In recent years, B2B marketers have been on a quest to humanize their marketing, bring in more pizazz, and adopt some standout B2C practices.
In this blog post, we deep-dive into what Special Days are and how to utilize them for a more humanized marketing approach. Read on for a peek into Leadtail’s Special Days insights and best practices as shared from the perspective of multiple specialists on our team!
What Are Special Days, and Why Do They Matter?
“Special days can be holidays, celebratory days (such as International Cat Day), cultural celebrations (such as Pride), and really anything that you might see pop up on a calendar,” Allie List, Leadtail’s Content Team Lead, defines. They aren’t just the bank holidays, but any day that speaks to a specific interest, group of people, etc.
According to a survey done by YouGov, some of these special days rank rather high in interest and popularity. Black History Month showed a 52% popularity rating in this survey and in further exploration of this very topic, Statista.com also found that Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, and Mother’s Day are the most popular holidays in the U.S., making these no-brainer major holidays to celebrate on social media—provided they align with your company’s overall marketing strategy.
Other examples of fun and maybe not as “official” special days include:
🌯 National Burrito Day
🚶♀️ National Walking Day
🌦 World Meteorological Day
While Special Days are not the bread and butter of B2B social media marketing, they’re an effective tool to build out a content calendar that bolsters engagement in a fun way. “They are a really great way of engaging with your audience on a completely different level,” Leadtail Account Manager, Benjamin Jacobsen, shares.
Allie points out that Special Days are meant to help you keep it real on your feeds. “It humanizes often sterile marketing efforts. This works in a couple of different ways: by showing that there are real people who make your company work and giving your employees facetime (think posting pictures of their Diwali celebrations or how a group volunteered to plant trees for Earth Day, etc), and by connecting to potential customers through shared values.”
**Find our guide on how to handle Special Days with strategy and inclusivity here.
Special Days Frameworks
Consider the following frameworks as you implement Special Days into your marketing approach:
Framework #1: How to Present Your Special Days B2B Marketing Ideas
“If you just go into your marketing strategy meeting and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to start sharing photos of pets,’ and your client is a data security company, they may not see a lot of relevance there. So really, the biggest challenge is about how you present the idea,” Benjamin points out.
Here are three steps to an effective approach:
- Do your research. Having more than just a couple of special days in mind to pitch.
- Provide a holistic strategy that provides your client with a long-term plan of sharing a Special Days post once or twice a month. Plan with months in mind, not weeks.
- Select Special Days that are relevant to your industry or audience. This will give your team a better understanding of why you’ve chosen certain days.
Framework #2: How to Conduct Research for B2B Social Media Special Days
Plenty of resources are available to help you find the perfect Special Days for your needs —especially with the turn of each new year. “You can go online and find so many different lists of special holidays or fun holidays all around the world,” Benjamin suggests.
Once you find a list you like, evaluate which ones fit your company’s B2B marketing plan. “Not all of them are going to be spot on, but also keep in mind the audience you have,” he says. For example, if you are working inside of a high-tech space, you know all days that are relevant to technology—like National Security Day—are going to be very relevant, but also consider what some likes and interests your audience may have—like tacos or pets!
Framework #3: What B2B Social Media Success Looks Like for Special Days
Tying in Special Days to your overall messaging can carry great effect. “I think of a webinar platform that used International Dog Day to talk about what their employee’s dogs would like to see a webinar on—with very cute pictures, of course—or how for Giving Tuesday, employees of a data security platform shared which charitable organizations they like to support with heartfelt messages of why,” Allie shares.
But, you can work Special Days a lot deeper into your marketing strategy too—if you’d like. “We’ve also had clients build full campaigns around them. On International Women’s Day, for example, it can be very moving to highlight the women in tech at your tech company,” says Allie, “and these posts can also be used for garnering employee advocacy on a very personal level.”
Should You Start Using Special Days in Your Strategy?
Short answer: Yes! Special Days aren’t just for humanizing your feed. They also help “bump up the community aspect” of how you show up on social media as Marketing Coordinator, Gabrielle Brygider points out. They give you the opportunity to acknowledge different communities in a variety of ways—more than your company’s typical daily posts can.
“It’s a double whammy of reaching out to different audiences because each one of these Special Days carries a specific hashtag that allows you to reach wider audiences, you get to personalize your brand, and you get to connect yourself a bit more with the community and not come off as sales-y while still posting content that is relevant,” Gabrielle continues.
Allie adds that Special Days “typically also help you show up better in the LinkedIn algorithm because they’re more likely to be shared, commented on, liked, etc.—which boosts all of your other posts’ engagements for a while, too!”
Let’s chat about how you can bake special days into your quarterly social media goals.