March represents a number of issues. For some, it’s time to shake off the final little bit of winter and welcome spring into their lives. For others, it’s all concerning the inexperienced high hats and Irish jigs of Saint Patrick’s Day. However for half the inhabitants, March—or Girls’s Historical past Month—is a time for celebrating simply how far ladies have come, and fascinated by how far there’s to go.
In response to a Q1 2023 Sprout pulse survey, 74% of shoppers imagine that social media has elevated accountability for manufacturers. With these numbers in thoughts, hitting the appropriate notes for Girls’s Historical past Month is crucial. However how do you create content material round variety that resonates and feels genuine?
We spoke to entrepreneurs throughout industries to see what their manufacturers are planning and what they’d prefer to see from their friends this Girls’s Historical past Month. We’re discussing each the icks and beliefs for Girls’s Historical past Month social media concepts.
Why Girls’s Historical past Month Issues
In 1980, then-President Jimmy Carter declared March 2-8 as Nationwide Girls’s Historical past Week. After realizing there’s fully an excessive amount of ladies’s historical past to squeeze into seven days, Congress handed Public Regulation 100-9 in 1987, proclaiming March as Girls’s Historical past Month.
The month has deep significance for ladies, however there’s no monolithic option to have a good time. For some ladies, like Alexa Heinrich, Social Media Supervisor at St. Petersburg Faculty, Girls’s Historical past Month is a supply of vitality and delight. The collective pleasure makes her really feel like she will be able to do something. As she says, “The entire month screams, “I’m lady, hear me roar,” and I find it irresistible.”
Different ladies use Girls’s Historical past Month as an opportunity to decelerate.
Steph Hermanson
Strategic Providers Marketing consultant, Sprout Social
Girls’s Historical past Month is particularly essential for ladies holding positions that merely wouldn’t have been doable even 60 years in the past, akin to CEO at legacy firms like Carol B. Tome of UPS or Michele Buck of The Hershey Firm. March is a time to thank trailblazers for giving ladies in all places entry to new alternatives. Lisa Richards, CEO and Creator of the Candida Weight loss plan, echoes this sentiment, saying, “Girls’s Historical past Month is a reminder that ladies have at all times been a power for change and that we have now the facility to form the longer term. It’s additionally a time to have a good time our collective power, resilience, and dedication.”
Avoiding Girls’s Historical past Month advertising and marketing mishaps
Shoppers more and more determine who to purchase from primarily based on how a model’s values align with their very own. In response to the 2022 Sprout Social Index™, firm alignment with private values is 74% extra essential than it was in 2021.
Nevertheless it’s not sufficient to say you’re aligned. In an period of elevated accountability, shoppers need proof that companies truly care about key points and so they don’t take kindly to lip service. Listed below are some tricks to present your viewers that you simply’re severe about ladies’s points all 12 months spherical—not simply in March.
Have a look within the mirror
Have you ever heard of gender washing? It’s the follow of promoting your product or enterprise as women-friendly whereas supporting patriarchal norms behind the scenes. Gender washing is alongside the identical traces as “greenwashing,” or pretending your product is environmentally pleasant when it actually isn’t, or “pinkwashing,” which is advertising and marketing in direction of LGBTQIA+ people with out doing any work to cease their oppression.
At the moment’s savvy shoppers can spot any sort of “washing” from a mile away. The damaging model impression of coming throughout as a panderer far outweighs any advantages it’s possible you’ll obtain from making a publish that acknowledges the month. As Dana Cass, the Founding father of Cass Content material Studios says, “Many manufacturers can be higher off not posting about identity-based celebrations in the event that they don’t have significant assist for that identification group.”
Earlier than you begin planning your Girls’s Historical past Month advertising and marketing, take an extended take a look at your small business. Have you ever taken steps to deal with the gender pay hole? Is your government crew and board of administrators virtually fully made up of males? Do you’ve a stable DEI plan in place to recruit extra ladies into positions of authority? Do you’ve worker useful resource teams (ERGs) devoted to ladies within the workforce? If the reply to most of these questions isn’t any, you is perhaps higher off sitting this month out.
When you’re in place to place out a message, begin measuring your success. It’s not sufficient to say that your group helps ladies in management. Your shoppers wish to know what share of your management crew is made up of girls, what applications you’ve in place to mentor early-career ladies and metrics on your DEI initiatives.
Alexa Heinrich
Social Media Supervisor, St. Petersburg Faculty
When you can’t again up your dedication, you’re higher off not talking to it. Gone are the times of posting an image of Susan B. Anthony on Instagram and calling it a day. After years of lackluster appeals to underrepresented communities, audiences are uninterested in generic celebration posts.
Make significant connections with ladies
Tokenization, or utilizing somebody for his or her membership in an underrepresented group, is simple to identify in at the moment’s panorama. And shoppers see proper via it. Greater than two-thirds of manufacturers price their exterior DEI management communication, hiring practices or rising various expertise nearly as good or excellent.
