March represents a whole lot 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 girls have come, and serious about how far there may be to go.
In accordance with 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 best notes for Girls’s Historical past Month is crucial. However how do you create content material round range 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 totally an excessive amount of girls’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 method to rejoice. For some girls, like Alexa Heinrich, Social Media Supervisor at St. Petersburg Faculty, Girls’s Historical past Month is a supply of power and satisfaction. 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 adore it.”
Different girls 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 vital for ladies holding positions that merely wouldn’t have been attainable even 60 years in the past, equivalent to CEO at legacy corporations like Carol B. Tome of UPS or Michele Buck of The Hershey Firm. March is a time to thank trailblazers for giving girls all over the place entry to new alternatives. Lisa Richards, CEO and Creator of the Candida Food regimen, echoes this sentiment, saying, “Girls’s Historical past Month is a reminder that ladies have all the time been a pressure for change and that now we have the ability to form the long run. It’s additionally a time to rejoice our collective energy, resilience, and dedication.”
Avoiding Girls’s Historical past Month advertising mishaps
Customers more and more resolve who to purchase from based mostly on how a model’s values align with their very own. In accordance with the 2022 Sprout Social Index™, firm alignment with private values is 74% extra vital 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 really care about key points and so they don’t take kindly to lip service. Listed here are some tricks to present your viewers that you just’re critical about girls’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 apply of selling your product or enterprise as women-friendly whereas supporting patriarchal norms behind the scenes. Gender washing is alongside the identical strains as “greenwashing,” or pretending your product is environmentally pleasant when it actually isn’t, or “pinkwashing,” which is advertising in the direction of LGBTQIA+ people with out doing any work to cease their oppression.
As we speak’s savvy shoppers can spot any kind of “washing” from a mile away. The unfavorable model impression of coming throughout as a panderer far outweighs any advantages chances are 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 id group.”
Earlier than you begin planning your Girls’s Historical past Month advertising, take an extended take a look at your online business. Have you ever taken steps to handle the gender pay hole? Is your government staff and board of administrators nearly totally made up of males? Do you’ve a stable DEI plan in place to recruit extra girls into positions of authority? Do you’ve worker useful resource teams (ERGs) devoted to girls within the workforce? If the reply to most of these questions is not any, you is perhaps higher off sitting this month out.
Should you’re in a very good place to place out a message, begin measuring your success. It’s not sufficient to say that your group helps girls in management. Your shoppers need to know what share of your management staff is made up of girls, what packages you’ve in place to mentor early-career girls and metrics in your DEI initiatives.
Alexa Heinrich
Social Media Supervisor, St. Petersburg Faculty
Should you can’t again up your dedication, you’re higher off not chatting with 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 girls
Tokenization, or utilizing somebody for his or her membership in an underrepresented neighborhood, is straightforward to identify in immediately’s panorama. And shoppers see proper via it. Greater than two-thirds of manufacturers price their exterior DEI management communication, hiring practices or rising numerous expertise nearly as good or excellent.
Over half (54%) of entrepreneurs report seeing extra inside and exterior communications about DEI packages. However solely 21% of entrepreneurs report that their firm has a longtime DEI staff or program. One thing isn’t including up.
To make content material that appeals to marginalized teams, it’s a must to talk with these marginalized teams. Which means 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, however year-round. Your girls and women-identifying workers aren’t props for use one month out of the 12 months. They’re helpful members of your staff with perception that can make your advertising, and your organization, stronger.
Steph Hermanson
Strategic Providers Marketing consultant, Sprout Social
Girls’s Historical past Month social media concepts that really work
We’ve talked about potential pitfalls for Girls’s Historical past Month however there are simply as many alternatives to rejoice. This month isn’t nearly girls’s struggles, it’s about our accomplishments as nicely. We’ve established that going generic gained’t repay, so listed here are some concepts to get your Girls’s Historical past Month advertising plan and social media activism began.
Present your work
Should you’ve taken our recommendation and examined your dedication to and success with DEI initiatives, you most likely have some knowledge readily available. That knowledge might be invaluable in your Girls’s Historical past Month content material technique.
For example, Sprout Social’s 2023 Variety, Fairness and Inclusion Report exhibits breakdowns of the staff and management by gender and highlights technique and operations infrastructure efforts to maneuver the needle. This sort of concrete content material exhibits your dedication to girls and provides a glimpse into your organization tradition. And retaining your prospects engaged together with your tradition can have a big effect. Two-thirds (66%) of shoppers agree that posting about firm tradition impacts their connectedness with the corporate. That connectedness straight impacts your backside line, with 77% of shoppers prepared to extend their spending with manufacturers they really feel linked with.
Dana Cass
Founder, Cass Content material Studios
Educate your viewers one thing new
Individuals love enjoyable info. Girls’s Historical past Month is a superb alternative to indicate off your data and train your prospects one thing new within the course of.
Over half (54%) of social media customers who spend an hour or extra on-line discover academic content material participating, and a comparable quantity (49%) are more likely to share it with their networks. There’s one caveat although. The content material needs to be related to your model and your viewers. Nellie Bly was a captivating historic determine and an advocate for ladies’s rights, however until 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 objective of motivating kids to learn extra. For Girls’s Historical past Month, they’re planning on sending out books by and about girls–and sharing a few of these tales on their social media accounts. Ashley R. Cummings, the CMO of Studying with RIK, thinks it’s vital to coach each kids and households with their product and their social media presence displays that. Their academic content material doesn’t really feel pressured or generic because it’s seamlessly tied with their product providing.
Specific your staff spirit
They are saying charity begins at residence. If that’s true, then recognizing the ability of girls ought to start together with your staff. You can spend hours researching well-known girls who’ve had an impression in your trade. Alternatively, you would simply discuss to the ladies who make an impression in your staff daily.
Over two-thirds of entrepreneurs (81%) and over half of shoppers (66%) agree that manufacturers posting about their workers positively impacts prospects’ view of their firm. Posting concerning the unbelievable girls in your staff isn’t solely a terrific Girls’s Historical past Month social media thought, nevertheless it’s additionally data-driven. Creating profiles of your teammates’ accomplishments, strengths, objectives and tales is a wonderful begin in your content material technique.
It’s who you recognize
Your inside staff isn’t the one inspiration supply in your Girls’s Historical past Month social media concepts. It’s a terrific alternative to focus on different girls in your community, whether or not they’re distributors, prospects or companions.
Tom Leighton, COO of Sofary, a lighting enterprise, will probably be that includes girls who’ve damaged limitations within the male-dominated trade. Their checklist 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 surroundings throughout the trade.
Libby Diament, Founder and Designer of Diament Boutiques in Washington D.C., highlights sturdy girls and ladies’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. Should you’re a girl in enterprise, you undoubtedly have one too. Posting about your individual journey, obstacles and achievements might 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 girls who’re attempting 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, mirror and rejoice. However similar to any outreach try, it needs to be genuine to your online business and your viewers. Girls’s Historical past Month represents a wealthy alternative to attach together with your prospects and prospects. With a considerate strategy, you possibly can deepen your relationships with girls throughout your community.
Is your model prepared to start out addressing cultural moments on social? Be taught extra about how one can decide that are best for you to behave on.
