As the summer rolls by and mentions of school and autumn are on the horizon, it’s time to plan for the month of August and to help with that, we’ve got our latest post with some helpful themes for this month.
1st August – World Wide Web Day; we take it for granted now but the WWW or World Wide Web originates with Tim Berners-Lee and dates back to a very recent 1989 becoming free to the world for use in 1993. As the world adjusted to cope with the pandemic the web enabled us to stay connected with loved ones and work colleagues, not to mention providing us with all the information we needed to educate us on the changes happening around us. As we move forward many will be more reliant on the web than ever before as remote working will become a more important feature in our working lives now that people see just what we can achieve even if we’re not in the same building. If your business was one of the many who embraced the web as effectively as they could during the course of the pandemic perhaps use this day to remind people of this tagging it #widewebday2021.
2nd August – Bank Holiday Monday; if you’re in Ireland you’ll be all too familiar with this any may well be reading this after some well-earned time off. Bank holidays are always good for events such as sales as with people in a more relaxed place or perhaps enjoying some time off, they’re frequently happy to browse and buy too.
3rd August – White Wine Day; if your business is in the hospitality sector if it’s appropriate a promotion might work for you now that hospitality has opened up across the country. And of course, this is one you might like to enjoy personally too.
6th August – International Beer Day; if wine isn’t your drink, then perhaps you’ll prefer another date that celebrates beer instead. Originating in 2007, the idea behind this day is to celebrate the craft of brewing and it can be celebrated through hospitality businesses or off-licences and of course quite simply on a personal level with friends.
8th August – International Cat Day; across the world cats in their many forms are celebrated or enjoyed and while they may not appreciate a day of celebration in their honour, if you work in retail or even better around animals there might just be a promotion you can come up that celebrates or does something to help our feline friends. It’s not for everybody but if you’re something of a cat person you might be surprised at how many of your audience will connect with this.
10th August – Duran Duran Appreciation Day; this is a novel one that I personally like to celebrate each year, a celebration of all things Duran Duran who are celebrating over 40 years in the music business, It’s a quirky one, it won’t appeal to everyone but it pops up on media sites and music-related businesses every year since the day was first conceived so if your audience is one that enjoys a little music or is of a certain vintage it’s one to note. If their music isn’t your thing, this is also a band that do social media really well – see my post from a few years back, aside from offering the first-ever downloadable music track for sale they’re quite innovative in their approach – and yes I may be a little biased on this one and chances are you’ll find me sharing a tune or two on the day too 😉
11th August – World Calligraphy Day; a much-celebrated artform, often used days for celebrations such as weddings, art displays, or awards ceremonies when the attention to detail and expense is a priority over the convenience you may have with technology or graphic design tools. Steeped in history, dating back centuries it’s a written art-form that can effectively be incorporated into modern marketing or events to add a stand-out detail if used properly. A business that could incorporate this into social media might be involved with weddings or even print, just ensure it’s used correctly rather than just for the sake of it.
13th August – International Left-Handers Day; originating in 1976 this day is designed to highlight and celebrate all that’s different for that 10% of the population who are left-handed. Things many of us take for granted from how we’re seated at the dinner table to using scissors to playing a sport such as golf are a little different when you work a little differently. There are great strengths associated with being left-handed, creativity, and excellent problem-solving abilities amongst the many positives. And many famously creative people were are or were left-handed too; David Bowie, Tom Cruise, Leonardo da Vinci, Marilyn Monroe, Julia Roberts, Paul McCartney, Jonathan Ross, Neil Armstrong, John McEnroe – and lots, lots more too. You might be lucky enough to have some lefties amongst your own team, they’ll undoubtedly know what you can do to make life a little easier so you can mark the day in some way if it suits you.
16th August – Tell A Joke Day; an easy one for competition for any light-hearted social media activity.
19th August – Photography Day; whilst you can never beat the services of a professional photographer for your business, nowadays we’ve all got cameras with us every day and where opportunities arise you can snap the perfect picture. If your business is very involved with imagery or there are options for your customers to share snaps with you, this might be the ideal time to run a competition to increase user engagement – and get some super new photos into the bargain.
21st August – Poet’s Day; this is one we thought we’d highlight as we can see a lot of ‘interesting’ opportunities for businesses with an interest in language or just plain old fun to run competitions around this!
23rd August (week of) – back to school; dates will vary but schools start back any time from this week on, if your audience is in this sector or indeed is the parents looking forward to this date, it’s one to be mindful of when it comes to promotions or competitions.
26th August – Webmistress Day; we’ve all become accustomed to hearing about webmasters but with the numbers of women working in technology continuing to grow some people feel it’s appropriate to highlight that quite often your webmaster is female! Apparently, it’s a term that’s been in use for some time now while other more politically correct businesses have adopted the term webperson instead. It might not be something we see every day but a quick search on Linkedin tells me it is a term that is used by some people. And, if you’re in the position where you have a team with a woman at the helm of all things web, today might be the day to bring her out from behind the screen and thank her for her contribution to the business because believe us a lot more happens behind the scenes than most people realise – take that from somebody who performs the role of webmistress too
So that’s our round-up of days you can use in the course of your social media during the month of August 2021, as always work with what’s right for your brand and ultimately your audience.
If you’d like assistance in how best you can use social media in your business we offer a management and training service, pop an email to debbie@themarketingshop.ie to arrange a discovery call where we can discuss how we can help you.
