Cheer up, business owners! The winter blues are on their way out! Both consumers and other businesses have gotten over the sticker shock of the holiday season and are warming up to spending money again. This means that February is a great time to get your social media content posted consistently. While you certainly don’t need to be posting on Facebook or Instagram every day, you should be aiming for 3-4 times per week.
With a few more days until the start of the month, now is the time to write yourself a list of the days you want to post and what type of content makes sense for each of those days. This article will help you knock out several of the posts you’ll need throughout the month by using holidays with creative campaigns to increase your engagement and grow your following.
Just like last month, we want to remind you that the trick with using holidays in your social strategy is to avoid a random Canva template that says Happy President’s Day (nobody cares) and instead create ways that the holiday can relate to your company in a way that’s fun, inspirational, or otherwise engaging to your audience.
Here’s how to rock your content using February holidays:
Black History Month
This one can be a little cringey for businesses, after so many years of companies trying to get likes off the backs of those who have suffered. The best thing for companies to do for holidays like this is to let their audience know where their priorities lie and what their business really believes in. The most important thing to remind your followers today is that they should be supporting black people all year long and not just this month. Here are some non-cringey ways to celebrate the holiday:
If you’re a black-owned business, post a quick video of the owner explaining what that means to them and what their experience has been (keep it positive)
If you’re not a black-owned business, you can still post a video talking about how important diversity is in your company
Create a carousel of black leaders in your industry throughout history (we’re using this one!)
Use your stories to highlight black-owned businesses that you support
Use your stories to highlight black organizations that your followers can volunteer with or donate to
Better yet, post some behind the scene photos of your team volunteering at a black organization
Relationship Wellness Month
For this one, you want to use it to try to encourage couples to purchase your products or visit your business. Here are some ideas:
Restaurants can offer a romantic couples menu for the entire month
Fitness and wellness companies can offer discounted service promotions during the month to encourage you to join with a partner
Construction companies could offer a meditative yoga class in the showroom for couples to take as a quib about how stressful home remodels can be on relationships
Companies like ours that save people time could post a video of all the things prospective clients and their partners could do with the time they’re saving (we’ll be using this one)
Cancer Prevention Month
Nobody wants to talk about cancer, so if you’re using this one it needs to have a positive tone. This is an easy one for businesses that can actually help prevent cancer (think meal prep companies), but if you’re not one of those kinds of companies, here are some ideas for you to use:
Post about how you’ve donated to or volunteered with a cancer support organization (if you need one, we love working with Harford County organization Pushing Pink Elephants)
Do a team exercise class in the name of health!
Create a month-long BINGO game that followers can play and submit when they fill the board to be entered into a gift card drawing
National Patient Recognition Month
This one obviously only applies to companies that have patients, but the best way to use it is to highlight a few patients every week either on your feed or in stories. I love this for orthodontists that can show after photos of their clients. Also a great month to showcase patient reviews.
International Networking Week (first week)
This week is a great time to either host a local networking event or attend one that’s held locally. You can even do a virtual networking event where business owners pop in to introduce themselves to the group and submit their contact info to you so that you can email it out to all of the attendees after the call. As a general rule, the more people you introduce your company to, the more likely you are to get referrals.
Random Acts of Kindness Week (third week)
If we’ve learned anything from Mr. Beast, it’s that the internet loves kindness. Here are some ways to be kind on social media this week:
Leave reviews for local businesses and share them on your stories, encouraging your following to do the same
Record the reactions to a team member randomly complimenting customers that come into the store and compile them into a Reel
Create a cute graphic about kindness and encourage followers to pass it on by sharing it to their stories and tagging their friends
11th- Superbowl
If you’re not a sports girlie, the Superbowl is the biggest sporting event of the year across the board. This is an easy one to incorporate with humor. Even if you have a company that’s impossible to make sexy on social media (law offices, financial advisors, etc.), you can do something silly for this one. An easy option would be to record a 10 second video of you working at your desk in full team gear with text that says something about how you’ll be working on Sunday. Because this is such a universal topic in the United States, it’s appropriate for you to post something on your stories or as a caption to a post regarding the event. For example, you could post some stories asking your audience who they’re cheering for and what their plans are for the game.
13th- Galentine’s Day
This is one for the girls. If you’re going to incorporate Galentine’s Day into your marketing strategy, it has to be focused on women.
Host a girl’s night at your business
Share women-owned businesses or other women in your industry that you support in your stories
Highlight female staff members
Make a compilation of pictures/videos of women you’ve worked with over the years
14th- Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day generally focuses on romantic love, so this is a great day to promote date nights or anything that focuses on a couple. Here are some ideas that you can use:
Restaurants can create a menu built for 2 people and decorate romantically
Authors can highlight their favorite romance books
Companies in the home industry (interior designers, real estate agents, flooring companies, etc.) can post a Reel of a romantic home (either client footage or using stock video footage)
Boutiques can promote any pink or red items they already have in stock
Service-based companies can promote a straightforward package and encourage followers to purchase the service as a gift for their partner. For example, think about a car detailing company offering a flat rate per vehicle and encouraging the package to be purchased as a gift for the holiday.
18th- National Drink Wine Day
This is an easy one for bars, restaurants, and liquor stores. Wine specials all day!
For those who aren’t already selling alcohol, offer wine samples for those who visit the store. Most states allow retail businesses to give customers one alcoholic drink per visit, but check online to confirm that your state doesn’t have any rules that would prohibit you from doing it. Don’t have a storefront? Record a video of you drinking wine and answering questions about your company. Have friends and family help you put together a list of questions that might interest you, or post some stories a few days prior asking what people are interested in knowing about. Still don’t know what to talk about? Think about the questions that most new clients ask. That’s what your audience wants to know!
21st- President’s Day
As a business account, I can promise you that your following isn’t interested in the tacky “Happy President’s Day” post you might post to your feed. In fact, your following doesn’t care about that holiday at all except for one reason: they might have off work/their kids might have off school. This is the only important part of President’s Day from your perspective. This could mean that your audience has a free day to visit the shop or maybe they’ll be scrolling a little more that day with their extra time and it would be a good day for a series of polls on your story to get their feedback on products/services. Holidays like these are also good ones to just offer a deal of some kind for that one day.
22nd- National Margarita Day
See National Drink Wine Day and apply the same tips.
29th- Leap Day
Like President’s Day, Leap Day isn’t something that the general public celebrates. However, it is a universal experience and there are plenty of cute ways to incorporate it into your marketing strategy. For example, everyone who shops in the store on the 29th could get an extra predetermined item for free to celebrate the extra day. Or you could have an in-store raffle that everyone who visits the store that day will be able to enter to win a store credit or product. This is another one of those holidays that works well with just a percentage off per order during that day.
Incorporating holidays into your social media marketing strategy is an easy way to improve engagement and grow your following…if you do it correctly! Use these ideas to stay consistent online and if you need more or different ideas that are specific to your company, let us know! We’d love to help you create a custom prompt list or create the content entirely for your business!