I don’t know about you but the last year has been pretty heavy in every way. From navigating suddenly working from home full time to dealing with a global pandemic and stay-at-home orders – it’s been a lot to handle.
Not to mention all of the regular stress that we deal with on any given day or week. And then there was the contentious election. And the unfortunate incident at the capital in January. And of course the Black Lives Matter movement that resulted from excessive police force.
When the news is heavy it is nice to have a distraction. And I would very much recommend that those of you who are in charge of your company social media think about injecting some levity into your content.
One way you can do this is through hashtag holidays. I’ve written about this quite a bit, but these are days that have a theme with a lighthearted approach. To give you a few examples, national donut day, Nutella day and today, which is national puppy day.
I personally love this day because I have two puppies myself. The idea with these days is that there is usually something that a person can relate to. The hope for a brand is that you will share content related to the day and use the associated hashtag (so for today it’s #nationalpuppyday).
These days can humanize a brand and break up your editorial calendar.
Life with two puppies over the past year has been nothing short of chaotic, amazing and fun. I never thought I would be a person who had two dogs – especially two puppies! I surely didn’t plan to get two within 5 months of each other, but life happens and you have to be open to it. They are best friends and they play and fight all day. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I also couldn’t imagine my life without two dogs again.
https://youtube.com/shorts/zFynktPxoZ4
I know so many people got dogs during Covid, and it was a really great time to do so while we were all working from home. Try incorporating hashtag holidays into your social strategy to show a more lighthearted side to your company. It’s just what we need right now to balance out some of the very heavy news over the past year.