Social Media Days: Why it can help you grow your brand

Thinking of new social media content for your business and stay relevant online? Luckily, there are social media holidays you can incorporate as your digital marketing strategy. It’s a fun way to connect and engage with your brand’s new and existing followers to expand your reach. 

There are a plethora of social media holidays worldwide you can use to share unique content. From International Cat Day and Pizza Day to Chinese New Year, these observances might not be vital to you, but they can engage your target audience. 

Don’t miss the chance to boost your business using social media holidays! Check out the holidays relevant to your brand that are worth adding to your social media calendars. Discover more about social media holidays and why your brand needs them here at QWERTYLABS.

What are Social Media Days?

Have you seen pizza chains' posts about celebrating Pizza Day? Some even include discounts on their pizza flavours to celebrate this special day. It’s their way of using social media holidays on their brand. 

Social media holidays are special days or events celebrated and shared on social media sites, like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. These are informal celebrations created by individuals, organisations, influencers, or communities to promote specific causes, engage users or have fun online. However, some other brands use national holidays.

Brands using social media holidays on their posts often involve followers sharing content related to a particular event or topic. Some brands engage followers by sharing their experiences regarding the said event. Social media holidays have gained popularity through the power of the online community and the desire to create and share content, no matter the topic or cause. One way brands make the most of this event is by using ‘hashtags’ to cater to wider audiences.

Here are some popular examples of social media holidays:

• #NationalSelfieDay: A day dedicated to taking and sharing selfies.
• #NationalPizzaDay: Celebrated by pizza lovers who share pictures and stories about their favourite pizza.
• #WorldEmojiDay: Celebrating and using emojis to express emotions and messages.
• #MothersDay: A special day to celebrate all mothers worldwide. 
• #NationalCoffeeDay: Coffee lovers share their love for coffee by posting pictures and discussing their favourite brews.
• #NationalPetDay: A day to celebrate and share images or clips of pets, expressing love for them.
• #NationalDonutDay: Doughnut fans share their love for this sweet treat by posting pictures and stories.
• #EmployeeAppreciationDay: A day to celebrate hardworking and dedicated employees of your business or company.
• #GivingTuesday: A global day of charitable giving, encouraging people to donate to causes and share their contributions on social media.
• #InternationalCatDay: Celebrated by cat lovers who share pictures and videos of their feline companions.
• #NationalDonutDay: Doughnut enthusiasts share their love for this sweet treat by posting pictures and stories.
• #EarthHour: An annual event where people worldwide turn off their lights for one hour as a commitment to the planet.
• #WorldBookDay: A day to celebrate reading and literature, with bookworms sharing their favourite books.
• #NationalFriendshipDay: A day to celebrate the bonds of friendship and recognise friends in our lives.
• #AprilFoolsDay: A day to share your practical jokes, pranks and hoaxes.
• #WorldMentalHealthDay: A day to unite and raise awareness of mental health issues worldwide.
• #WorldTeachersDay: A day to acknowledge, evaluate and enhance the teachers of the world.

Leveraging Social Media Days in digital campaigns 

Maintaining your social presence on networking sites is a great way to influence a wider audience and extend your brand’s reach. While it’s tricky to produce content daily, social media holidays are your companion for your marketing campaigns. Each holiday has its purpose, offering many ways to promote your brand. 

Giant businesses and brands give importance to this strategy, as it benefits your brand in various ways, including brand awareness, increased engagement and community building.

Know more about the importance of social media holidays below:    

1. Community building

Some big brands recognise social media holidays as a great tool for fostering engagement and cultivating a community within their audience. It attracts audiences to participate in the post, strengthening the brand’s connection to its followers. The examples above show that most social media holidays are about specific values, causes, or interests.

2. Promote conversation

In connection with the previous point, social media holidays offer unique opportunities for engagement, encouraging followers to participate in discussions, share content and interact with one another. Participating in conversations around specific themes or events helps create a stronger bond with followers.

3. Achieve marketing objectives

Attain your brand’s objectives easily through the use of social media holidays. Each brand has its purpose, and not all social media holidays can be an advantage to your brand. If it’s unrelated to your brand, it’s better if you don’t use it, as it won’t help you achieve your objectives. 

For instance, you have a pet food store online and aim to sell them out faster in April. Use National Pet Day (celebrated on April 11) as your strategy to market your pet food. You can also offer promos like discounts to entice buyers. Through this, it can help you achieve your goals faster. 

4. Expanding brand visibility

Reach wider audiences through the use of social media holidays. As mentioned earlier, each brand has its purpose, so research and identify social media holidays that align with your industry and target audience. Choose one that resonates with your values, message, and followers. Additionally, using hashtags and emojis can help you enhance your brand visibility.

