)

3 things you shouldn’t forget if you’re choosing an engagement ring for your partner (educate)

If you can’t find a relevant theme, you can always look for a metaphorical/double meaning.

This approach requires you to take the biggest leap in terms of creativity – but that’s why it’s fun (in my opinion anyway!). A good example of this is National Flag Day (June).

Unless you have a travel business, teach languages or you make flags…this is unlikely to feel super relevant to you or your business. Yet most people understand what ‘red flags’ are (i.e. warning signs) which means you can use this date to create an engaging post.

Examples

Red flags you shouldn’t ignore when you’re in a new relationship/buying jewellery for your partner at Christmas (news/trends)

Why I ignored the red flags in a business partnership (and what I learned from the experience) (inspire)

What are ‘red flags’ for you when investing in coaching/buying a new car (inspire)

Why autistic women often ignore red flags in relationships (educate)

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