Do you know – millennials are logged on to social media platforms for an average of 2.38 hours daily? Gen Z logs on for 2.55 hours. There is little doubt as to why social media marketing is a success!

We often look at the massive online campaigns and perfectly timed posts of huge companies with awe. Creating digital marketing content is not a herculean task, but the question of when and how has baffled marketers for years.

Here is where a social media content calendar proves beneficial. A social media content calendar is a plan to chart future social media activities of a firm.

Many of us even find it difficult to manage our own multiple social media accounts. Engaging with social media accounts of organizations definitely needs planning.

What is a Social Media Content Calendar?

Planning your social media activities will help you come up with the right strategy that optimises your efforts to engage with your target audience.

A social media plan in the form of a content calendar will enable you to create quality content in advance. A calendar will also help you in setting deadlines for all your social media content creation. It is a time saver.

Why Does Your Business Need a Content Calendar?

An organization’s success lies in its organizing skills. In the age of digital marketing, charting and following a strategy will help you go a long way. Most of your successful contemporaries are sure to be following such a calendar.

Here are ways in which a social media calendar can save your business.

• A calendar ensures consistency in sharing posts in timely intervals.
• A content calendar will make sure that your followers do not forget your brand for even a day. A well-strategized calendar will engage followers with posts.
• You have the option to work on the insights provided by customers and followers.
• You can easily surpass human errors by following a calendar. A brilliant idea that may have crossed your mind while driving may slip out if you do not put it into a working strategy. A calendar can help you stay in the know.
• Sure enough, a content calendar is you social media marketing saviour. It helps you update constantly and keep all your activities and followers on their toes.

Creating a Social Media Content Calendar

We’ll tell you how to create a content calendar that works. Follow these steps and conquer social media!

1. Setting goals

Any plan needs a goal and so does this one. Each firm will differ in their goals. Chances are that you would have to set similar goals as your competitors.

Brainstorm on what results you seek to attain from social media platforms and make sure that it coincides with your business goals.

Take tour advice and make your goals SMART; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based.

Always remember that these goals are going to be the basis of all of your social media engagement.

2. Assess current engagements

Once the goals are set, you need to know where to start working. It is very important to understand where your organization lies in the growth chart.

This needs a thorough understanding of the current engagements that your firm makes through its social media handles. The engagement can be evaluated using various parameters like the total number of followers, click-through rates, retweets, shares, comments, etc.

A clear understanding of the level of social media activities already carried out will help determine how and how much should be done to reach your target.

You cannot chart a content calendar without having a thorough idea about your spot among your contemporaries.

3. Set an Operating Procedure

When there is a team to handle social media, you need to have an operating procedure explaining how content is created and distributed to different platforms.

The process can start from brainstorming new ideas to posting them on social media.  You need to curate posts and create supporting media items before posting them. This step also calls for assigning the members of the social media team their tasks and duties.

For instance, if you can disperse responsibilities like creating images and posts to an efficient team they will ensure proper quality. Dumping the lion’s share of work on one person will affect the efficiency of your content.

4. Pooling ideas

Brainstorming and pooling ideas for content is the next step.

Ideas should be carefully analyzed for relevance to the goals set. This should be easy given that you already know where you are and how much and what kind of content you need.

Also, make sure that you have all the raw materials that you need for content creation. This includes media associated with your brand or products like product photos, user videos, etc. Always remember that visual content has more impact on people and you need to concentrate on that.

An attractive image or a tempting video will garner more views and feedback that posts with simple texts. Invest more in such appealing posts.

5. Determining the type of calendar you need

The type of content calendar depends on the number of posts that is to be posted on your social media. If the number is low then a monthly calendar would serve the process and a high number will call for a weekly view calendar.

A very high number of posts handled per day will require a daily calendar specifying the exact time that each of the posts has to be made in the platforms. This also has a role to play in the tool that you are going to choose to make the calendar.

6. Choosing a content calendar tool

There are many tools that one can use to make a content calendar, the most popular being Microsoft Excel.

Choosing the tool also call for a clear understanding of the requirements. Google Calendar is also one of the common and advanced tools that give you the benefit of an already set calendar, colour coding, with the addition of special events. Google calendar also has an extremely useful reminder option.

Trello is another platform which allows you to create a visual workflow schedule with ease. Trello gives you the additional feature to assign different duties to people in a team using cards.

7. Sorting

Having a ton of ideas to create content doesn’t help unless you can systematically categorise them.

Social media content can be categorised into images, videos, blogs, announcements, quotes and much more. Content can also be curated based on which platform you suppose to post them on.

The type of content used in every social media platform is different and they should be customized as such.

For example; an image of your product should be posted on Instagram while a catchy line will be best received through Twitter.

Here’s a tip; when sorting through content, try keeping colour codes for different categories to ensure clarity.

8. Updating the calendar

Social media is a very dynamic space which requires constant monitoring. A change in trend would need a complete change in social media coverage.

You will need to update your content calendar schedule according to these changes. Special days and events that happen should also find a place in your calendar.

Every business should work as closely as possible with society. Every special event like a festival or celebration calls for a social media post which would need prior planning and content building.

9. Tracking progress

After the calendar has been set and the media pages are being handled as scheduled, you will want to know the results.

The visible results like the increase in followers, views, comments and likes are to be analysed to check the magnitude of the effect.

Using Google Analytics is also a really good option to know the results like click-through rates and link shares.

Conclusion

The prime goal of setting a content calendar is to schedule what you do on your social media pages and to minimise the time and effort that you take to do it. Always keep in mind your marketing goals and plan your way.

Remember to work smart instead of hard. Spread the responsibilities and tasks across teams and watch as you social media pages hike up in rankings.

If you need to know more about creating a content calendar, comment down below.

If you need expert assistance, contact Digitooze Solutions for your social media marketing needs!