Over half (54%) of entrepreneurs report seeing extra inner and exterior communications about DEI applications. However solely 21% of entrepreneurs report that their firm has a longtime DEI crew or program. One thing isn’t including up.
To make content material that appeals to marginalized teams, it’s important to talk with these marginalized teams. Meaning going to the ladies in your office and buyer or model advocate base and discovering out what they’d prefer to see—not only for Girls’s Historical past Month advertising and marketing, however year-round. Your ladies and women-identifying workers aren’t props for use one month out of the 12 months. They’re precious members of your crew with perception that can make your advertising and marketing, and your organization, stronger.
Steph Hermanson
Strategic Providers Marketing consultant, Sprout Social
Girls’s Historical past Month social media concepts that truly work
We’ve talked about potential pitfalls for Girls’s Historical past Month however there are simply as many alternatives to have a good time. This month isn’t nearly ladies’s struggles, it’s about our accomplishments as properly. We’ve established that going generic gained’t repay, so listed here are some concepts to get your Girls’s Historical past Month advertising and marketing plan and social media activism began.
Present your work
When you’ve taken our recommendation and examined your dedication to and success with DEI initiatives, you in all probability have some knowledge readily available. That knowledge will be invaluable on your Girls’s Historical past Month content material technique.
As an example, Sprout Social’s 2023 Range, Fairness and Inclusion Report exhibits breakdowns of the crew and management by gender and highlights technique and operations infrastructure efforts to maneuver the needle. This type of concrete content material exhibits your dedication to ladies and provides a glimpse into your organization tradition. And protecting your clients engaged along with your tradition can have a huge impact. Two-thirds (66%) of shoppers agree that posting about firm tradition impacts their connectedness with the corporate. That connectedness instantly impacts your backside line, with 77% of shoppers prepared to extend their spending with manufacturers they really feel related with.
Dana Cass
Founder, Cass Content material Studios
Train your viewers one thing new
Folks love enjoyable information. Girls’s Historical past Month is a superb alternative to point out off your data and train your clients one thing new within the course of.
Over half (54%) of social media customers who spend an hour or extra on-line discover instructional content material partaking, and a comparable quantity (49%) are more likely to share it with their networks. There’s one caveat although. The content material must be related to your model and your viewers. Nellie Bly was an interesting historic determine and an advocate for ladies’s rights, however except your product caters to undercover journalism, the content material will simply appear generic.
Studying with RIK is a child’s studying incentive subscription field with the aim of motivating youngsters to learn extra. For Girls’s Historical past Month, they’re planning on sending out books by and about ladies–and sharing a few of these tales on their social media accounts. Ashley R. Cummings, the CMO of Studying with RIK, thinks it’s essential to teach each youngsters and households with their product and their social media presence displays that. Their instructional content material doesn’t really feel compelled or generic because it’s seamlessly tied with their product providing.
Categorical your crew spirit
They are saying charity begins at residence. If that’s true, then recognizing the facility of girls ought to start along with your crew. You might spend hours researching well-known ladies who’ve had an impression in your trade. Alternatively, you can simply discuss to the ladies who make an impression in your crew on daily basis.
Over two-thirds of entrepreneurs (81%) and over half of shoppers (66%) agree that manufacturers posting about their workers positively impacts clients’ view of their firm. Posting concerning the unimaginable ladies in your crew will not be solely a fantastic Girls’s Historical past Month social media thought, but it surely’s additionally data-driven. Creating profiles of your teammates’ accomplishments, strengths, targets and tales is a wonderful begin on your content material technique.
It’s who you realize
Your inner crew isn’t the one inspiration supply on your Girls’s Historical past Month social media concepts. It’s a fantastic alternative to spotlight different ladies in your community, whether or not they’re distributors, clients or companions.
Tom Leighton, COO of Sofary, a lighting enterprise, will likely be that includes ladies who’ve damaged obstacles within the male-dominated trade. Their listing contains producers, retailers, suppliers and distributors. His hope is that seeing these tales will encourage the following era of girls and assist create a extra inclusive atmosphere throughout the trade.
Libby Diament, Founder and Designer of Diament Boutiques in Washington D.C., highlights sturdy ladies and girls’s points on her enterprise’s social media pages frequently. However for Girls’s Historical past Month, she’s taking it a step additional by highlighting women-owned companies in her provide chain.
However you don’t should cease on the tales of others. When you’re a lady in enterprise, you positively have one too. Posting about your personal journey, obstacles and achievements will be simply as inspiring as studying one other story from the historical past books. You’ll be able to even take it a step additional by providing your time, recommendation and assist to ladies who’re making an attempt to interrupt into your trade.
Libby Diament
Founder and Designer, Diament Boutiques
Reaching each lady
Girls’s Historical past Month is a chance to study, replicate and have a good time. However similar to any outreach try, it must be genuine to your small business and your viewers. Girls’s Historical past Month represents a wealthy alternative to attach along with your clients and prospects. With a considerate method, you may deepen your relationships with ladies throughout your community.
Is your model prepared to start out addressing cultural moments on social? Study extra about the way to decide that are best for you to behave on.
