Holidays are golden opportunities that you can use to market your brand and its products or services. According to data revealed by Statista, in 2021, Christmas retail sales in the US alone were expected to add up to over $843 billion. Though, when you’re creating your own social media content calendar, Christmas is by far not the only holiday event that you should add. From quirky events like National Ice Cream Day to more serious days like National Cancer Survivors Day, there are numerous official and unofficial days that you can include in your holiday marketing campaigns.
Celebrating social media holidays can help your brand to improve its organic reach and drive more engagement, especially if you combine it with a relevant hashtag or two. Plus, it can also give you more ideas for social media posts and other types of content. Depending on the event, it can possibly be turned into a chance to share more about your company culture or mission, helping you to increase brand awareness and ultimately connect on a deeper level with your target market.
Whether it’s simply by sending holiday emails to preview your upcoming sale or something more interactive like launching a contest or treating your followers to a giveaway, there are many ways that you can include these dates on the calendar in your social media strategy. It can also be a great opportunity to encourage followers to send user-generated content.
To help you create your own marketing calendar, here are eight of the best free social media holiday calendars that you can check out. Some of them merely list a bunch of events, while others give you the option to sync it with your Google Calendar. We’ve also highlighted a few of the most interesting events, though, be sure to look at the actual templates for many more ideas and important dates.
Social Media Holiday Calendars:
8 Free Social Media Holiday Calendars
1. Hootsuite
Hootsuite has created a social media holiday calendar for 2022 that you can add to your Google Calendar. All you need to do is click on the “+” icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the calendar and give permission to add the social media holidays to your Google Calendar. Alternatively, if you don’t want to crowd your Google Calendar with too many absurd events that you’ll never include in your content marketing strategy, you can simply bookmark the calendar and return to it at the beginning of each month.
Some of the interesting events that they’ve added to their calendar include:
- January 4: National Trivia Day
- January 15: National Hat Day ?
- January 17: Ditch Your Resolution Day
- February 9: National Pizza Day
- February 14: Safer Internet Day
- February 9: National Pizza Day
- March 1: Zero Discrimination Day
- March 18: Global Recycling Day
- First Friday of April: Walk to Work Day
- April 7: National Beer Day (US) ?
- April 11: National Pet Day (US)
- April 29: International Dance Day
- May 4: Star Wars Day #MayThe4thBeWithYou
- July 7: World Chocolate Day ?
- August 12: International Youth Day
- August 14: National Financial Awareness Day ?
- September 12: National Video Games Day (US)
- December 4: National Cookie Day (US) ?
2. Sprout Social
If hashtags play a big role in your marketing strategy, be sure to check out Sprout Social’s holidays and awareness days resource where they’ve gathered all the top hashtags for 2022. While it’s not a downloadable template, they’ve added them into a Google Calendar with extra awareness days and holidays.
Some of the interesting and popular hashtags that they’ve added to their calendar include:
- January 14: #DressUpYourPetDay ?
- February 17: #NationalRetroDay
- March 26: #EarthHour
- April 22: #EarthDay
- May 4: #MayThe4thBeWithYou
- June 8: #BestFriendsDay ?♀️
- July 24: #NationalTequilaDay
- August 26: #WomensEqualityDay
- September 6: #ReadABookDay ?
- October 31: #Halloween ?
- November: #Movember
- December: #HumanRightsMonth
3. Sociality
Sociality has dubbed their calendar The Definite 2022 Holiday Calendar that you can add to your Google Calendar or download as an .ics file and add it to the calendar that you prefer.
Some of the interesting events that they’ve added to their calendar include:
- January 16: Nothing Day
- January 29: Puzzle Day ?
- February 4: Thank Your Mailman Day
- March 9: National Barbie Day
- March 26: Make Up Your Own Holiday Day
- April 30: Honesty Day (US)
- May 1: Batman Day
- June 1: Say Something Nice Day
- June 21: National Selfie Day
- July 21: National Junk Food Day (US) ?
- August 26: Women’s Equality Day (US)
- September 6: Read a Book Day (US)
- September 13: Positive Thinking Day
- November 11: Origami Day
- November 15: Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day
- December 3: Making a Gift Day ?
4. Emplifi
Emplifi is a unified customer experience (CX) platform that helps brands to meet the expectations of their customers. Since they started, they’ve monitored over 28 million social profiles. So, when it comes to what works on social media, they’re definitely a reliable source.
One of the useful features of Emplifi’s free social media holiday calendar is that they also include a short sentence about the event. This is very useful as the last thing you want is to mistake an event for something else. Sadly, they don’t give you the option to sync it with your Google Calendar or download it in PDF format, though.
Some of the interesting events that they’ve added to their calendar include:
- January 13: National Sticker Day (US)
- January 21: National Hugging Day (US)
- February 8: National Boy Scouts Day (US)
- February 11: National Inventors’ Day (US)
- March 11: National Worship of Tools Day (US) ?
- March 15: Freedom of Information Day (US)
- March 18: National Awkward Moments Day (US)
- April 10: Siblings Day (US and Canada) ??
