Information in this blog post was obtained from the HubSpot Blog, Social Media Examiner, and Moz.com.
It’s Monday afternoon. After a busy morning of classes, you arrive at work, already mentally exhausted from your test in Marketing Research. With numbers still swimming in your mind, you sit down at your desk to begin another day of your marketing internship. You love your job and are excited for what you will learn today but suddenly… you recall that it’s Monday and your forgot to come up with a Facebook post to connect with you company’s customers this week.
No worries, you think. You can throw something together quickly and publish right away. Then you remember the host of other pressing tasks on your plate for the day. If only you had more time!
Instead of wishing for more hours in the day, you should be thinking about time management. Managing your social media presence across multiple platforms can be extremely time consuming. According to Sophia Bernazzani for HubSpot, creating a social media content calendar can help to avoid the dreaded “productivity killer” that arises from coming up with valuable and engaging social media content on the spot.
Have you ever tried to sit down and write a paper for class, just before the deadline, only to find that you have no inspiration whatsoever? Creating social media content when pushed against a firm deadline can lead to a similar form of creative block. If you want to generate content with the maximum potential to connect with your customers, having time to simmer on ideas can help to produce the best results. Besides, when you take time to consider your individual social media posts as part of a larger content strategy, you will ultimately generate more valuable content for your target audience.
If this isn’t reason enough to start your social media calendar, Bernazzi suggests that this form of planning allows marketers to be more thoughtful by posting different forms of content to match individual platforms. Additionally, a social media calendar allows for tracking of post performance. This essential practice operates in a feedback loop that allows you to create stronger content for your future posts.
So you’re convinced…. A content calendar can help to improve your social media presence and better enable you to engage with your audience. Now, you might be wondering where to begin.
Creating Your Social Media Content Calendar
Luckily, there are many template options that can make the process of starting and customizing your social media content calendar simple. The HubSpot blog post references several calendar templates that provide a great start when it comes to organizing your content. However, Sandra Clayton with Social Media Examiner suggests that they best way to simplify your social media posting calendar is to create your own for your individual needs. When you create your calendar, Clayton recommends that you compose a general heading for each month, followed by rows for each day of the week and calendar dates. Then, add rows for each of your social media profiles.
This flexible format allows you to utilize different numbers of rows for each platform to accommodate for differences in posting frequency. You can also add borders below each week of content to complete your monthly calendar. After creating this document, you should create a separate spreadsheet in which you can store your content for posting. For a step-by-step guide, visit the full blog post.
However, if you are looking for a more detailed calendar that offers a complete layout, the HubSpot Template could be just what you are looking for. This Excel file includes tabs for Monthly Planning Calendar, Content Repository, and Social Network Updates. The Monthly Planning Calendar tab is a bird’s eye view of upcoming social media posts. Meanwhile, the Content Repository keeps a record of published content. Finally, the Social Network Update tab is the drawing board within which you draft and plan your posts for the future.
This file provides even greater benefit as it allows users to color-coordinate types of content for ease in recognizing the content that your audience will receive.
Creating and Planning Your Content with a Strategy
No matter what social media calendar template you select, an extremely important step in your social media plan is creating the content that will be used to fill the calendar. However, before you can start planning, you must have an idea of the strategy you want to use to promote your company and connect with your audience. In a blog post for HootSuite, Christina Newberry and Evan LePage offer helpful tips in the creation of this strategy.
First, it is essential to set SMART goals that can help you define a short-term and long-term strategy that can be tracked with meaningful metrics. Once you’ve defined these goals, you will be ready to learn about your audience and collect data about them so that you can ensure your content is reaching them in a meaningful way.
As you’re analyzing your audience, you should also take a look at what your competitors are doing. This can help you learn what is working and not working within your industry. You can then compare this information to your own social media audit in order to create a strategy that improves your company’s social media presence.
In conducting your audit, you may realize that some social media platforms are more effective when it comes to reaching your target audience than others. Thus, your social media content calendar may focus specifically on these platforms.
When it comes time to create content for the predetermined platforms, you may want to “draw inspiration from other business that are great on social,” (Newberry & LePage, 2021). The HootSuite blog post offers several examples several examples of successful social media marketing campaigns.
The blog also suggests setting up individual goals for your content calendar when it comes to the types of posts that you will use. These types may include curated content, campaign-specific content, holiday posts, events and announcements, and more. No matter what types you choose for your specific target marketing, “placing these different post types in your content calendar will ensure you maintain the right mix,” (Newberry & LePage, 2021).
Ultimately however, any strategies and goals set for your social media efforts should align with the company’s overall marketing goals and broad strategy. The HootSuite blog offers a free template to simplify the development of this strategy. Click here to access the document.
Do It All with Social Media Content Calendars
Thanks to tips and tools like these, you will be well on your way to providing your company’s social media audience with relevant, valuable, and useful content. It all starts with your content calendar. Let’s rewind to your Monday afternoon at work:
You sit down at your desk on Monday afternoon. Though you’re already exhausted from the morning’s classes, you know that you can get right down to business and focus on that project deadline looming at week’s end. Your social media posts have been created in advance and you’ve already scheduled them to the appropriate platforms. Now, you can work on the task before you while also feeling confident that your social media followers will gain valuable information and meaningful communication about your company.
Social media content calendars have helped you get your time back!
Resources:
Bernazzani, S. (2021, September 24). 11 socia media calendars, tools, & templates to plan your content. HubSpot. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-calendar-tools
Clayton, S. (2021, July 27). How to create a social media calendar: a template for marketers. Social Media Examiner. https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-social-media-calendar-template-marketers/
LePage, E. & Newberry, C. (2021, May 14). How to create a social media strategy in 8 easy steps (free template). HootSuite. https://blog.hootsuite.com/how-to-create-a-social-media-marketing-plan/
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