The perfect social media content calendar helps establish consistency in social media marketing. Trends are changing daily. And we understand it’s hard to keep up to date with the latest news without an effective content calendar.
A social media content calendar is the best organizational tool for content planning. Creating an effective and impressive calendar can be challenging. And it becomes extra difficult when you don’t know the basics.
In this guide, you’ll learn about the best hacks for creating the best content calendar that works. Read this article to help drive success in your social media marketing performance.
What’s A Social Media Content Calendar?
Social media content calendars let you plan and schedule your upcoming posts on various platforms. Most, if not all, social media marketers use them for the following:
- Post coordination
- Planning of content to share on social media platforms
- Manage social media campaigns
- Track deadlines
- Review and finalize content before publishing
With a content calendar in place, your brand becomes more strategic in posting. It also helps maintain consistency to keep your target audience interested.
No two social media content calendars are alike. And they can be as simple as scheduling when specific social media posts are published.
But most content calendars are more detailed. Some even provide more high-level information, including the following:
- What social media platform
- The type of content
- Proposed date and time for posting
- The title
- The focus and topic of the post
- If there will be any URLs to be used
- Visuals and their descriptions
When you include these relevant details, you’re creating an initial framework. It’s from that initial framework that you can finalize the content you aim to publish.
Be careful in confusing this with a social media content plan. A social media content calendar includes scheduling when you’ll post content. In contrast, a content plan only gives a detailed rundown of the topics and strategies you wish to use.
Why a Social Media Content Calendar is Essential
A study revealed that 72% of the population uses a social media platform. Your brand should understand your target audience. And your posts should also be consistent.
A detailed content calendar helps drive success to your brand in more ways than one:
Develop Time Management
A social media content calendar lists all the important dates for publishing content. So, of course, its primary benefit is to develop and improve your team’s time management.
Your team can better picture which content should be prioritized with all the topics, dates, and events listed on your calendar.
When there’s better time management, you don’t need to worry about forgetting important dates. Everything is listed on the calendar, so rest assured that everything is in order.
Improve Team Collaboration
When you don’t have a calendar and plan everything in your head, you can also forget to inform your team. This can lead to confusion, especially when another team member has different content in mind.
But when your brand has a social media content calendar, it’s easy to share everything with everyone. When each team member has a copy of the calendar, you can expect all content to be published accordingly.
Also, a social media content calendar ensures transparency among team members. It also makes everyone more responsible. Each team member knows when to prepare, especially when there’s an upcoming post.
Create Cohesive Social Media Marketing Campaigns
Another significant benefit of a calendar is establishing cohesiveness among content posts. Each team member seeing the scheduled content in the future helps ensure consistency across all the posts.
Cohesive campaigns also help create a stronger brand identity. And your brand’s cohesiveness can also help reduce possible errors and save time.
Creating The Perfect Social Media Content Calendar
You don’t need to have the fanciest software when making a content calendar. As long as you know these simple steps, you’re in good hands. Even a simple spreadsheet can be effective in creating the best content calendar.
Review and Keep Your Social Media Goals In Line
Before planning and scheduling posts, you must have a clear idea of your goals on your social media platforms. Creating content pieces and scheduling them is easier when you know your goals.
Also, knowing your goals makes it easier to achieve them with your posts. Before creating a calendar, meet with your team and identify your brand’s SMART goals.
Aside from your goals, the KPIs are also important. They help measure your content’s performance, so it’s important that you also understand them. Having clear goals and KPIs prepares you for creating your social media content calendar.
Review and Audit Your Social Media Accounts
Auditing all your social media accounts is the next step. These accounts serve as baselines for your future content.
Reviewing your accounts can also help you improve your social media content strategy. It also makes it easier to create changes, test them, and adjust depending on the results.
On your social media content calendar, gather all the following information:
- All your account details
- Each social media platform’s specific goals
- Your team member’s duties
- Audience demographics
- Details about your successful social media posts and campaigns
- Campaigns with poor results and areas for improvement
- KPIs that can help you measure success for each platform
A social media content calendar gives your audience what they want. And reviewing the performance of your old posts can help you understand how to improve.
Choose The Social Media Platforms Where You’ll Post
Choosing what you’ll post and where can be confusing with various social media platforms. The key to this step is understanding your target audience.
You must know your audience demographics to know which platform they spend time on the most. This way, it becomes easier to decide on the best content to match your specific group audience.
Content Planning
After reviewing your accounts and identifying your target audience, content planning is next. Social media content planning involves creating categories for all your post types. They can be in the form of:
- Vlogs
- Blogs
- Tutorial videos
- Conversation starters
- Promotions
- Events
- Announcements
Categorizing content also helps you identify the preferences of your target audience. Also, choosing what content to post involves the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule creates a balance on all your content on social media.
According to this rule, 80% of your posts should be all about the following:
- engagement
- information
- Education
And the remaining 20% should be for brand promotion. Aside from creating a balance, the 80/20 rule also helps enhance your brand image.
Social Media’s Rule of Thirds
Aside from the 80/20 rule, social media also has its own rule of thirds. The truth is that posting the same content will eventually bore your audience. And you don’t want that for your brand, do you?
The social media’s rule of thirds allocates the following:
- a third of your content for promotion
- a third for sharing curated content
- the final third for interacting with your followers.
Audit Your Available Resources
Finally, before creating your calendar, audit your resources. This includes knowing how big your team is and what skills each member possesses.
The best team includes videographers, social media specialists, and content creators. These team members working together can create a posting schedule filled with content relevant to your audience.
Schedule Your Posts
After categorizing your future content, creating your posting schedule is the next step. This is also where auditing your previous posts comes in handy. It allows you to notice trends, which can help you decide the days and times you’ll be posting.
Also, creating notes regarding different themes allows for better content organization and planning. And it might also help you achieve the most visibility for your brand. Knowing the best time and day to post on each social media platform is also key.
The following are the current trends for each social media platform:
- Facebook posts: one to times a day
- Instagram: one to three times a day
- Instagram Stories: two to five times a day
- Twitter: three to ten times a day
- LinkedIn: once or twice a day
- Pinterest: three to twenty times a week
But you also need to remember that these are just top suggestions. And you can only achieve an effective posting schedule through constant experimentation.
Experimenting can allow you to make adjustments and refinements. And eventually, you’ll get the best day and time to post for maximum visibility.
After all, playing with multiple posting schedules improves how you understand your audience.
Appreciate Feedback
The final step is having your marketing team approve your proposed calendar. During this stage, you should be open to constructive criticisms and feedback. These can help your content planning improve.
Use the feedback given to you to work on your calendar and improve on it. Also, a clear workflow is essential, so your team knows what’s expected from each member.
Final Thoughts
Knowing the basics of creating a social media content calendar can be challenging. But it becomes easier along the process. You want a calendar that can boost your marketing campaigns and brand visibility.
Follow the steps mentioned in this guide. Create the best social media content calendar, and drive success to your brand!