If you're someone who likes celebrating birthdays, send your wishes the day before, when you aren't one of 200 messages.
The idea
Who doesn't like a birthday wish? The trouble is everyone else sends theirs the same day, many of them because LinkedIn or Facebook told them to. Yours becomes one droplet in a flood. Shift it one day earlier and it stands out. Treat it as optional: if you genuinely enjoy birthdays, this is how to make yours count.
How to do it
Decide honestly whether birthdays are your thing. If not, skip them and lead with the life events you do care about.
If they are, record birthdays for the people who matter most.
Set the reminder for the day before.
Send a short personal note.
Example
I'm a bad audience for this one. I've told my readers flat out they don't need to wish me happy birthday, and a birthday message from someone who couldn't care less about birthdays is noise. The book's suggestion still holds for people who do care: on a day when everyone sends a quick "happy birthday!" because LinkedIn told them to, wishing someone a happy almost-birthday the day before is a small way to be different.
Watch out for
Automating it. A scheduled, generic "Happy birthday!" is the opposite of the point.
Relatable: If birthdays matter to you, put them on the contact in Relatable and set the reminder a day early. Your phone's calendar can do it too. How-to: Add birthdays and other special dates, Birthday week.
Related frameworks
Event-Driven Outreach: Use moments in their life, from new jobs and kids' milestones to illness and loss, as reasons to reach out between your regular check-ins.
Time-Shift Your Congratulations: When someone changes jobs, send the congrats and then add the notes nobody else sends, one month in and again at one year.
Stand Out: Identical annual gestures become wallpaper. Change the occasion, the timing, the channel or the format, within reasonable bounds, so you get noticed.
The Channel Switch: Respond on a different channel than the one the news came through: a LinkedIn post gets a text, an email gets a call.