Business Advice

Social Media for Business

Benefits of Using Social Media

Social media is a great way to connect your business with new customers and build relationships with your existing customers. When used consistently and correctly it can be a great cost effective marketing and customer engagement tool.

Using visual and engaging content on social media will help drive traffic to your other digital marketing platforms, including your website, and help improve your ranking in search engines.

Using social media helps reinforce your brand and gives your business a voice. It helps you showcase your business and helps influence potential customers.  

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This is durham
(Consumer Information)		Visit County Durham
(Corporate Information)		Discover Durham
(Groups and Travel Trade)		Culture County
Facebook/thisisdurham/VCDBusiness@CultureCounty
X@thisisdurham@VCDBusiness@Discover_Durham@CultureCounty
LinkedIn/visit-county-durham
Instagram@thisisdurham@CultureCounty
YouTube/thisisdurham

Key hashtags

A great way to reach people on social media who don’t follow your pages is to use #hashtags. Simply put, a hashtag (#) is a label for posts shared on social media. It helps users who have a specific interest to quickly find content on the same topic by searching for a hashtag, or to join in by using the hashtag in their own posts. By using a trending hashtag, all users searching for it can see your post, regardless of whether they are following your page, helping you reach new audiences. Hashtags can be used across all platforms not just twitter.

Below are a few examples of some of the hashtags we use when posting on social media –

Visit County Durham hashtags - #Lovedurham #Tastedurham #NorthernSaints #DurhamDarkSkies #DurhamOnScreen

Culture County hashtags - #DurhamCultureCounty

Place Brand hashtag: - #DurhamUK

Other useful hashtags - #NorthEastHour (Monday 8-9pm and Tuesday 2-3pm) #Latebookinghour (Monday 7-8pm) #mondaymotivation #traveltuesday #weddinghour (Wednesday 9-10pm) #wednesdaywisdom #tbt #throwbackthursday #ukholidayhour (Thursday 8.30-9.30pm) #nefollowers (Thursday 2-3pm) #flashbackfriday #followfriday #ff #fridayfeeling #connectfriday #weekendhour (Saturday and Sunday 11am-12pm) #selfiesunday #sundayfunday #englandhour (Sunday 9-10pm) #VisitEngland #VisitNorthEastEngland #LoveGreatBritain

Awareness days

Throughout the year link your social media activity with things that are trending. By utilising trends such as national days, major events and awareness days you can amplify your message and reach/engage with new followers.

New awareness days and celebrations are created all the time, our best advice would be to start to create your own calendar with trends, national days, holidays and events which work best for your business.

Below are examples of some of the main days and events we link our social media activity to. No matter what time of year, you’re guaranteed to find something that happening that day, month or week which will help you create engaging content.

  • Veganuary – All Month #vegnauary
  • Walk your Dog Month – All Month
  • Heritage Treasures Day - 11 #heritagetreasures
  • National Bird Day - 5
  • Museum Selfie Day – 15 #museumselfieday
  • Blue Monday - 20
  • Take a Walk Outdoors Day - 20
  • Museum Selfie Day – 21 #museumselfieday

  • National Wedding Month – All Month
  • World Wetlands Day - 2
  • Global Movie Day – 14
  • Valentines Day - 14
  • Chinese New Year – (Year of the Horse) 17 – Durham City celebrations take place Saturday 21
  • Love Your Pet Day – 20

  • Women’s History Month – All Month

  • World Wildlife Day – 3

  • National Lottery Open Week

  • World Book Day – 5

  • Global Day of Unplugging - 7

  • British Science Week – 6 - 15

  • International’s Women’s Day – 8

  • English Tourism Week #EnglishTourismWeek – 13 – 22

  • Mother’s Day - 15

  • Disabled Access Day - 16

  • International Day of Happiness - 20

  • Spring Equinox - 20

  • National Proposal Day - 20

  • International Day of Forests - 21

  • World Poetry Day - 21

  • World Theatre Day – 27

  • Move more month (Active for April) all month
  • National Pet Month – All Month
  • National Brunch Month - All Month
  • National Garden Month - All Month
  • National Walking Day - 3
  • Good Friday - 3
  • Easter Monday - 5
  • National Beer Day - 7 #CheerstoBeers
  • National Pet Day - 11
  • International Dark Skies Week – 21 - 28
  • UNESCO International Day For Monuments and Sites - World heritage day 18
  • Earth Day – 22 #EarthDay2025
  • National Picnic Day - 23
  • World Art Day - 15
  • National Coach Week  8 - 12 April
  • National Gardening Week  27 April to 3 May