- April 20: National Look-Alike Day (US)
- April 21: National High-Five Day (US)
- May 21: National Memo Day (US) ?
- May 28: National Hamburger Day (US) ?
- June 2: National Leave the Office Early Day (US)
- June 15: Give Something Away Day
- August 10: National Lazy Day (US)
- September 12: National Day of Encouragement (US)
- September 22: Car-free day
- October 30: National Checklist Day (US)
- November 4: National Candy Day (US) ?
5. Insense
Insense is a creative platform that helps brands to launch social marketing campaigns and create custom creative assets. It’s also a great place where advertisers can find creators. While their free social media holiday calendar that they share on their blog doesn’t have as many events as some of the others, they include some content ideas along with a short description of the event.
Some of the interesting events that they’ve added to their calendar include:
- January 10: National Cut Your Energy Costs Day (US)
- January 24: National Compliment Day
- February 17: Random Acts of Kindness Day
- March 8: International Women’s Day
- April 3: Find a Rainbow Day ?
- April 23: National Picnic Day
- May 16: Love a Tree Day
- August 9: Book Lovers Day ?
- November 3: National Sandwich Day ?
- December 21: Crossword Puzzle Day
6. SocialBee
SocialBee is one of the Social Media Scheduling Tools and, as you would expect, they also share a detailed social media calendar template as a lead magnet on their marketing blog. All you need to do to download it is to type in your email address. The downloadable template is shared in Google Sheets format making it easy to save to your Google Drive.
Some of the interesting events that they’ve added to their calendar include:
- January 14: World Logic Day
- February 22: World Thinking Day ?
- March 10: National Pack Your Lunch Day
- March 31: World Backup Day
- April 21: International Creativity and Innovation Day
- May 24: National Scavenger Hunt Day
- June 30: World Social Media Day
- July 1: International Joke Day ?
- Last Thursday in July: National Intern Day
- August 13: International Lefthanders Day ?
- September 28: National Good Neighbor Day
- November 29: Electronic Greetings Day
- Last Workday of the Year: No Interruptions Day
7. Status Brew
Status Brew is a comprehensive social media management tool. Not only do they support all the main social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube), but also Google My Business.
On their marketing blog, they share a 2022 Social Media Holiday Calendar. While you can’t download their social media holiday calendar as they boldly claim, it’s still a pretty useful list. They’ve summarized the main holiday events per month which you can use to compare to your template. Another handy feature is that they’ve also listed the main hashtag associated with a particular holiday.
Some of the interesting events that they’ve added to their calendar include:
- January 19: National Popcorn Day (US) ?
- Third Thursday of January (April, July, and October): Get to Know Your Customers Day
- January 24: Community Manager Appreciation Day
- February 21: International Mother Language Day
- March 3: World Wildlife Day
- March 8: National Proofreading Day
- March 12: National Girl Scout Day
- March 26: National Spinach Day
- April 27: Denim Day ?
- May 12: National Limerick Day
- May 29: National Paperclip Day ?
- June 21: International Yoga Day
- July 11: National Cheer Up the Lonely Day
- July 17: World Emoji Day ?
- August 15: National Relaxation Day
- September 8: International Literacy Day
- September 12: International Day of Peace ✌️
- October 1: International Coffee Day ☕️
- November 13: World Kindness Day
- December 9: National Salesperson Day
8. Later
Whether you’re a small business owner or social media manager, Later’s free social media holiday calendar is one of our top picks. It’s mainly aimed at the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Not only is it colorful, but it’s also downloadable. So, if you don’t necessarily want to integrate it with your own personal Google Calendar, be sure to check out their calendar. The only downside is that you need to part with your email address.
Some of the interesting events that they’ve included on their social media content calendar are:
- January 10: Houseplant Appreciation Day ?
- January 23: National Pie Day
- January 28: National Fun at Work Day (US)
- February 22: National Margarita Day (US)
- March 3: National Employee Appreciation Day (US)
- April 19: Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day (US)
- April 28: National Take Our Sons and Daughters to Work Day (US) ???
- June 3: National Doughnut Day (US)
- June 4: Hug Your Cat Day ?⬛
- July 10: National Workaholics Day (US)
- August 16: National Tell a Joke Day (US) ?
- September 4: Eat an Extra Dessert Day ? ?
- October 3: National Boyfriend Day (US)
Wrapping Things Up
While these calendars will save time, it’s important not simply to copy and paste all the dates to your marketing calendar. Remember that not every holiday on the calendar will relate to your target audience. There are many random holidays that have been created and several of them are quite laughable like National Clean Off Your Desk Day and National Greasy Foods Day. Even the humble paperclip has its own national day in May.
So, you’ll have to sieve through the events included on the different calendar templates and narrow it down to the ones that your target audience will find relevant. Don’t fall into the trap of creating content for every event.
Also, some days might mark multiple holidays. For example, the 15th of January is both National Hat Day and National Bagel Day. In this case, it’s best to focus on only one holiday. Once again, let your target market guide you and select the one that they will resonate with more.