Use hashtags

Hashtags have been a staple on social media ever since X (formerly Twitter) introduced it. Using hashtags in your posts acts as a strategic ‘tag,’ boosting the reach of your content on social media platforms. Even users who aren’t following your page can see your posts. 

Step up your game by creating a hashtag aligned with your chosen social media holiday. For inspiration, you can look for popular and relevant hashtags associated with the social media holiday.

5. Extend brand awareness

When your visibility reaches wider audiences, more people are aware of your brand, affecting your brand awareness. Since many people now know about your brand, it’s time to connect with them and create a positive influence using social media holidays. Use a social media holiday calendar to track the events you need, as it can help you have a consistent posting schedule. Take the chance and do regular updates for your brand to remain visible.  

6. Showcase brand personality 

Don’t forget to show your brand’s personality by doing regular updates, which shows how different your brand is from others. You can do this by creating visually appealing content that reflects your brand’s personality and incorporating the theme of the social media holiday. 

You can use various colours, stunning graphics and eye-catching imagery that align with your brand's identity. Moreover, inject humour and playfulness into your content to authenticate your brand identity throughout the celebrations.

How to create a Social Media Calendar

There are a lot of social media holidays, and selecting one for your content creation can feel overwhelming. Moreover, you need something to help you track your social media posting. That's where a social media content calendar comes in handy. 

What is a social media calendar?

Social media calendars are a strategic tool for influencers, brands, and organisations to plan, organise and schedule content across various social media platforms. This acts as a timetable for your upcoming posts, so you stay updated with your plans. It includes the day and time of your posting on a platform and the theme, text, tools, images, hashtags and keywords. You can do this in a spreadsheet or digital calendar to make it easier. 

Various brands use social media calendars not just to help them plan and track their content. It also offers other various benefits to your brand’s visibility, such as:

Consistency

Ensure a consistent and regular posting schedule to maintain audience engagement. A social media calendar helps you plan and organise your content, ensuring a steady stream of posts.

Efficiency

Streamline your content creation and publishing process through a social media holiday calendar. Planning with this calendar helps you allocate time efficiently, as you can schedule posts during peak engagement without constant real-time posting.

Prevention of overlapping campaigns 

Prevent conflicts or overlaps of content during simultaneous campaigns or events using this tool. You can strategically plan content to avoid overlapping messages and ensure a cohesive brand image.

How to do it

Here’s how to create a social media calendar to help you with your social media posting:

1. Set your objectives

Define your social media goals and objectives. Are you aiming for increased brand awareness, engagement, lead generation, or sales? Clearly outlining your objectives will guide you in your content creation strategy.

2. Conduct a social media audit 

A social media audit checks your accounts, how many people you reach, how your followers are growing, and how engaged they are. In this step, look at your current social media presence. See which posts worked well before and find areas to improve. It helps to know more about what your audience likes, what they do, and what they expect. 

Moreover, it gives important clues about how they interact with your posts. Checking your social media channels also helps you see how your competitors are doing on social media and what trends and tools you should be aware of.

In summary, you have to do the following:

• Analyse the effectiveness of your content strategy.
• Identify which types of content perform well and contribute to your goals.
• Understand who your audience is.
• Determine which social media platforms are delivering the best results for your brand. 

3. Choose your social media platforms

After finishing your audit, it's time to apply your research. The audit helps you see what's working well and which platforms your audience prefers. Select the social media platforms that align with your business and where your target audience is most active. Also, choose which is more likely to achieve your marketing goals.

When selecting a platform, take into account your target audience. For example, your target audience is Generation Z, individuals born from the mid-to-late 1990s to early 2010s, and you pick Facebook and Instagram as your platforms. Then, you find out the results aren’t that good on both platforms since this generation doesn’t often use these two. 

When trying to connect with Gen Z, you should use TikTok instead. Data shows that 60% of TikTok users are from Gen Z. That’s why shifting your marketing strategy to this platform can bring better results.

4. Plan the content you'll post

After picking your social media platforms, it's time to think about what to post. Use your social audit to produce content that your audience will like. These days, people enjoy content that's funny and relatable. So, diversify your content types to keep your audience engaged. Consider using a mix of text posts, images, videos, infographics, and user-generated content. 

You should also use trending music from that platform. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have features where you can see other posts based on the music you use. However, be wise and don’t forget to align content types with your brand identity.

5. Decide what your calendar should include

Decide what to include in your social media content calendar. The most important are:

• Social media platforms you’re using
• Content types
• Schedule of your posting
• Captions
• Hashtags
• Links
• Promotions
• Metrics and Analytics.

