May Holidays for Social Media Content Planning

If you dread content planning, try adding in more fun! Make your social media SOCIAL by incorporating content that your audience will want to read, listen to, and engage with.

Batching content from start to finish can seem daunting at first. That’s why I like to start small.

Take a look at the month ahead and fill in any holidays that tie to your brand and also important dates related to your business. Are you launching something new? Do you have something planned that you need to take into account?

When it comes to holidays, only create content around the ones that tie to your brand. Get creative with social media holidays because they are often trending the day of, which could lead to more exposure.

You don’t need to necessarily call out the holiday in your post every time, But the holiday itself may spark a creative idea for content. See my example for Paperclip Day on May 29 below.

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🌼May Holidays + Prompts🌼

May 4: Star Wars Day
Who: artists, illustrators, anyone who loves Star Wars, anyone who loves memes
Prompt: This is a perfect time for a themed quote design or meme! Find trending hashtags to use like #maythefourth. Create a shareable graphic.

(What’s a shareable graphic? Something that will make your viewer feel the need to share it to their IG story for all of their followers to see!)

May 4: Thank a Teacher Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Share a teachable moment by telling a life lesson that your favorite teacher taught you. Relate it back to your current mindset and/or business somehow. Pair with a graphic you create or a photo of yourself.

May 5: Cinco de Mayo
Who: foodies/food bloggers, influencers, illustrators, taco and margarita lovers 😉
Prompt: Share a cooking tip or favorite recipe. Spotlight a local restaurant. Design a shareable graphic with a quote or illustration.

May 6: National Nurses Day
Who: nurses
Prompt: If you’re a nurse in addition to your freelancing career or side hustle, celebrate yourself! Share a storytelling moment that your followers will relate or connect with.

May 7: World Password Day
Who: tech savvy business owners, organization focused business coaches
Prompt: Share your best tips for storing passwords safely. How often should we change them? Do you recommend saving to your computer or only on paper? How safe is our personal info online? How do you track important business info like this? How to handle your client’s passwords? Create a graphic or share a home office photo.

May 9: Europe Day
Who: travel industry, bloggers, influencers
Prompt: Share highlights from a European trip. Share your best tips for someone planning a trip.

May 9: Mother’s Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Share a teachable moment from a mother figure in your life. Pair with a photo or graphic you create.

May 15: International Day of Families
Who: Anyone
Prompt: Share a relatable story that ties to your family.

May 16: Love a Tree Day
Who: plant enthusiasts, artists, illustrators, health & wellness
Prompt: Open this up to anything regarding nature and how it inspires you. Share nature related tips, facts, or a quote.

May 21: National Memo Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Create a “note to self” graphic or write a caption that reflects that and pair it with a photo.

May 21: National Bike to Work Day
Who: lifestyle bloggers, health & wellness, outdoor enthusiasts
Prompt: Share a photo or reel of you on your bike and pair it with a catchy caption. Make your photo/video colorful! Bonus points if you have a super cute bike.

May 28: National Hamburger Day
Who: foodies/food bloggers, local influencers
Prompt: Share your go-to hamburger to make at home or shout out a local restaurant that you support.

May 29: Paperclip Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Share your office set up and top tips for working from home. Make a time lapse of you working and then overlay your tips using IG stories, InShot, or the Reels editor. Share to Reels.

May 31: Memorial Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: The unofficial start of summer. Share your big summer goals for your business and pair this with a colorful selfie outdoors or create a graphic.

If you see a holiday you want to create content for, but I didn’t list your industry, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it :) These are just suggestions for you to get thinking like a creative! Remember to share content that relates, connects, inspires, or entertains.

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Interested in more prompts? Click here to get my free guide of 30 content prompts for small businesses!

would you love to have content prompts delivered to you every month? click here for monthly content planning services!

April Holidays: How to use holidays in your social media content

Official and unofficial holidays are a simple way to fill gaps in your content calendar and they typically get good engagement when done well. If a holiday is coming up and it aligns with your brand or business in some way, consider adding that to your content.

You don’t need to plan the post ahead of time in its entirety, but having a general idea of what you’re going to post means you aren’t scrambling last minute the day of.

Below you’ll see is a list of April holidays for you to start brainstorming your own content. Some are real holidays and others are unofficial. It’s perfectly fine to never use the unofficial ones at all, but if one stands out to you and you can think of something creative to tie to your business, try it out and see how it performs.

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Tips for posting on Holidays

What NOT to post on holidays:
• Random graphic or image you took from Google

What to post on holidays:
• Photo of yourself, your team, your family
• Graphic or illustration that you created
• Reel or TikTok that relates to the holiday
• Share a story about what the holiday means to you

Things to remember:
• Only use these holidays within your social media schedule IF it aligns with your brand!
• Add relevant hashtags to your post for more exposure.
• For national holidays, you’ll start seeing social media posts on the days leading up to the holiday, sometimes even weeks! (Like Christmas and New Years). Think about this when you’re planning your month.

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April Holidays & Prompts

Use these holidays and prompts to fill your content calendar when needed. I listed the best industries/businesses for each holiday and included a prompt. There are endless prompts you can do! Share what makes the most sense for you and your brand.

April 1: April Fools Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Share 4 truths and a lie about yourself. Pair this with a photo of yourself.

April 2: International Children’s Book Day
Who: moms, influencers
Prompt: Share a relatable story or moment about being a mom. Share a creative photo with you reading with your kids.

April 2: National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day
Who: foodies, recipe bloggers
Prompt: Share your version of a pb&j.

April 3: National Handmade Day
Who: makers, crafters, shop owners
Prompt: Showcase some of your favorite products that you make. Make a Reel or TikTok of the process.

