According to Inbound Marketing Inc., integrating these kinds of days into your content does exceptionally well on social media pages such as Twitter and Instagram. At the same time, it also will tastefully complement your SEO efforts (it boosts seasonal spikes in search volume.) Toss in some eccentric posts so you can be zestful, approachable, join inconversations, and surge your overall engagement – which, in turn, can help boost your visibility. There’s nothing to lose and so much to gain!

If you’re dealing with a “social media content creator block,” they may provide you with some inspiration for future posts. Add these days to your calendar, or a team calendar, so you’re not skipping on any significant brand or organizational moments this year.

What is a micro-holiday? 

Feeling connected and being a relatable entity or individual is a sizeable part of what propels social media success. Micro-holidays, according to the Atlantic, are unofficial or “social media holidays” that celebrate things, people, places or ideas. They can range anywhere from being witty (National Tequila Day), casual (National Bring Your Daughter to Work Day), or serious (Earth Day).

They are displayed as trending hashtags on social media, used by both people and brands. Fun fact: Anyone can make them up. You can create a unique hashtag for your company, an event, or an idea if you please! At the end, it’s all about driving engagement and raising awareness creatively and uniquely.

Why are they great for social media?

1. Increases engagement in a fun way  

If done correctly, unusual holidays like “National Beer Day” are a great way to get more engagement.  

 Think of this…It’s National Beer Day. You work for Human Resources at a company X. You thought it would be a good idea to celebrate to help lighten the mood and alleviate employee stress. It’s a nice treat! You could take a photo of them with their cold beverages and put the caption as “At (company X), we take #NationalBeerDay very seriously.” Then, post it to your social accounts.  

This charming post will help you demonstrate your company culture and may even assist you in recruiting potential employees. They will see that your office is a hard-working yet light-hearted place! Who doesn’t want to work for employers like that? People will be sharing, retweeting, commenting or even liking your post, as you show the human side of your business. It allows you to be fun and friendly! 

2. Show your human side 

An element of humor can do wonders for you or your business. While you build relationships on social media, you get to reveal your relatable and human side! 

Image Source: Twitter

3. Join important conversations 

By hash-tagging micro-holidays in your social media content, you can join in on conversations already taking place on various platforms. The hashtag will put your post into a distinctive category, such as #NationalWaterDay, which will support visibility and awareness by inserting your post into newsfeeds. It is also a great way to express your thoughts on social happenings or issues and demonstrate your core values. 

Okay….I’m convinced. Now, how do I incorporate them? 

1. Think about your ideal customer or a member of your audience and create a “persona.” HubSpot defines a “persona” as “Semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on data and research to suit the needs of your target market. A deep understanding is critical to driving content creation.” What days would your audience resonate with? Are there some that are directly relevant to your industry? 

2. Look at the ways your competitors and other figures in the industry utilize micro-holidays in their social media content for inspiration. 

3. Take a look at this year’s social media holidays. Then, take a look at your social media goals. Think about how you can start to use them to help you achieve some of your organizational or personal objectives. 

4. Based on your goals for each month, start to plug in the relevant micro-holidays into your social media calendar, and build your other posts around that. Remember, you don’t want to include every holiday in one month. Ideally, include 2-3 max. The last thing we want to do is annoy your audience by overdoing it. This can lead to unfollows on social accounts and a bad “social” reputation. 

5. Schedule your content using a social media content scheduler like Hootsuite or Buffer. Remember to include noticeable visuals, robust call-to-actions and stellar and dazzling copy.  

6. Track your success to see what is working and what isn’t. Then, adjust your strategy from there. One way to do this is to take a look at your social media platform analytics or gather data from your content management systems (CMS) such as Hootsuite. Not sure what to track? We recommend looking at impressions, reach, and shares/mentions.  

Neha Hamzah, M.S. in Corporate and Organizational Communication (’21)