All of us in content marketing know the importance of sticking to a schedule. But this can often be challenging if we’re working on a big scale and with a busy agenda. A social media calendar is a schedule of upcoming content posts and when they will be published on your various handles.
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Prerequisites To Create And Manage Social Media Content Calendar
Social media marketing content creation needs posts that are engaging, across different platforms, and consistent. Before you get started on your social media content calendar, there are a few things from the perspective of marketing strategy that you need to have in place:
- Your Target Audience
- Content Collaboration
- Goals And KPIs
- Quality Content
Your Target Audience
You could start by identifying your buyer persona and their demographics with the following questions:
- What age group do they fall under
- What are their preferences
- What content do they follow
- What gender are they
- Which parts of the world do they live in
- What are their views and opinions
These help you target which platforms to attack and what content to produce. Do you know content writing is one of the best side hustles in 2023?
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Goals And KPIs
Ultimately, your content marketing has to result in increased brand visibility and awareness, generate leads, and create trust. The goals and KPIs you set for your content output, categorized under each platform, content type, etc. will let you plan for the target for each month. Accordingly, you can assess and revise the content calendar prepared for the next months. For instance, one goal could be the number of responses you get to posts published on the platform or the number of times the CTA button has been clicked.
Quality Content
While not every post has to turn heads or be liked by a thousand persons on social media, a certain benchmark has to be set so that you can realistically plan your content output. Your content should not just impact viewers and turn into leads, but also be relevant and useful to the audience. Having no content is better than vague and substandard content.
Having a social media presence is not just about posting content, but also about participating in online conversations and responding to people tagging you and asking you questions. It’s important to figure this out in your social media content calendar.
Content Collaboration
Are there businesses or organizations you can team up with to create collaborative campaigns? These could significantly increase your reach. Be as specific as you can in identifying each other’s roles and responsibilities for smooth execution. Collaborating is a smart marketing strategy that gives you the opportunity to produce more in less time and resources.
Things To Have In Every Social Media Content Calendar
Every social media calendar needs to have some details like
- The content required
- The platforms it will be published on
- The time and date of publishing
- The post description with hashtags and links if any
- The owners and supervisors for each task, if the team is large.
5 Steps To Create Social Media Calendar
After the pre-work has been done, you can go about creating your calendar. Remember to keep your calendar as simple as you can. If you want certain assets to be protected, make sure those are shared in either view-only or edit formats with the persons concerned. Here are some easy steps to set up your social media content calendar over a fifteen-minute call.
- Use An Existing Framework
- Identify Your Platforms
- Categorise Content
- Come Up With Themes
- Chronology
Step 1: Use An Existing Framework
The fastest and most efficient way is to use an existing format and a specialized one at that. It’s a great way to be as specific as possible with the requirements since your social media calendar is very detailed. An existing framework will make sure you omit nothing.
A framework could be in the form of an excel sheet or a visual template that will let you survey your entire calendar in a sweep. This is useful since it lets you plan the subsequent calendars while taking stock of what has worked and what hasn’t. Your framework importantly has to include a section on results, to note successes, opportunities for improvements, and failures.
Although there are many free social media calendar templates available, you can use them accordingly. Templates such as Hootsuite, Buffer, Sproutsocial, Trello, and Asana are good options to get started on your social media calendar, apart from Google Sheets.
Step 2: Identify Your Platforms
According to your business type, domain, and target clientele, the platforms you use for social media marketing will differ. A casual brand might comfortably use Instagram and TikTok, whereas a serious business would prefer to stick to LinkedIn for outreach. Put down the platforms you prefer to publish in, along with the time slots for each.
Step 3: Categorise Content
You need to allot a certain amount of content to meet various categories for a well-rounded content calendar. These include lead generation, educational content, thought leadership, industry content, news items, etc. These will have to be aligned as per your business requirements so that there is a balance between visibility and brand awareness efforts, against the objective of lead generation.
Step 4: Come Up With Themes
The quickest and most convenient way to come up with content is to have a header for each time unit. For example, Mondays could be for business, Tuesdays for sales, Wednesdays for thought leadership, Thursdays for organization, Fridays for lifestyle, weekends for wellness and travel, etc.
Step 5: Chronology
Integrate your content marketing with events such as campaigns, product launches, and important days that are relevant to your business, so that your audience is updated with what is happening at the company’s end. This helps build a relationship with your target audience.
Following these steps along with their prework is an easy and comprehensive way to create a quick social media content calendar. You can also try some pre-made templates that help to plan and organize your upcoming content for various social media. Happy content creation!
