The benefits to mapping out your social media content.

Growth Hacks
December 10, 2021
6
 min read
Social Media Marketing

A social media content calendar that youplan and schedule in advance can help reduce work stress and can help you createmore room for fun and entertainment in your life.

When you consider the short period ofupdates and the rapid transfer of information via Twitter, Facebook, and more,social media content allows us to inspire others in real-time.

Content planning on social media facilitatesflexibility in scheduling and provides opportunities to engage in real-time.

Some benefits of creating a social media content calendar and planning ahead for social content are:

Consistency.There is a lot to be said about sustainability on social media. Depending onthe frequency of postings, consistency can help your audience understand whenyou expect new content from you, and having a regular schedule ensures that youaren't interrupted or stalled on updates.  In other words, you want to participate asmuch as you can.

Time-sensitive material. Events, holidays, product launches, contests - many of thesesensitive events can be planned in advance and put on the calendar.

No more silos.  Planning ahead allows othersto be involved in the process, such as including your entire team, instead ofone or two social media managers.

Having a recording system. Calendar’s allow you to come back and check what got done. You canfollow your posted updates, and review your posting cadence and time intervals.

411 Principle. This rule specifies the level of engagement on social media – 1 for"simple promotion", 4 for educational and recreational posts, and 1for "strong promotion". I'll go more into detail below. .

Why use a social media content calendar?

1. Keep track of important dates

The first feature in every calendar ispretty obvious: it allows you to keep track of important dates. This makes iteasier to find business opportunities and helps you plan ahead for importantevents, holidays, or social media campaigns. For example, if you own a bookstore,you know that National Book Lovers Day falls on August 9th, you can provide aspecial campaign, promotional, or marketing material from the beginning of theyear that needs to be done. There will be time Remember to take into accountboth "real" holidays, such as Christmas or Fourth of July, and socialmedia holidays, as both can provide great marketing opportunities.

2.  Stay on topic and on-trend

In addition to targeting important datesfor planning purposes, a social media calendar is a great way to trackeverything you post. It will tell you when to repeat yourself and when to comeup with some new ideas. It'll be clear from your calendar if your item is outof date (you won't see memes any more fun soon) and you'll see when it's timefor new directions.

3. Manage your time.

Managing a social media calendar can takesome time, but the reality is quite the opposite. If you have your plannedsocial content ready, you can schedule your posts in advance and you don't needto be constantly on the service. Who knows, maybe you might even go onvacation. Keeping a calendar with important dates and events is the key tobetter time management.

4. Persevere

One of the biggest challenges of socialmedia marketing is getting people to follow and engage with your content.Posting regularly is a great way to build loyal followers and keep peopleentertained. This will show your followers that you are committed and loyal notonly to your brand but also to them. There is nothing more exciting on socialmedia than investing in your brand and being passionate about what you do. Andnothing is less effective than an account that publishes something new onlyonce a year.

By describing yourself as someone who postsconstantly, your followers will become accustomed to interacting with yourcontent on a regular basis. This will help you build a relationship with themwhich will ultimately promote your brand.

If posting social media content on apermanent basis is your priority (which it should be), Calendar is a great wayto do so because it will allow you to plan and schedule ahead.

5. Maintain Balance

As with most types of marketing, there isoften a fine line between your followers or potential customers as well astheir potential for your brand and what you are trying to sell. The latter willannoy or upset your followers. The trick is to find the right balance!

The social media content calendar willallow you to precisely balance the content you want to post with what yourfollowers want to see. This can include user-generated content, videos, yourindustry news, or interactions with your followers. Here's a simple guide tofollowing the 80/20 rule: 80% of your content should be useful, interesting orentertaining while 20% should sell your product.

6. Encourage Teamwork

A social media content calendar shared byteam members or partners will allow everyone to be on the same page. Sharing acalendar on a platform like Google Drive makes it easy to share planning tasksbetween team members. Even if someone is on vacation for the next two weeks,everyone will know when to post and you won't be able to change it.

Calendar planning focuses on your teammembers and your company's resources.Your best work is likely to be published.

Last-minute broadcasts also have an impacton the entire organization. If you encourage people to work on somethingwithout seeing it, other teams' schedules and projects are affected - and itcan often be difficult to get everyone back on track.

7. Avoid mistakes.

Not all social media platforms are the sameand therefore need to be approached differently. By planning different contentfor different platforms, you can avoid the stupidity of asking people toRetweet on Facebook (we've done it all!).

With Social Media Content Calendar, you canpre-plan and schedule specific posts for each social platform and avoidclutter.

Now that you know the benefits of having acalendar for social media content, you need to start organizing your calendarright away. Here are some tips and tricks on how to make a calendar that worksfor you.

How to make a Social Media ContentCalendar

Step 1: Review your social media planning.

Before filling out your social mediacalendar, you need to review your current strategy and efforts. Take a fulllook at the platforms, the content you use, and how effective your content ison each of these platforms.

Step 2: Decide who your audience is.

You may know who your followers are, but doyou know the vast population of the platform you are posting to? Who are thepeople using each platform and why? For example, people who use Instagram forpersonal reasons may use Twitter for other business reasons.

Step 3: Plan your content.

Once you know your audience on each socialmedia platform, you can start planning content for each platform. Decide foryourself what type of class will work best for you.

Step 4: Download a template

Finally, we get to the fun part: download a template and fill out your template with all your content!

There are many, many social media contentcalendar templates. Decide how many details you need in your calendar (date,time, network, link) and choose the one that best suits your needs.

Step 5: Schedule your content.

After all this work, I have finally reachedthe point where your time will pass. Let your calendar guide you in schedulingyour content ahead of time so that you don't have to post new content everyhour and work round the clock.

Social Media Calendar Apps & Tools

Google drive

Google Sheets has everything you need tocreate a social media content calendar tailored to your needs. It's really easyto use and easy to share with all the team members, who can edit the calendarand do all the work to update and change it.

Evernote

Evernote is a very popular application thatallows you to plan and organize your notes and notes. What most people don'trealize is that they also have plans and calendar templates that you cancustomize to suit your needs. Templates can be daily, monthly, yearly, etc.,and you can display as many or as few details as you want.

Hootsuite Chart

Hootsuite is the ultimate social mediaplanner and allows you to manage all your default social media posts inHootsuite Planner. Its dashboard has a calendar where you can easily create newposts. You can use it in addition to your calendar or in Google Sheets itself.

Trello

Trello is a content management app thatuses traditional 'cards', 'boards', and 'lists' to simplify the contentcreation process from start to finish. Planning is also easy with your socialmedia calendar. Additional information can be added to the card withattachments, comments, and labels, making it a great program for teamcollaboration.

Meet Alfred

Meet Alfred who claims to be"The #1 LinkedIn Automation Globally" it also allows you to engagewith your audience by scheduling social media posts ahead of time and keeptrack of the results.


Speak to one of our Automation Experts

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