April 4: Easter
Who: anyone
Prompt: Keep this one simple and share a few photos. Your family, a walk you took in the morning, your spring decor, a meal you made, etc. If you’re a designer or illustrator, you could create a graphic.

April 7: National Beer Day
Who: restaurants, foodies, influencers
Prompt: Feature a beer or do a local beer roundup.

April 7: World Health Day
Who: health & wellness, fitness
Prompt: Make a Reel or TikTok of a healthy recipe or a favorite exercise

April 7: National Walking Day
Who: health & wellness, fitness, influencers
Prompt: Share your 3 favorite places to walk to. Take a 5 second clip of each walk and turn it into a 15 second Reel or TikTok.

April 11: National Pet Day
Who: anyone with a pet or business related to animals
Prompt: Make a funny and relatable post about working from home and pair it with a Reel/TikTok or a photo of your workspace with your pet in it.

April 12: National Grilled Cheese Day
Who: foodies, recipe bloggers
Prompt: Share your best grilled cheese recipe.

April 14: National Gardening Day
Who: anyone who gardens, plant/landscaping industry
Prompt: Share a photo or a Reel/TikTok of your garden and how you’re prepping for spring.

April 15: World Art Day
Who: artists, designers
Prompt: Share about an artist or a type of art that inspires you.

April 16: World Voice Day
Who: speakers, singers, coaches
Prompts: Share about the importance of using your voice to impact, inspire, or help others.

April 18: International Day for Monuments and Sites
Who: travel industry, influencers
Prompts: Share your top 5 places to visit.

April 18: National Haiku Poetry
Who: designers, letterers, illustrators, writers
Prompts: Find (or write) a haiku and create a graphic to share.

April 22: Earth Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Take a photo outside. Make a Reel or TikTok. Design a graphic. How can you tie something about Earth Day to your brand? Make it entertaining or educational.

April 23: World Book Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Share your favorite mindset, life, or industry related books.

April 29: International Dance Day
Who: anyone
Prompt: Have you been wanting to make a dancing Reel or TikTok? Pick a trend and make one! If your video has humor, add value in the caption or with text bubbles.

How to use Instagram Reels and Educational Carousels to share your expertise

If you have an Instagram account for your business, you know that it’s a lot to keep up with. Not only are there a ton of features, they often change and new ones are introduced throughout the year. Even as a social media manager, I sometimes get overwhelmed, too.

Stories, Reels, IGTV, Lives, Shopping, Guides, Feed, plus captions, graphics, photos, your bio, messages, and engagement – that’s a lot for one person to handle.

If you have a team working alongside you, that’s a bonus. But for most of us solopreneurs and small business owners, it’s just us. So we need to manage our time well on Instagram to avoid overwhelm and burn out.

Here’s one way to do that:

Take a look at your best skills and then use the Instagram features that best pair with those skills.

Before I explain that, it’s important to note how important your Instagram foundations are: stories and feed. Start in those places.

Stories are where you nurture and connect with your audience. Your Feed includes all sorts of things like graphics, photos, and videos. This is where you grow and serve your audience with your expertise and relatable content.

It’s really difficult to grow on Instagram and build a community of ideal clients/customers without curating a valuable feed and consistent stories. So that’s why I say start in those two places.

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Now back to my point about pairing your best skills with an Instagram feature.

Instagram users read content and watch content. I’m going to assume that you either enjoy writing or enjoy speaking. If you like both, that’s even better.

If you love writing, get really good at writing captions and create educational carousels.

Start your caption with a hook and end it with a call to action. Captions can be long or short. Mix it up depending on what graphic or photo you’re sharing. If something warrants a longer, blog-like caption, use line breaks and emojis to make it easier to read.

When your caption gets really, really long, turn that post into an educational carousel. A carousel simply means more than one photo or graphic when you upload, which allows the user to swipe left and right to see more. An educational carousel is a term that’s used on Instagram for carousels that include multiple slides of graphics that teach or inform on a particular topic.

People read quickly on social media and often skim for words or phrases that stand out. When you have really valuable info to share, putting it in a carousel format will likely get more engagement. It’s easier to consume and more enjoyable to look at. If you’re sharing valuable info in your captions, but you are NOT creating educational carousels, you are missing out on potential growth and engagement from your audience because your full caption is only visible if someone clicks on it.

Repurposing tip: Look back at a recent post that had a really long caption. Can that caption be turned into a carousel? Create it using Canva or another design program like Illustrator, or work with a brand designer to create templates that you can use.

IF YOU love speaking, training, and coaching, short-form video is your new best friend.

Don’t waste your time on Instagram trying to write the perfect caption or create a branded graphic when you could just say what you want to say in a Reel. Especially if you don’t even like writing!

Short-form videos are entertaining, easily consumable, and the algorithm loves them. Connect with your audience by using Reels and going Live. IGTV is great for longer videos if you have more to say than what can fit in a 30-second Reel.

Video is the quickest way to grow on social media, so if you are a great speaker or you want to get better at showing your face on camera, Instagram Reels are where you should focus your time. The beauty of social media is that videos don’t have to be perfect. Done is better than perfect.

Repurposing tip: Look back at your Story archive or past feeds posts. Was there a teachable moment that can be repurposed into a Reel? Answer an FAQ, teach a how-to, or share one of your best tips.

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So are you a writer or a speaker or both? Will your feed be filled with videos like Reels or inspiring and educational words in captions and graphics?

You’re using Instagram for your business because you have something to say and something to share – at least I hope so!

Share your expertise in ways that come naturally to you. Your audience will connect with that because it shows authenticity. If you’re trying to be someone you're not, you’ll quickly burn out.

There isn’t a one size fits all for Instagram strategy. There isn’t a magic formula for instant success. Lean into your strengths and share your message the best way you know how.