Strategies for optimising your social media calendars 

Here are some strategies you can follow on how you can successfully use social media calendars for your content planning:

Follow content thematic planning

Organise and structure your content strategy around specific themes or topics. Instead of creating disconnected or random posts, you should plan your content strategically with overarching themes. It could be based on seasons, events, campaigns, or other relevant subjects. 

You aim to create a cohesive and meaningful narrative that resonates with your audience, reinforces your brand identity, and supports your marketing objectives. Thematic planning helps bring consistency to your content, making it more engaging and purposeful for your audience.

Ensure timing and frequency

The time and how often you post are crucial in a social media calendar, influencing the effectiveness of your content strategy.

Timing

• Posting time - Before posting your content, you should know the best time to post on each social media platform. It should depend on your target audience’s habits and the platform's algorithm. For instance, your target audience is young adult office workers, so post at noon for lunch breaks and evenings for time-outs. Test different times and see where you get the best engagement. 
• Time zone - You should also consider the time zones of your target audience. It’s crucial, mainly if you want to be relevant worldwide. So, you should schedule posts at times that cater to each time zone. 
• Real-time events  - You’re using a calendar to incorporate social media holidays, so don’t forget that. Leverage these holidays, events and trending topics. Consider adjusting your posting time to the exact holiday for increased visibility, and don’t forget to include a hashtag. 

Frequency

• Platform-specific considerations - How often you post should depend on the platform you are using, as they have varying optimal posting frequencies. Some platforms, like Twitter, encourage more frequent posts. On the other hand, others, like LinkedIn, may benefit from less frequent but high-quality content.
• Audience engagement - Monitor your audience engagement for your posting times. Too many posts in a short period may lead to fatigue, while too few may result in a decline in visibility.
• Content variety - Strike a balance between the quantity and diversity of your posts. Consider various content and refrain from posting too much of the same thing.
• Quality over quantity - Prioritise quality material over frequent postings. More viewers connect and engage with meaningful and valuable content.

Responsive posting

Besides the time and the frequency of posting, you should also prioritise being responsive. It’s how your brand can adapt and react to real-time events, trends, and audience interactions. So plan the following:

• Real-time monitoring - You can use social media monitoring tools to stay informed about trending topics, relevant hashtags and discussions in real time. They can help you identify opportunities for responsive posts.
• Engagement responses - Respond promptly to audience comments, questions, and interactions. Engaging with your audience enhances the community feel, expands visibility, and enhances brand awareness. 
• Live Content - Embrace live content on platforms that support it. Live videos or real-time updates allow for immediate engagement and interaction with your audience.

Schedule in advance

Post your content on time by scheduling them ahead, as it’s a great way to ensure your audience sees them at the best optimal moment. You can do this by automating your posts, which saves you time since you already have your content ready for posting. Most social media platforms feature automated or scheduled posting, so you don’t have to worry about manually posting your content daily.

Review content calendar regularly

To make the most of your social media calendar, analyse and review it regularly. Find loopholes and areas that need to improve. Also, analyse the performance of your post for patterns and trends. After reviewing, adjust your social media calendar based on your findings so your strategies and contents are new and engaging for your target audience.

Streamline your brand’s content creation with QWERTYLABS

Using social media holidays for your digital marketing and calendars for posting might be challenging for you. Fortunately, you’re in good hands at QWERTYLABS. As a leading content solutions provider, we are an expert in content creation and brand protection. We help clients achieve their business objectives and generate leads through optimising their content. 

Boost your brand using social media holidays

Shape and enhance your brand’s identity in today's dynamic market through social media days and calendars. Incorporating these into a brand's strategy allows for diverse content creation. It keeps your content fresh, interesting, and aligned with trending topics. Rest assured that a social media calendar can help you plan your posts. 

Remember that in the online world, it's all about authenticity, adapting to trends, and consistently delivering content that resonates with the target audience. Resonate with your audience with QWERTYLABS and Contact us today!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is a social media day?

Social media holidays are special days or events celebrated and shared on social media sites. People use it to promote specific causes, engage users or have fun online.

How can social media days help my brand adapt to changes in the digital landscape?

Social media holidays can be your best friend for your marketing campaigns. Each holiday has its purpose, offering many ways to promote your brand, such as:

• Staying relevant to current events, trends or cultural moments
• Riding on the existing wave of online conversations
• Connecting with different audiences
• Pushing your brand to explore new ideas and creative approaches in its digital content.

How can Social Media Days enhance brand visibility?

It provides opportunities for increased engagement, audience connection, and participation in trending conversations. One of the best examples is through the hashtags. Many Social Media Days come with popular and trending hashtags. Incorporating these into your posts makes your content discoverable to a broader audience.