Either way, I’m sure your followers and connections have enjoyed seeing more of a ‘human touch’ with your content. 

Showing your pet on a post really does work with increasing your engagement. 

Whether it’s your beloved cat sat on your keyboard or your dog bringing the post.

It’s a great way to give people a peek at your personal life whilst doing business. After all, it’s called SOCIAL media, so let’s be social every now and again.

Personally, I have noticed a much higher engagement rate when my dog, Storm, features in any of my posts. It’s proven that pets do help with increasing engagement.

It makes sense. After all, a dog is man’s best friend – so why wouldn’t we like to see our furry friends across our socials? 

More reasons to include your pets in your social media posts:

🐾  Animal people are everywhere

🐾  Animal posts receive more engagement

🐾  They’re uncontroversial

🐾  They’re more shareable

🐾  There’s a broader audience

Pets, especially dogs and cats, can reduce stress, anxiety and depression, ease loneliness, encourage exercise and playfulness and can massively help lift our mood. The sole purpose of a therapy dog, to make people feel better. Which is the way it works.

It’s nothing new. In 2016 Newswhip carried out a study and found that some brands saw up to 295% more post comments that featured pets.  You can read this study here.

Your pet dog could really be your new office trendsetter! Just give it a go and see.

We know Newswhip’s research was carried out by analysing 15 brands that regularly featured pets on their Instagram only. However, people are starting to be more human on other more business platforms like LinkedIn. 

I am not saying by any stretch to feature your pet into every LinkedIn post, but every now and again and maybe on a Friday is ok. Think about your audience. What do they care about, and how can you leverage that to engage with them. 

Try it and see what the engagement is like. Everybody’s connections are different and react differently.

Throughout the year, there are many awareness days that might be a good excuse to introduce your furry four-legged friend. 

Here are the pet awareness days that we celebrate internationally and also in the UK::

January, Walk your dog month – maybe post-walk to work.

11-14th March, Crufts – perhaps you are exhibiting or showing your dog?

April, National pet month.

The 15th of June, International working animal day 

The 25th of June, Bring your dog to workday

The 8th of August, International cat day

The 26th of August, National dog day

The 16th of November World horse appreciation day

NB: the above days were based on 2021, and may alter year on year – so please check before posting

Remember your pet-related hashtags.

Remember, if you do post on any of these days, use the relevant hashtag. For example, this is the hashtag #BRINGYOURDOGTOWORKDAY

For the 25th of June, awareness day, Bring your dog to work day. They even have a website for the occasion, have a look here. The reason behind this particular awareness day, is to raise awareness and also donations for a great dog welfare charity. So, what better excuse to take your dog to work.

If you’re looking for a hashtag that is unrelated to an animal awareness day, here are a few ideas:

#PAWSOME (instead of awesome) 

#DogsWorkingFromHome 

#dogsofinstagram

#catsofinstagram

#doglovers

#dogoftheday

#doglife

#itsadogslife

The list goes on. 

You can also use the breed as a hashtag. 

It doesn’t matter what route you choose to go down: your pets are a great win on social media. 

Try and remember this when you’re planning your social media content and try and get them into at least one post a month. They will lead to higher likes and comments. It’s a fun and straightforward way to boost your social media channels. 

Remember if you are looking for inspiration on content, we have our FREE Content Made Easy Masterclass and to go with this why not register for our FREE Content Ideas Notebook  .