  • National Walking Month  – All Month #walkthismay
  • National Photography Month – All Month
  • Harry Potter Day - 2
  • Space Day - 1
  • International Dawn Chorus Day – 5
  • National Coach Week  - 12 – 18
  • Love your local market  15 - 30 #LYLM2025
  • World Cocktail Day - 13
  • National Train Day - 9
  • Global Accessibility Awareness Day - 21
  • International Museum Day – 18

  • National Great Outdoors Month – All Month
  • Pride Month – All Month
  • World Wellbeing Week 24  to 30
  • Volunteer's Week - 1 - 7 June
  • National Fish and Chips Day - 5
  • National cheese day – 4
  • World Environment Day - 5
  • World Gin Day - 13
  • UK National Bike Week– 9 - 15
  • World Oceans Day  - 8 #WorldOceansDay
  • National Get Outdoors Day - 8
  • World Gin Day - 14
  • Nature Photography Day - 15
  • International Waterfall Day - 16
  • National Go Fishing Day - 18
  • Father's Day - 21
  • Summer Solstice - 21
  • World Music Day - 21

  • National Picnic Month – All Month
  • National Ice Cream Month – All Month
  • National Meadows Day - 1
  • World Chocolate Day  - 7 #WorldChocolateDay
  • National Ice Cream Day - 19
  • World Emoji Day  - 1#WorldEmojiDay
  • Love Parks Week – 24 - 31

  • National Fishing Month – All Month
  • International Beer Day – 7
  • National Mustard Day - 1
  • Afternoon Tea Week- 10 - 16
  • World Photography Day  - 19 #WorldPhotoDay
  • Thoughtful Traveller Day - 12
  • National Beach Day – 30

  • Back to Hogwarts Day – 1
  • National Wildlife Day  – 4 #NationalWildlifeDay
  • National Hotel Employee Day – 1
  • Autumn Solstice - 23
  • World Rivers Day - 27
  • World Tourism Day - 27
  • World Maritime Day – 24

  • Vegetarian Month
  • International Coffee Day - 1 #ICD2026
  • World Vegetarian Day - 1 #WorldVegetarianDay<
  • National Poetry Day - 1 #NationalPoetryDay
  • International astronomy Day - 12
  • World Golf Lovers Day 4 #GolfLoversDay
  • World Animal Day  - 4 #WorldAnimalDay
  • World Space Week - 4 - 10 #WorldSpaceWeek
  • World Habitat Day – 5 #WorldHabitatDay
  • World Architecture Day - 5 #WorldArchitectureDay
  • National Curry Week 4 - 12 #NationalCurryWeek
  • UK Coffee Week 12 - 18 #UKCoffeeWeek
  • International Artist Day – 25 #InternationalArtistsDay
  • Pumpkin Day - 26 #PumpkinDay
  • UN World Cities Day – 31 #WorldCitiesDay
  • Halloween - 31 #Halloween

  • Movember - All month  #Movember
  • All Saints’ Day - 1  #AllSaintsDay
  • World Vegan Day - 1 #WorldVeganDay
  • Stress Awareness Week 2 - 6 #StressAwarenessWeek
  • National Spa Week 2025 - 29 Oct - 5 Nov #NationalSpaWeek
  • Purple Tuesday - 3 #PurpleTuesday
  • Guy Fawkes Night (Bonfire Night)  - 5 #BonfireNight
  • Diwali  - 8 #Diwali
  • Armistice Day - 11 #ArmisticeDay
  • National Take Hike Day - 17 #NationalTakeAHikeDay
  • World Children’s Day - 20 #WorldChildrensDay

  • British Curry Day –1 #BritishCurryDay
  • English Breakfast Day – 2 #EnglishBreakfastDay
  • International Day of Persons with Disabilities – 3 #IDPD
  • Small Business Saturday – 5 #SmallBusinessSaturday
  • International Volunteers Day – 5 #IVD2025
  • Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day – 8 #TimeTravellerDay
  • Christmas Card Day – 9 #ChristmasCardDay
  • Festival of Winter Walks – 17 Dec – 1 Jan #FestivalOfWinterWalks
  • National Robin Day – 21 #NationalRobinDay