Episode 297: Key dates, do you track yours?
In this episode, Fiona discusses the importance of identifying key dates for a business, such as social media holidays and cultural events, and how they can be leveraged for marketing and customer acquisition. She also shares tips on where to find these key dates and how to incorporate them into a marketing strategy. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Importance of looking at key dates for businesses
Examples of key dates from a social media perspective
Where to find social media key dates and calendars (Hootsuite, Later, Buffer)
Examples of companies that have benefited from key dates
The importance of using social media key dates for customer acquisition and marketing strategies.
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 297 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. Today you're reading a quick tip episode, and that's where we share a tip, tool, or tactic that you can implement immediately in your business. Before we get stuck into that, I wanted to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I record this podcast, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into today's quick tip episode.
If you are reading this, it is Tuesday the 11th of April, and that means that yesterday is the 10th of April, you may or may not have known that it was National Siblings Day. I'm not sure who came up with that, but I guess it's a day to love on your siblings if you have siblings, and maybe if you're a business owner who is in business with a sibling such as your sister or your brother, that you may have gone all out celebrating National Siblings Day. The reason that I'm mentioning this in this quick tip episode is that this episode is all about your key dates and making sure that these are put into some plan that they are not things that you think about and they never do anything with. Or maybe you're reading this and you do run a business with your sibling and you're like, I had no idea that we could have been doing something, we could have been capitalizing on this, or we could have been sharing more information, or humanizing our business by sharing maybe pictures of you when you were younger and then how you've developed and why you got into business together and all the things that help people create a true connection with you.
Today it is a tip, tool, and tactic, and that is to make sure that you are looking at your key dates as a business. What are the key dates? Firstly, there are things like I just said, National Siblings Day, and I do tend to think of these random days as social media dates because that's how we all got to know a lot more about them things like National Donut Day or National Wear a Blue T-Shirt to Work Day. I mean, there are all sorts of things that are out there. The first thing is to think about what are the key dates from a social media perspective. And you can find social media key dates, and calendars on all the platforms you can schedule social media on.
Hootsuite has one, Later has one, and I'm sure Buffer or any of the big scheduling tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, and Later will all have them. The other thing you can do is, we'll put a link in the show notes for this, but we just Googled and found a click karate social media holiday calendar 2023 that maps out every single month and a whole bunch of holidays, and these national days. A lot of these are based on American dates. Keep in mind there might be things that based on wherever you're reading, cultural days may be quite different in your part of the world. I know here in Australia, I mean we are very much followers of America, I would say. I know I'll get backlash for that, but I remember like when I was growing up, Halloween was not such a huge thing and now it is.
I don't even think Thanksgiving was talked about. And people have their things whether they want to celebrate that or not. But keep in mind that a lot of these calendars are not put together necessarily by a company outside of America. You also want to add to the social media dates any other key dates for your business area if you are location specific. If you are only servicing people in Australia or Hong Kong or Singapore or Pakistan, or wherever it is, you also want to have a look at the key dates in your country for relevance to whatever it is that you sell. You might be an interior designer, and you want to add to the social media data, interior design, key dates, Australia, and then the year or interior design, key dates India and the year.
Because you may then find out that there are trade shows or that there are key parts of the year that are very much relevant to your audience. Now, if there are trade shows, of course, these are things that you might want to be part of yourself, but you might also want to be speaking on a panel or maybe being interviewed by the media connection to that if you are already a stall holder or, or already somehow involved with that trade show. Likewise, there might be things that you can almost ride the tail codes of. Let's say for example, here in Australia, August used to always be Small Business Victoria Month, and that is when the state government is often doing a lot of campaigning. They're doing a lot of exposure and spotlight on small businesses.
If you are someone like myself who is a coach for small businesses, you might say, “I'm going to get in touch with them and maybe I'm going to pitch to them to do a 10-part podcast series,” or I'm going to pitch to do a couple of workshops and those are paid for then by the government or by the council or whichever municipality that you're, you are working with. But if you don't know about those dates, what can often happen is then things suddenly come up like National Siblings Day, and your court is unawares, where that could have been a great opportunity to either ride the coattails of media that are already happening or the chatter that is already happening or to create something new yourself. And before you think, these are all so fluffy, do they have any impact? They do.
A few years ago, maybe like, seven years ago, I'm not sure I should have looked that up, but Mac Cosmetics got on National Lipstick Day, which is in July, and they jumped onto that and they started doing a, I think it was some gift with purchase or it was buying a lipstick, get one free, I can't remember the exact details of it, but they had people lining up around max stores worldwide to get in on this. I think that has become a key part of the calendar. Likewise, I know Lore Perfumery who recently was on the podcast and they talked about International Fragrance Day and that being a big thing they're a perfumery. I know other cafes who have jumped on with National Donut Day and said, “Hey, we are partnering with X, Y, and Z doughnuts today.”
If you come into the store, you can get them between this time and this time. But they also get people to sign up for an email or to win a series of doughnuts sent to your office this morning with coffee, just give us your email address. It's driving that acquisition of customer details, which can therefore be nurtured into whatever your marketing strategy is. And you want to think about your, I call them social media key dates, but it's the national holidays or the international holidays or the day of those sorts of things. And you can find them through many of the bigger player social media sites for scheduling such as Later, Hootsuite, Planoly, and Buffer. They will all have them, they'll have some calendar or as I said, we just Googled and found click karate social media holiday calendar 2023, you've got them.
Then you want to get your key dates for your particular industry and if it's location dependent, your particular area of the world. And then you want to think about other things that are important to you as a business owner. I always think about my values and beliefs and look at certain dates or causes that might be relevant to those. Let's say you are aligning your business with a particular cause such as family domestic violence, that is one that we align our business with as well. That is something that I work with certain businesses, some in a paid position and some pro bono to raise awareness about certain areas. But I might look at that calendar and think, "Okay, when are those key dates happening?" For example, in May, there are quite a few dates around domestic violence and people that have lost their lives because they have been murdered, I shouldn't say lost their lives in some vague way.
They have been killed by usually the people that they know. We look at, what are those key dates and what we want to do. Are we simply doing some donations behind the scenes? Are we promoting something on social media? Are we putting it into an email? Are we being on a panel or doing a workshop in raising funds for that particular cause? It's about making sure that those other things that are important to you, such as your values or the causes that align with those values are also factored into your key dates. You've got the big National Donut Day. Then you've got the industry-specific dates. And then on top of that, you also want to have the dates of things that align with your values, causes or charities or that stuff that you want to get behind.
Likewise, maybe you're a brand that's all about sustainability or getting people to think green, then you might be looking at things like Earth Day or if you're in Australia, Clean Up Australia Day or other things that are happening and thinking, “Okay, how do we make sure that they're part of our marketing plan?” That is it. That is it for today's quick tip episode. It's about making sure that you don't forget about these key dates because they're called key dates for a reason. They are key and they're important and they're particularly important for building a connection with your audience. And also from a practical standpoint, they could be good for content ideas.
That is it for today's quick tip episode. If you want to find all of this, including the link to that click karate social media calendar for 2023, you can find that over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/297. And just a reminder, we will be changing the name of this podcast and the artwork very shortly. I think it's next week. Keep an eye out for that. It's the same content that we were going to be putting out just under a slightly different name. Thank you so much!
