Top tips for getting the most out of awareness days
We’ve seen a lot of debate recently about whether charities and businesses should be getting involved in awareness days and whether they are still effective. At Marketing Moments, we believe they offer a good solution to social media or marketing teams as part of a wider content strategy. However, we think it is all about picking the right ones and making sure they are aligned with your brand! We’ve put together our top tips for you…
Tip 1 - Research and pick the awareness days most relevant to your brand
There is a good chance that unless you are a bakery that National Cupcake Day (yes it is a real thing) probably isn’t the most relevant awareness day for you and therefore not one that you want to make central to your content strategy. Really spend some time researching the awareness days in your country and then look at the ones that align with your organisation. Some good questions to ask yourself include:
How does this awareness day fit with our organisational strategy?
Do we have services or products in this space? For example, if you run services that support a young person or adult with a certain condition, then supporting the awareness day for that condition makes sense.
What customer and staff stories do you have for this topic?
Plan out the key ones you are going to support at the beginning of the year, so that you have a good idea of what things you definitely want to get involved with, while also giving yourself plenty of time to create some amazing content.
Tip 2 - Get to know the aim and key messages for this years awareness day
Quite often an awareness day will have a theme or topic each year. Giving something for supporters to rally behind and help to create noise on a specific issue. Therefore, our tip is to take some time getting to know what the topic and aims for this year are, before you start planning your own content. Review there key messaging with the following things in mind:
What is your brand opinion or position on this topic or theme?
What can you share to add value to the conversation? This could be service user stories, research or insight from staff members - anything that shows your unique voice and why you are getting involved.
What stories do you already have on this topic or theme? Could you repurpose them to strengthen your content. It is OK to reuse stories, especially if they are powerful stories.
What proof points do you have? One of the common pitfalls you see is brands supporting things like international women’s day and then being exposed for the gender pay gap in their company. Or other awareness days for similar reasons. So think about what you do as a company to support or address the key issues being highlighted and if you’re on a journey be prepared to be honest and say you’ve still got a long way to go. Instagram did this really well a couple of years ago when they came a cropper.
Tip 3 - It is all about the hashtags
Don’t forget to add the relevant awareness day hashtags to your content, so others can find it. Plus, follow the hashtag throughout the day and comment and engage with posts that align with your brand to strengthen your position.
If you’ve enjoyed this blog post, you may also like our post on: Tips for aligning storytelling with your brand
