Plan your 2020 content around events and holidays

One way to make your content timely and interesting is to build it around events and holidays, big and small. Audiences are international, so it can be helpful to know about holidays worldwide. And, depending on your audience, it's also worth considering niche and internet-based events (like National Bird Day or Talk Like a Pirate Day).

The important thing is to plan your holiday-related content far enough in advance that you have time to write a blog post or shoot a video that your audience will find interesting and entertaining.

YouTube, for example, suggests creating content around "tent-pole events", with some specific suggestions for health and fitness channels, beauty channels, and food channels. And they suggest creating a programming calendar and generating buzz for your event-related videos.

And AdSense suggests that you can combat the usual post-December-holiday drop in traffic and earnings by focusing on other seasonal peaks, from Lunar New Year (January 25th) to Ramadan (April 23).

I'm thinking about it, because one of my goals for 2020 is to create more content in advance, to make it easier to post more frequently.

While you could compile your own list of holidays and events there are a number of free calendars you can use. They are aimed at marketers and social media managers, which are two of the hats creators wear when they promote their own content and run their own social media accounts.

These calendars overlap, but as they are in different formats and have different emphases. It's worth at least taking a peek at all of them.

• Vimeo 2020 video marketing calendar.
  Region: International, appears weighted toward US & Canada.
  Format: Google Calendar
• Twitter 2020 marketing calendar.
  Regions: US & Canada,  UK & Ireland, Middle East 
  Format: PDF file
• Search Engine Journal Ultimate Marketing Calendar for 2020
  Region: Mostly(?) US
  Format: planning spreadsheet with dates uploadable to Google Calendar, plus list on web page

It's also worth finding calendars related to your specific niche, from geek holidays to entertainment-related awards to fashion events to cat-related holidays. And Wikipedia has an article for happenings every month of the year (for example, January).

January 2020 Events and Holidays

Here's a sample of what's happening in January.

• January 1: New Year's Day, World Day of Peace
• January 2: National Science Fiction Day
• January 4: London Men's Fashion Week
• January 5: Golden Globe Awards, National Bird Day, Twelfth Night
• January 7: Consumer Electronics Show (CES)
• January 9: Winter Youth Olympics
• January 13: Coming of Age Day (Japan)
• January 14: Paris Men's Fashion Week
• January 15: Wikipedia Day, National Bagel Day
• January 20: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; Australian Open, Blue Monday
• January 21: Squirrel Appreciation Day (example post with cute pics)
• January 21: World Economic Forum
• January 20: Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week
• January 24: International Day of Education
• January 25: Lunar New Year
• January 26: Grammy Awards, Australia Day
• January 27: International Holocaust Remembrance Day
• January 28: Data Privacy Day

Feel inspired? 

Image: Calendar by tigerlily713 on Pixabay (Free for commercial use)