The hashtag has long been around and is an important tool in helping individuals connect, brands track conversations but most importantly build communities and awareness about social causes, happenings and social media holidays.
From #DressUpYourPetDay to #InternationalDayOfCharity, it can be difficult to determine what national social media days are relevant for your brand and what will resonate with your audience. There are plenty of social media holidays your brand can activate and strategize for.
We’ve assembled a list of the top hashtag holidays for 2022. We’ve also compiled them into a Google Calendar with additional holidays and awareness days to add to your own social media calendar.
Read on to learn more about how to listen, strategize and simplify your approach to hashtag holidays.
Creating your strategy
Step 1: Choose relevant hashtags
First, it’s important to understand the goals and objectives of your brand before capitalizing on hashtags that may not be relevant to your audience. For example, it would be a stretch for a medical sales brand to share #WaffleDay content versus a camping equipment brand to share #NationalSmoresDay content. It’s important to be thoughtful about what holidays work for your brand and how to incorporate them into your social media calendar.
When identifying which hashtags make sense, ask yourself two questions:
- Does this hashtag seem like a natural fit for the brand?
- Will this hashtag holiday resonate with my audience?
Step 2: Use your data for decision-making
Leveraging your data is another great approach to use when developing your strategy, it gives you the most insight into what resonates with your audience, what they talk about and how you can tap into those conversations.
Begin by using Sprout Social’s hashtag tracking tool to understand the hashtags your audience already follows then leverage the power of social listening to analyze conversations around relevant topics. Using data points will give you the most accurate information for what engages your audience.
Social data can help you not only understand your audience but helps showcase how customer use a product or service, dislikes of your brand and show what trends your customers are interested in. You can find more about how to leverage your social data and what content moves the needle in the Sprout Social Index™, Edition XVII.
Step 3: Plan and create
Now that you’ve identified the hashtag holidays that resonate with your audience, it’s time to plan, create and launch your content. Always start by reviewing your previous year’s content performance using the Sprout reporting suite to fully understand what content resonated well and pull any learnings into your current strategy.
Research what your favorite brands are doing, how their hashtags performed in the previous year and listen to see what conversations are trending to give you a unique perspective on how to act and capitalize on the hashtag holiday. It’s also important to have a good understanding of what is currently happening in the industry to understand what is resonating with certain age groups/demographics.
Step 4: Acknowledge a holiday in advance
Always plan ahead and don’t wait until the day of a holiday to post about your stance on a social justice issue or awareness day that your audience values.
If you have a great idea, make sure you’re talking to other members of your marketing team so you can collaborate on something bigger!
Use our social media calendar 2022 to stay ahead of upcoming important holidays.
Get inspired by other brands
No matter the size of your brand, staying relevant by creating content for a particular social media day or cause is a great way to connect with your audience as well as be active in social conversations. Take a look at how some major brands used the power of hashtag holidays to create inspiring and timely campaigns.
Nature’s Path
Why it works: Nature’s Path does a great job integrating a hashtag holiday with their brand strategy and industry. They use #NationalFarmersDay to celebrate their founder but also all organic farmers who work hard and aligns with their brand mission.
Oreo
It's #NationalGlutenFreeDay and we can finally let you in on the secret! Gluten Free OREO cookies will be on shelves starting January 18th 🥳
— OREO Cookie (@Oreo) January 13, 2021
Why it works: Oreo capitalized on #NationalGlutenFreeDay to announce the launch of a new product. Not only did they use a relevant and trending hashtag, they quickly became the topic of conversation by chiming in with news.
Ulta Beauty
During a time when racial inequality is more visible than ever, Juneteenth is a day to celebrate and honor Black culture…
Posted by Ulta Beauty on Friday, June 19, 2020
Why it works: By sharing relevant information about Juneteeth, Ulta Beauty chimed into the conversation in a way that was helpful and didn’t focus on selling products. They provided ways for their community to educate themselves while staying relevant to the conversation happening in real-time.
McDonald’s
Why it works: McDonald’s latest approach is to leverage the power of trends and internet happenings to create content that resonates with their audience. Here they leveraged #Maythe4th, a wildly popular reference to Star Wars Day as a way to chime in on trending conversation and therefore get organic traffic.
What’s next?
Now that you have your hashtag holidays and awareness days and months planned out for 2022, it’s time to execute! Remember to stay true to your brand by choosing relevant hashtags that will help your brand foster a deeper connection with your target audience.
Use our Google Calendar with 2022 holidays to keep track of your top holidays and find new ones that inspire you.
What hashtag holidays and awareness days will you participate in? Tweet us your thoughts @SproutSocial!
The post Hashtag holidays that need to be part of your content strategy in 2022 appeared first on Sprout Social.
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