4 content ideas for May (that use awareness days)

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:: 00:00

All you're looking for some content ideas or may well you're in luck. I'm Janet Murray. I'm a content and online business strategist, and also the creator or be courageous content planner. In this episode, it's a courageous content podcast, OSHA have four, ready to go content ideas for me for small business owners, you can use them as inspiration for social media posts,

:: 00:22

books, newsletters, podcasts, and any other content you create to promote your business. All of the ideas in this episode use awareness days, which are grateful, sparking content ideas. First up there's deaf awareness week, which is May second to eighth. And that's 2022. If you're listening and the future, you could share something valuable on accessibility. So for example,

:: 00:50

your favorite apps for adding passions to videos, or you could celebrate a business or person who's doing great work in this area, or even invite your community to share their ideas on accessibility for your business. So for example, if you have a restaurant or if you are a personal trainer, what could you do with there was offices that you use in your business to make them more accessible to the deaf or hard of hearing.

:: 01:18

If you have my courageous content planner, the former is an example of a news and trends post, but it could also work as an educate style post. So news and trends, style posts need to be timely and relevant, which is why it would make sense to publish a post about accessibility during deaf awareness week. But there's no reason why you couldn't republish a post like this at another time of year as an educate style post,

:: 01:45

which is all about adding value, answering your ideal customers or clients questions and solving their problems. It's also worth bearing in mind that it's world accessibility awareness day on the 19th of May. So if you're organized and planning ahead, you could consider creating a two-parter on this topic because it's always good to be able to refer back to other relevant content. You may have noticed in this podcast,

:: 02:10

for example, that are often mentioned other podcasts episodes that are related to the topic I'm talking about at the time, that's no accident as you're building up your bank of content. It really makes sense to signpost people to other content they might find helpful. Next up it's eat what you want. Say on may the 11th, if you have a health related business,

:: 02:33

this is a great opportunity to share no diet, weight loss tips, or recipes, or you could share a relevant, personal story or experience something that surprised me if you've years back was when I shared the story of how I stopped dieting and lost stones in way. I don't think I've ever had so much engagement on a post. It was in my Instagram stories.

:: 02:55

So don't be afraid to get personal if it's relevant, if don't have a health related business, remember that people love talking about food, particularly foods that love or hate. So just start asking questions about food. If you have a copy of my courageous content planner, the former would work well as a news and trends post or an educate style paste, sharing personal stories or experiences is typically inspire content.

:: 03:21

That's about bringing your audience closer to you or community. I should say that really liked talking about it. As audience asking questions that are designed to get discussion going is typically community style content. And that can be particularly effective in Facebook groups and also in Instagram stories. And that type of content can work well on LinkedIn. Also hands on Twitter, I sometimes use Twitter polls to ask food questions and they often go down.

:: 03:51

Well, I did do an entire episode on links in polls. I'm not a fan or that I think they're dying off a little bit now, but don't make the mistake of assuming that a platform like LinkedIn is just for business. Talk a discussion about food you love or hate. We'd probably go down just as well as well. One place. I don't think those startup posts work as well on your Instagram grid.

:: 04:14

I see your Instagram grid really as more of your shop window for your products or services, which is why I don't think those posts tend to work as well. And if you find yourself thinking, should I post this on my Instagram grid? Should it be a story? Should it be a real, I have a podcast episode on that, which I'll link to in the show notes,

:: 04:33

along with that LinkedIn episode, next up there's freelance heroes day on may the 16th. This is an opportunity to celebrate freelancers. And there's a number of ways that you can do this. For example, recommending contractors who support you in your business or sharing tips on getting hired for freelance work or hiring freelances or tips on what to pay freelancers or how to get paid on time.

:: 05:00

If you are one, there are so many possibilities with this date. If you have my courageous content planner and an are wondering what style of content am I talking about here? Those first few ideas celebrating or recommending freelancers that would be an educate or news and trends post because remember news and trends post needs to be timely and relevant. So there needs to be a reason why you're publishing that particular post when you are,

:: 05:25

you could also create and inspire posts from this or community posts simply by sharing a story. I was a freelancer for many years. I have many stories about being a freelancer and you might have to, and again, you can even ask questions. Have you ever been freelance? Would you go freelance again? What's the best thing about being freelance and that's more community style content and the false idea for you or set of ideas I should say is for national sorry,

:: 05:54

date, which is may 26. This is a great opportunity to create a things you don't need to apologize for post or share tips on how to give or receive apologies or start a conversation about apologies. Like one of my clients I'm blank, when did some is a professional mediator and for global forgiveness day, which is similar in topic to national Saudi day,

:: 06:20

she created a very simple LinkedIn post where she said, someone says something that upsets and offends you, you tell them how you feel, which apology would make you feel better. A I'm sorry, if you misunderstood what I said, B I'm sorry that I hurt and upset. You see not sure. And I love sharing this example because it shows that even if you have a so-called serious profession,

:: 06:41

it doesn't mean that you can't use awareness days to create content. One of my favorite examples of this is a junior genealogist who used bubble bath day to create a really great tip on Roman baths, or should I say bath in England? It was fascinating. And just goes to show that awareness days don't have to be cheesy or silly. And really is a point I make all the time is that awareness days on a straight jacket that are there to dictate.

:: 07:14

You can only use awareness days at quite literally. And if they're being celebrated in the country where you live or where you're from, for example, if you were to look up national snowy day, that's celebrated in Australia, but that is no reason why you can't use that Wednesday in your own content, regardless of where you're based in the world. The question you need to ask yourself is would my community be interested in discussing this topic?

:: 07:42

I find apologies and how people give them or why they don't give them can be a very popular topic for discussion. So try not to get bogged down in things that don't really matter, like where an awareness day originates from awareness days are there to spark ideas to help you get off the blank page. They're not a straight jacket that dictates that you can only publish certain content at certain time.

:: 08:05

And if you want to know more about that, and you want more ideas about using awareness days in your content, perhaps you've recently invested in one of my courageous content planners, and you're wondering how to get started. There is a free class that comes with it by the way, but there are a couple of podcasts episodes that would be well worth you listening to.

:: 08:23

So one of them is non-cheesy ways to use the awareness days in your social media posts and three myths about using awareness days in your content. And one last thing to mention, if you are finding it challenging thinking how to use awareness days in your content is actually worth going back and listening to the episodes I created for January, February, and March. Because even though it's going to be awhile before they come around again,

:: 08:47

hearing me talk about how those dates can be turned into awareness days will hopefully give you some inspiration on how upcoming dates can be used as with the example for national, sorry, day global forgiveness day, very similar theme. And what's great about awareness days is once you've started to gather a bank of pace, you can, we use them for different dates.

:: 09:09

It's a great way of repurposing your content. So I hope you found that helpful as ever a deal of hearing from you. And the best place to connect with me is on Instagram. I'm over on at Janet Murray, UK. And I particularly love hearing from people who say, I tried out that idea that you shared in your podcast, as you can imagine,

:: 09:28

it's a lot of work to create these podcasts and to put four hours a week and was leaving messages from people who are actually using the advice and tips makes it all worthwhile.