BEWARE - AWARENESS DAYS!
Hello there, Fans of Plans. I was having a lovely chat over a brew the other week with MMAP’s super social media scheduler, Hannah, about awareness days/weeks/months. This sparked my idea for this blog – see taking a break aids creativity!
Hannah and I went on to talk about how many awareness events there are – there seems to one for everything, with more awareness events than days in the year. So how does an organisation decide which to champion because you simply can’t do them all. Here are a few tips...
What’s your brand identity
Think about what your company is known for, and I don’t just mean the product you sell or service you provide. I’m talking about what do people associate your company with, for example, it could be for high end service, or maybe it’s helping the local communities. Identity can be very different for an internal or an external audience therefore some awareness days you want to champion to your colleagues, might not be the same ones you champion to your customers, suppliers or clients. So, segmenting your audiences can help you to work out what awareness days different audiences would expect you to be talking about.
Link to your values
If you have company values, make sure that your support to an awareness event can link to one or more of your values. This will help you with my next point... authenticity!
Think authenticity
Being authentic is key. Don’t just jump on a bandwagon. Let me give you an example... if your organisation has a menopause policy it would ‘t be out of place to highlight menopause awareness month (it’s October, by the way!), whereas if you didn’t have a policy in place, it might appear disingenuous to colleagues to be highlighting this awareness event.
Always make sure you can back up your support for an awareness day, week, month with action. If you can’t demonstrate any positive or genuine connection to an awareness event, then stay clear.
Finally, we all know awareness events are a useful and tangible time to remind us of something important, but if it’s that important, it needs to carry on throughout the year, you need to keep up the support.
PS If you want to stimulate your brain outside of the workplace, check out the Philosopher-in-Residence blog – out fortnightly on Thursdays, courtesy of Make Me A Plan’s Principal Planner, Anna Pascoe. Browse the latest edition here:
