Want to know why and how to use awareness days to inspire photography content ideas? Then read on.

Essentially, with a list of national awareness days at your disposal, I believe that you should easily be able to generate hundreds of marketing content ideas.

OK, you’ll also need a bit of imagination, a proactive attitude and some time dedicated to planning your content too. But, it really shouldn’t be too hard to fill your calendar with creative content ideas if you try!

What are national awareness days?

National awareness campaigns can include special days, weeks or month-long initiatives. You know the ones…World Book Day, Mental Health Awareness Week or National Share A Story Month.

There are literally national awareness campaigns for almost everything, from the serious to the ridiculous! Yep, there’s World Introvert Day, Hat Day and even Chocolate Cake Day! You can really have some fun with this!

Access my FREE lists of hundreds of awareness days and campaigns 

To access my FREE lists of hundreds of national awareness days and campaigns, click on the links below.

I have created a content series – one article per month – listing out awareness days you could use to inspire photography marketing content. 

How do awareness days help to inspire photography content ideas?

National awareness days have long been used by PRs working in the charity sector as a means of generating interest around a cause or campaign.

In fact, before I set up my own business, one of my former roles as PR Director for the British Tinnitus Association involved me promoting the charity’s annual Tinnitus Awareness Week. The awareness campaign was a tool my team used to get the media talking about tinnitus and to put the condition firmly on the news agenda for the duration of the campaign.

We shared news, updates, case studies, hosted events and worked with celebrities and social media influencers to create a buzz around the awareness week. The valuable publicity we created allowed us to reach many more people about how the charity helps those who experience tinnitus.

But, while this is how awareness campaigns can be used, you don’t need to be affiliated with a charitable campaign or awareness day/week in order to incorporate into your marketing.

You too can use awareness days to inspire photography content ideas!

How can awareness days and campaigns help you market your photography business?

1) Media Publicity

Well, there’s nothing the media love more than a timely, relevant story. So, if you’re interested in securing media publicity, this could be your way in!

Promote your photography business in a way that connects with newsworthy topics, events or campaigns and you can potentially increase your chances of getting interest from journalists. This is a technique called ‘newsjacking‘.

Related reading: How to use newsjacking to promote your photography business

Quite literally, if you’re able to identify an awareness campaign that’s relevant in some way to your business or to your personal story, then you’ve identified a potential PR angle.

2) Social media content, blogs, newsletters and more

Awareness days are also brilliant for inspiring content ideas for your blogs, social media posts, videos, podcasts and newsletters. You just have to look for the relevant opportunities and piggyback on them.

There are literally hundreds of national awareness days and campaigns (plus international awareness ones too) so, honestly, you shouldn’t ever be short of content ideas!

They are useful prompts that anyone can use to chat about something topical. Simply relate the topic to a story you can share in your marketing content – whether it’s a business or personal story, something serious or something funny. Anything goes!

How can you make unique content based on awareness days?

Let me assure you, it’s entirely possible to use awareness days to create unique content (even if awareness days are universally used)!

Even if you’re in the camp who thinks they’re overdone, I believe that how you decide to apply them to your photography marketing can still be unique. You just need to think creatively and use them as prompts to come up with content in YOUR inimitable style.

Related reading: January Awareness Days: Content ideas for photographers

Which awareness campaigns are relevant to you?

There are plenty of photography-related national awareness campaigns that you could mention in your content, but you needn’t stop there. There are lots of awareness days, unrelated to photography, that likely also have some relevance to your business and your life.

Whichever you deem to be relevant, my advice would be to use these to your advantage. Get your creative juices flowing and plot any relevant awareness days into your calendar. This is then the start of your content plan!

Related reading: Content planning tips for photographers

While I’m not suggesting that all your social media or blog content should be linked to national awareness days (that would be really quite tedious for those following you!), you can drop them into your content every now and then.

How many times you choose to mention awareness campaigns will be a personal decision. But if you genuinely feel it’s relevant, have something to say about a topic, or feel some affiliation for the cause associated with it, then go for it!

After all, if you can shoehorn them smoothly into your content, they can be a great way to generate engagement on social media and get you noticed.

You’ve identified relevant awareness days. What next?

Armed with a list of relevant national awareness days, the next step is to brainstorm ways that you could make them relevant to your business or personal story. Then, plot out your content ideas into a content plan.

Plotting the content ideas into your calendar will give you structure and clarity on what content to create each week.

Then, simply bulk out your content plan with other types of content including client testimonials, personal stories, business updates, authority or opinion pieces and more. If you’re short of social media content ideas, don’t miss my article with 33 social media content ideas for photographers.

Just don’t forget to create content well in advance of the actual awareness campaign you’ve identified as relevant, especially if you plan to approach the media to try and secure some free PR! The media often produce their content well in advance, so last minute submissions are less likely to prove successful.

No relevant awareness days to your photography business? Create your own!

There’s even the scope to create your own awareness campaign if you find that there isn’t anything relevant to your particular photography niche. That’s exactly what dog photographer Kerry Jordan did! In 2018, she established National Dog Photography Day on July 26th.

Despite this being her first attempt at creating a national awareness campaign, it was a huge success and went viral, leading to national and international media coverage! Her hashtag for the campaign also went viral online.

What a huge win for an independent photographer who simply took the initiative and created her own awareness campaign, and in doing so generated valuable publicity for her photography business. Well done Kerry!

It’s entirely feasible that you could create your own awareness campaign too. If there is something that you are passionate about which is aligned to your photography business, then the possibilities are endless.

Why not take a look at the already established awareness days and see if there’s a gap in the market for something new that would help you to promote your genre of photography?

Now you know how to use awareness days, coming up with content ideas will be so much easier!

When it comes to planning your marketing and PR activities for the months or year ahead, I highly recommend that you consider using awareness days to inspire photography content ideas. They will give you a topical hook which you can use to create timely conversations and generate valuable engagement with your audience.

Have a go and let me know how you get on!

If you’re thinking of using national awareness days in your content this year, do let me know in the comments below which awareness days you’re planning to create content around. I’d love to hear from you!