Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, a day when brands jump on the bandwagon and create lovey-dovey content. Making the most of current events is nothing new for brands, most have had an organized content calendar with important dates, anniversaries, and events related to their industry. With social media, this phenomenon has became more prevalent, since the process of creating and publishing content is now a lot faster and easier.
Your brand can also take advantage of interesting events, dates, and holidays to help you create timely, relevant content. Below is a list of dates you should keep note of:
JANUARY
- January 1st – New Years Eve
- January 18 – Martin Luther Kind Day
FEBRUARY
- February – Super Bowl
- February – GRAMMYs
- February – Oscars, Academy Awards
- February 14th – Valentine’s Day
- February – 3rd Monday in February – Family Day (Canada)
MARCH
- March 17th – St. Patrick’s Day
- March 20th – First Day of Spring
- March 25th – Good Friday – (Long Weekend)
- March 27th – Easter
APRIL
- April 1st – April Fools Days – Roundup of top 2015 pranks
- April 22nd – Earth Day
MAY
- May 8th – Mother’s Day
- May 23 – Victoria Day (Canada)
- May 28 – Champions League (World wide)
JUNE
- June 19th – Father’s Day
- June 20th – First Day of Summer
- June 10 – July 10th – Eurocup 2016
- June – NBA Finals
- June – Stanley Cup Finals
JULY
- July 1st – Canada Day
- July 2nd – Tour De Frnace
- July 4th – Independence Day (US)
AUGUST
- August 1st – Civic Holiday (Canada)
- August 5th – Summer Olympics
SEPTEMBER
- September – Labor Day
- September – Back-to-School
- September 11th – Patriots Day
OCTOBER
- October 10th – Thanksgiving (Canada)
- October 31st – Halloween
- October – World Series (US)
NOVEMBER
- November 11th – Veteran’s Day (US)
- November 11th – Remembrance Day (Canada)
- November 24th – Thanksgiving (US)
DECEMBER
- December 25th – Christmas
- December 26th – Boxing Day
If you need more specific calendar, you can find them here:
Arby’s took advantage of Pharrell Williams Hat at the 2014 GRAMMYs and caused a real-time social marketing sensation
You can create content beforehand for special holidays and events, but sometimes the best content happens because someone was paying attention and created something at the right moment. It’s what happened during the 2014 GRAMMYs when Arby‘s tweeted about Pharrell Williams interesting hat choice.
During the Grammys many brands live-tweet and post content in real-time across social platforms. Arby’s was one of these brands and kept a close eye on what was happening at the show, so when rapper/producer Pharrell showed up in a distinct headpiece that closely resembled Arby’s own logo, they jumped on the opportunity to connect the dots in a pretty funny way.
While everyone was poking fun at Pharrell’s choice of hat, it was Arby’s tweet that gained the most attention, because it was funny, timely, and very relevant. The tweet received over 79,000 retweets to date and the brand made headlines around the world for their use of real-time marketing.
So, if you’ll be creating marketing content around a specific event or date, try and see if you can use smart real-time marketing to create something unique and special.
