PR hooks for August!
August is knocking on the proverbial door and it’s time to start thinking about how your PR can engage with what’s happening in August. Whether that be an awareness, working with a trending news, or focussing on something you are doing this month.
In the media, August is called ‘silly season’ and it a great opportunity for newsjacking! Newsjacking is where you can engage with a trending news topic and relate it to your business, your work, or how you engage with a community.
An example of this could be that it might be a trending news topic that now school is out for the summer, young people are needing access to a place for hot meals. Therefore, your business supports, raises money for, or provides free meals for young people outside of the school terms. Newsjacking!
Newsjacking in August is a great way to get involved in your local press and reminding them that you and your business have stories to tell. Especially over the summer. If there is a trending topic, how is your business engaging with it?
A great place you can engage with those stories are watching local newspapers, sporting events, social media trends, and bigger news stories. Examples of typical and more predicable trends would be Wimbledon, summer content, WEATHER, allotments, parks, or gardening.
Awareness days are a fantastic way to engage with August. You can do this on your blogs, social media, with your larger stories. August marks National Dog Month, International Peace Month, and National Wellness Month.
There are also Awareness Weeks: National Marine Week (24th to 8th August), World Breastfeeding Weeks (1-7th August), and Northern Christmas Week (16th to 22nd August).
Awareness Days you could engage with:
- 3rd Sisters Day
- 4th National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
- 8th World Cat Day
- 9th Book Lovers Day
- 13th International Left Handers Day (A big day in my dairy!)
- 15th VJ Day
- 18th Bad Poetry Day
- 20th National Radio Day.
- 21st World Entrepreneurs Day.
- 22nd New Moon
A key theme is holidays as school is out for summer, and a lot of families will be travelling. If you are travelling, could you comment on something? Provide a blog or post for when you come back? How can you link your business to going on holiday? This topic is ripe for the picking.
- As always try to ask yourself the following questions:
- Is there an anniversary in your business this month?
- Are you speaking at an event this month?
- Running an event?
- Raising money?
- Are there any awareness weeks or days that perfectly align with your business?
Planning ahead is the best policy and getting social media and blog topics ready will be essential to your business thriving. You can then curate and plan your media outreach. If you want to help develop your business’ PR, you can get access to a Scott Media social media diary which has all this information and MUCH MORE.