Y’all. May is the National or International month for 44 DIFFERENT causes/ideas/things, AND it also has nearly 200 “holidays” during its 31 days…we’re not kidding. As I write this it is Cinco de Mayo, National Astronaut Day, National Cartoonists Day, National Hoagie Day, National Silence the Shame Day, National Totally Chipotle Day, National Day of Prayer, National Day of Reason, and World Password Day. Some of these days are hard to believe but they are the real deal, check out NationalDayCalendar.com and see for yourself! 

Where did all of these holidays come from? Why do they exist? And before you ask, yes, they are all hashtag-able. #holiday #anydayisaholiday What does all of this mean? Stick with us, while we explore the history of random holidays, hashtags, and their unbreakable bond.

The Why and How of National Day/Month 

Though we have to admit that National Tequila Day makes for an excellent excuse for happy hour with the girls, these “holidays” aren’t actually issued by any state or government and can be made up by anyone or any business who submits to websites like Day of the Year or National Day Calendar. These websites then review the submission and choose to decline them or declare a holiday. And boy, do businesses love declaring a holiday to help with their marketing campaigns! I mean, National Totally Chipotle Day, is supposedly about the pepper but who doesn’t hear that and crave a fast-food burrito?

At Betsy Bash, we have no shame in using these often very silly and fun holidays to create awesome content for our clients and if you have a small business you should too! Frivolity and fun should be the name of the game on social media and in marketing. One of our personal favorites is National Limmerick Day on May 12th, so many puns and rhymes to be made! If your business sells organic, vegan ice cream then National Vegan Day (Nov. 1st)  and National Ice Cream Day (July 17th) are your times to shine! 

Though lighter holidays are fun, the national months are also an excellent way for us to recogonize important societal issues, histories and causes.  Awareness and History Months, like Mental Health Awareness Month (May), Women's History Month (March), and Down Syndrome Awareness Month (October), provide an opportunity for people, organizations, and businesses to highlight important societal messages all month long. It’s important to cherish the talking space that a national month opens up.

What is the #History? 

If you are a human in 2022, you know what a hashtag is and you most likely know that they are used on social media platforms to “tag” a post so that it can be found with other relevant posts. And people over the age of 25 might know that the symbol was originally just the lowly pound sign on the telephone. But did you know that, hashtags as we know them have been around since the 80s?

The first recorded use of the hashtag was in 1988 “on a platform known as Internet Relay Chat or IRC to group messages, images, content, and video into categories.” but it wasn’t until 2007 that blogger Stowe Boyd would coin the term Hashtag. And merely 2 years later that the baby bird of a social media platform, Twitter, adopted the hashtag officially for their relevant topics. Since then hashtags are used across all platforms for a variety of purposes, from weddings and birthdays to activism and marketing campaigns.

#Holiday: What Marketing Dreams are Made Of!

Alright, to tie it all together let’s talk about how using the right hashtags can make your celebrations of these holidays and awareness months go the extra mile! Hashtags are an excellent way for your content to be found organically. It can be fun to create content around silly holidays, but to feel genuine and appealing to your audience it must make sense for your brand. There are so many #holidays to choose from that it isn’t hard to find relevant days to offer a deal for your followers and hashtag about it! And if you can’t find one, you can always submit it for your preferred day and start the #trend yourself!

The same idea of relevancy goes for awareness and history months, it isn’t a good look to jump on the bandwagon of any old month hoping for clicks. As a business, that’s highlighting a month with an important cause or message attached it’s crucial to not make it solely about your business, consider donating or helping educate your followers about the topic rather than using it as a selling point. As we’ve said before the millennial market (the current largest purchasing demographic) wants, “ to help the world, and thus they are more likely to buy from a brand that is doing good. As a business owner, consider what charities or organizations align with your brand’s ethos and be open about it.”The younger generations value transparency and charitable cores to the brands that they follow and align with. When planning your social media content calendar, consider your values as well as the values of your target audience.

We hope you enjoyed this blog and we look forward to seeing you out there celebrating each day like it’s a holiday, cause it is! And as always, the Betsy Bash team would love to hear from you! Drop us a note on any of our social media pages and let’s chat!