January Awareness Days: Content ideas for photographers

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If you struggle to know what to write about on your photography blog or on your social media channels, then have you considered using national awareness days as content prompts? If not, I highly recommend it!

There’s nothing worse than staring at a blank screen, knowing that you need to create content to promote your photography, but not having a clue what to write. Right?!

This is when awareness days can prove so valuable. There are hundreds of awareness days happening each and every year, and there are so many January awareness days in particular. So, that’s hundreds of potential topics that you could piggyback on as a content idea!

Related reading: A step-by-step guide to using awareness days in your photo marketing content

Awareness days are invaluable as content prompts

An awareness day based on a particular theme or topic could perhaps be all you need to come up with hundreds of photography marketing content ideas throughout the year.

Used literally as prompts, you might find that the theme of a particular awareness day, awareness week or monthly awareness campaign inspires you and sets the cogs in your brain turning. You might go on to recall a story worth sharing with your audience on that theme or topic, or you may conjure up a memory of an experience that might interest them, for example.

Simply because of the variety of awareness days that are happening each calendar month, I’m confident that if you applied yourself and open your mind to the possibilities of how awareness days might be helpful to you, you’ll be able to make them work for your photography business.

Related reading: How to use awareness days to inspire photography content ideas

Grab your free guide to 2023 awareness days

Before I get onto the list of January awareness days that you might want to look out for in 2023, do take a minute to grab my free printable guide of awareness days. There are literally hundreds in there!

January Awareness Days

Grabbed your awareness days guide? Great! Let’s get started!

If you’re reading this around the time this article was originally published, ahead of a new calendar year now’s the time to start creating content for your photography marketing channels for January!

January is a particularly busy month for awareness campaigns, so I’m confident that you should be able to find some that are relevant and could inspire content ideas you’ve not thought of yet.

Month-long awareness campaigns in January

There are many month-long campaigns during January including:

As an example of how these could be applied…

• I’ve written content for newborn photography clients before, inspired by the ‘Celebration of Life Month’. 

Could it be relevant to you too? Well, if so, you could share examples of your newborn photography on social media while explaining in the photo captions what you love about being a newborn photographer and how you came to specialise in baby photography, perhaps? Or, maybe clients of yours have celebrated their new arrival in a fun or creative way – an idea they’d be happy for you to share?

This topic would also work well for birth photographers, family photographers, boudoir photographers and more.

• If you’re a personal brand photographer, you might be able to use the idea behind ‘Get Organised Month’ to encourage potential clients to get organised and commission new brand photography for their businesses?

• On a more personal note, perhaps you have a story to tell about your experience of being vegan? Or you’re on a mission to cut out the alcohol this month and want to share your intention publicly to stay accountable?

Remember, there is no need to keep 100% of your content business-focused. If you’re happy and willing to share a little about yourself, this can be useful to help build know, like and trust with your audience.

Awareness days and week-long campaigns in January

Now, let’s focus on January awareness days and week-long campaigns. There are hundreds of key dates including the following (be sure to grab the free guide for the full list):

*Please note that the dates below apply to the U.K. in the year 2023, and are subject to change year on year. Although they are correct to the best of my knowledge at the time of publication, please check the dates of any awareness campaigns you plan to use.

1st January

• New Year’s Day – What exciting plans for your photography business could you share?
• Commitment Day – What business or personal commitments are you making this year?

2nd January

• Motivation and Inspiration Day – What motivates and inspires you?
• World Introvert Day – What tips can you share with photography clients who may be introverted or feel uneasy about the prospect of being in front of your camera? Or, perhaps are you an introvert, and have a personal story to share?

6th January

• Cuddle Up Day – A perfect one for newborn or family photographers! Share a photo of a family cuddling up together and tell a story about the session.

8th January

• Bubble Bath Day – Do you offer ‘bath splash’ sessions to babies? Or perhaps you’re a boudoir photographer who wants to recommend ways your clients might want to relax and pamper themselves? Either way, this awareness day could work for you!

10th January

• Peculiar People Day – If you’re a portrait photographer, you might like to use this one to inspire content around interesting people you’ve photographed?
• Clean Your Desk Day – This could be an opportunity to show behind the scenes of your photography business. Maybe share a photo of your messy (or freshly cleaned) desk? Talk about the equipment you use on a daily basis, perhaps? Share tips on how you stay organised?

14th January

• Dress Up Your Pet Day – Pet photographers, this one if for you (or any photographers who like to have fun with their pets)! A fun and simple content idea would be to ask your audience if they dress up their pet, and to share photos with you on your Facebook page, for example.

20th January

• Cheese Lovers Day – Another one for food photographers perhaps, or just anyone who loves cheese! You could do something as simple as asking your audience on social media which is their favourite cheese and why? These informal type subjects – on which everyone has an opinion – can be great for engagement!
• Camcorder Day – You may wish to use Camcorder day to share behind-the-scenes video content showing a typical day in your photography business, or clips from recent shoots or projects. 

24th January

• Belly Laugh Day – This is a fun January awareness day that could inspire all sorts of light-hearted content – perfect for social media! You could share portraits or videos you’ve taken of a family sharing a joke, or children giggling during a cake smash, for example, along with a descriptive caption. Or, simply share a joke or story about something that made you laugh recently, or ask your audience what makes them giggle!

27th January

• National Geographic Day – If your photos have ever been featured in National Geographic Magazine, this is the day to shout about it! The day celebrates the magazine which has been around for more than 100 years! Interpreting it more generally, this is a great one for wildlife photographers and landscape photographers, and even portrait photographers. You could share your photos along with interesting stories and stats about nature or wildlife to demonstrate your passion and educate your audience. 

28th January

• Fun at Work Day – Could you create video content showing you having fun at work, or write a social media post sharing what parts of your work you enjoy the most?  Personal brand photographers, perhaps you could use this topic to inspire a blog article on how you can help clients to convey their fun side in brand photos?

29th January

• International Dark Sky Week – One for the meteorological photographers or landscape photographers perhaps?

31st January

• Inspire Your Heart with Art Day – A great one for all creatives! You could use this to inspire content that speaks about what inspires your photography, what you love to create for personal/passion projects, and so much more.

Kick-start your year with content ideas inspired by January awareness days

I hope that this may have helped to show you how you can use some of the January awareness days in your marketing content this year. Of course, these are just some ideas I’ve put together, and are shared just to give you some quick-fire inspiration on how to apply them to your content.

Don’t overthink this!

Remember, there are many more awareness days in January than those listed above. Download your free guide, cherry-pick a few of the January awareness days that speak to you and then interpret them however you wish.

P.S. Keep checking back to this blog for more similar articles. This is part of a monthly blog series. 

Related reading: December Awareness Days

Good luck with your January content planning!