So now you are done setting up your business and, the next thing that you aim for is to market it effectively or in fact, you might have already started doing that. But, have you ever felt like reaching a dead-end while creating posts for your social media handles? Well, if yes, you aren’t any different from the beginners. It’s natural to feel that way and, the best part – it’s avoidable!
How? Let us tell you. With a properly planned social media content calendar, you can always be on top of your all social postings. And, here are all the how(s) and why(s) of the content calendar.
Why the content calendar for social media?
Never miss dates and events
Being a beauty business, how would you feel if you forget posting something on International Women’s Day? Or if you are a business dealing with dog harnesses and, you forget to celebrate National Dog Day? Pretty dumb, right?
That’s when a social media content calendar comes to your rescue. It helps you to stay ahead of all the significant dates and events to avoid any last-minute rush. If you have a pre-prepared calendar mentioning all the important celebrations related to your brand, the content, as well as the ideas, can be curated well on time. Also, you get to engage with your customers on special dates that matter to them.
Consistency is the key
As a brand that’s looking for growth and engagement, being consistent on social media is pretty necessary. We mean, how would people connect with you if you haven’t posted anything for years? Hence, a social media content calendar.
Being consistent with your social media postings make sure that your followers are engaging with you and, they know that you value their precious time.
Regular posting creates an emotional, as well as, a long-term relationship with your audience which eventually converts into sales. A content calendar will ensure your consistency over all the social media channels.
Variety in content
Without proper planning, you would probably be delivering the same old content to your audience. If you don’t have a plan, you would always stick to what you are already doing. And just saying, no one would ever feel connected to your sales posts every day.
Thus, it’s quite beneficial to put your brain at work beforehand so that it can come up with some engaging and creative ideas. Last-minute hustles never work, trust us! And, even if they do, your team would feel completely restless and pressurised.
Preplan everything and let creativity take over so that there’s variety in your postings and you don’t end up repeating the same old boring stuff. If you want to strike a balance among all your social media channels, content calendar is the key to it.
Encourage Collaborations
A content calendar shared on cloud services like Google Sheets or Dropbox, is a powerful tool for collaborating with the team members or keeping the stakeholders aware of what you are doing.
A common social media content calendar helps to keep all the team members in sync with each other. So, even if someone’s on leave, you would still have something to post.
Time-Saving
Well, if you are wondering that designing a complete content calendar is tiresome, then, no, it isn’t. If you have a month’s content agenda in your hand, you can always post them on time or even schedule them on social media handles.
Having a content calendar saves time and, that’s why you should unquestionably have one.
Effective use of resources
If you are handling your social media channels on your own, well and good. But if you have hired a digital marketing agency for it, they would have a team of professionals including designers, content writers, and social media managers as well to look after your complete marketing.
Planning in such case keeps all the team members in sync without creating a sudden rush and, they are more likely to provide quality work in this situation.
No room for errors
Has it ever happened to you that a post meant for Facebook accidentally gets published on Twitter? Well, if yes, you need to plan a content calendar for social media channels right away.
The pre-planned schedule will allow you to write creative and unique captions for multiple social channels while uniformly segmenting them. With this, you would never commit a sin as huge as cross-channel posting.
Figure out what works
If you are maintaining a proper calendar for all the stuff that goes out on the social media channels, you can always look back and see what works for your audience. What works for Facebook might not work for Twitter!
With a calendar, you can analyse your social media posts and refine them accordingly. And, that’s the only way to figure out your ideal posting schedule for all the channels.
How to plan the social media calendar?
Start by analysing
When it comes down to online marketing, the first step is to study a brand thoroughly. Whether it’s your own business or you’re working for a client, having an in-depth knowledge of it is crucial.
Once you are well-versed with the brand’s target audience, you would be able to cater to them effectively. Based on the business’ requirements, you can divide the social media calendar into segments.
These segments can be sales, campaigns, workshops, e-books, holidays, celebrations, events etc. Once you are done with this, ideating the posts gets easier.
Social media audit
Before planning a new calendar, you will have to audit your current social media postings and figure out the following:
- What all platforms were you posting on?
- Which platform has the higher response?
- What kind of post works for all the platforms?
- At what time the audience connects well?
- Is there any platform that you need to add or omit?
- How many posts are enough for a single day per platform?
- What are your goals for every channel?
- Who all will be handling the posts?
Content audit
Along with the social media audit, you also need to do a content audit so that you can know your audience’s demands better. Not every piece of content works for all social platforms.
Check if your content requires some changes or it needs to be updated.
Know network demographics
Each social media network appeals differently to a distinct audience, which is why you must study network demographics as well. You might have a different set of followers on Instagram and Facebook. Hence, what works on Instagram might not work on Facebook.
Tailor your content efficiently so that your audience can feel the connection and emotional appeal related to it. Once you have studied this, fill up your calendar with the posts that you are planning to do for every social media channel.
Posting Frequency
After doing the social media audit, you will also get some clear air on the frequency of postings for every channel. You can add the number of posts that you will be doing each day in the calendar itself.
Content Repository
It’s better to have a database for content and posts that you wish to share on multiple social platforms. Ideas can come anytime and, the best you can do is make a repository out of them. Whenever something great strikes you, add it to the repository so that you can use it as and when required.
Determine your calendar’s needs
Do you wish to accommodate all the networks in a single sheet or do you want to make a separate one for all of them? Well, this depends entirely on you. The best way is to let your calendar consume as much content as possible because you can always alter it later on.
Input Content
Now comes the most exciting part – filling up your calendar with some impressive piece of content. And, we get it; it’s easier said than done! But it’s also not impossible.
Decide who will be responsible for the content on all channels – is it a single person or more than that? If it’s managed by a group of people, ask them to follow the brainstorming technique and figure out new content ideas.
Invite Clients/Stakeholders to view
Once you are done with all the planning from your end, it’s time to share your hard work with the stakeholders so that they can always have a look at what’s going on.
If they have something new to add to it, go for it. And if they wish to omit something, try to find a common ground.
Scheduling
Finally, schedule your posts well on time so that they reach out to the world even when you are snoozing. Instead of pressing “Post” 20 times a day, it’s always a good idea to schedule all of them at once.
And, that’s all you need to do for designing effective social media content calendar! Though it isn’t that easy, it’s worth all your efforts. We hope these tips would help you designing a super awesome and efficient content calendar for your brand so that you are always ahead of time.
