Guide to creating a content calendar for social media
If you’ve been following inbound marketing best practices , you should have a content calendar for your blog and your email newsletter, and even an editorial calendar that includes both. But what about social media posts? Your blog’s CMS likely has a social media publishing feature, so those posts go live on a pre-set schedule right after each one is published. What about the rest of your posts? Are you winging it?
Now is the time to gather your social media ideas and organize them. People are creatures of habit, and just like your email newsletter subscribers, your social media followers probably check their favorite platforms at roughly saudi arabia numbers he same time every day. So, you'd want to post those messages at regular intervals to match up, not to mention your unique announcement messages that correspond to upcoming campaigns, discount offers, and other deals exclusive to your social media friends.
In short, it's time to create a social media calendar.
That's right, the same format that keeps your blog and emails organized and going out on time can be modified to do the same for your social media posts and updates. Responding to comments and continuing the conversations is up to you.
Why it pays to organize your social media posts in advance
With a few differences, this list will resemble why you should have a blog content calendar. First, social media posts should happen multiple times a day across multiple platforms. That means more discrete pieces of content, even if they are measured in character count rather than word count.
Secondly, the cross-platform nature of social media means that you have to manage more content and how you say what you say on each platform. That adds a layer to your calendar, as you don't want to post the same sentence on every platform.
For example, let’s say you’re working on an announcement for an upcoming conference. The way you word it in a tweet will be very different from the caption you use alongside the image you post on Instagram. And both will differ from the professional announcement you post on your LinkedIn feed.
Don't sell yourself short.
Organizing your social media posts in advance will prevent you from waking up on Thursday and realizing that your Facebook followers were expecting a new post that morning. Because you check your calendar regularly and use automation software, that post was queued up on Tuesday and published while you were drinking your coffee.
Similarly, having a social media content calendar ensures that new team members can come onboard and see the strategy you’ve laid out. Along the same lines, many companies include a set of brand personality guidelines alongside their content calendar so that critical information is in one place for new hires and those in other areas of the company.
Work on content for holidays and special events.
Along with scheduling your regular update posts, you can space out special announcements, holiday deals, and more. By giving you an overview of your social media posts, you can see when the time is right for each particular post, without crowding them or overloading other news that you want to make sure stands out on your timeline.
Efficiency, to win!
72 % of B2B marketers attribute the success of their social media marketing efforts to the effectiveness of using a content calendar. When you do social media for B2B and you’re on a team and need to coordinate, you sit down to put together your next batch of updates and posts; having your calendar in front of you will keep you working smart and efficient.
Get creative again.
Chances are, you didn’t get into marketing because you love organizing and scheduling. You got into it because you’re creative and love working with people and sharing your company’s vision and brand. Using a social media content calendar frees up your time by removing routine scheduling and last-minute tasks from your day-to-day, allowing you to get back to being creative and working on the intuitive aspects of your role.
Channel differentiation is key.
We've talked about this before, but it bears another mention. You don't want to post the same update on multiple social networks. It looks lazy if your audience members follow you on multiple sites. Add to that the fact that each platform has its own flavor and tone, and you can see why using the calendar to design pieces for each network individually can be worthwhile.
Tips to start creating your own social media content calendar
As with many of the topics we dive into here on the Marketing Aspiration blog, there are ways to do this cheap/free, and that's going to be our focus today as this article aims to get you up and running with your social media content calendar .
For starters, you probably have a Google account. You might even use G-Suite for Business. That means you have access to a suite of productivity tools that are ideal for this. Take Google Sheets, G-Suite’s spreadsheet app, for example. Grab a calendar template, share it with your content team, and start creating.
Or you can look more specifically at project management-oriented tools like Trello or Asana. These offer free options with slightly limited features to get you started. Create a Kanban board for each social network you use, share them, and start posting. One advantage is that you can link documents in Drive or other cloud storage sites so everyone can access them from the calendar.
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Automate for a truly efficient experience
Once your calendar is ready and you’re making progress with scheduled social media updates, it’s time to move to the next level of efficiency by automating your posting activities.
Several tools can combine setting up a content calendar with the ability to automatically post to multiple social media channels from a unified dashboard or app.
Hubspot : This all-in-one CMS/CRM suite focuses on content marketing and lead generation . In this regard, it offers several modules that allow you to manage your calendar and schedule social media posts from the same dashboard where you schedule blog posts. This keeps everything organized and easily accessible for your content team.
Hootsuite : Specifically designed for the world of social media, this management app allows you to manage your entire social presence in one place, with advanced scheduling and the ability to even respond to comments from the same place.
Buffer : Similar to Hootsuite in execution, Buffer adds basic CMS and CRM functionality. So if you don't have these tools yet, this is a great way to get started.
WordPress Plugins – WordPress powers the vast majority of websites, and as such, it has a robust plugin ecosystem. You can turn your main CMS console into a one-stop shop for blogging, contact list management, and social media scheduling.