Are you struggling to keep up with your social media marketing? Do you find yourself posting content on the fly, without a clear plan or strategy? Creating a content calendar could be a game-changer for your social media marketing.
Organizing your content in advance ensures a consistent and effective social media presence that aligns with brand messaging. Planning ahead also gives you time to think through all the tasks involved, such as graphics, videos, photography and web content, making delegation easier. All of that means you and your team can spend more time creating high-quality content that resonates with your audiences.
1: Start with strategy
Aligning social media activities with your marketing plan ensures that they contribute to your business goals, driving results that matter. Having a cohesive strategy across all channels, from social to media relations to web, also reinforces key messaging for your brand. Review your marketing goals and identify which ones can benefit from social media strategies.
2: Segment audiences
Ideally, you will already have outlined target markets in a marketing plan. Keeping in mind your audience’s demographics, interests and behaviors, you can determine how these characteristics align with various social platforms:
- Facebook is primarily used to connect with friends and family. It also attracts multiple generations; nearly 50% of all Facebook users are aged 25 to 34, while 25% are 45 and older.
- LinkedIn is popular for networking and job seeking. In terms of demographics, 60% of all global users are 25 to 34, while 21.7% are 18 to 24.
- Known for its visual content, Instagram is the most popular network in the United States for users aged 12 to 34.
- X (Twitter) is popular for real-time news and updates. In the United States, 38% of people aged 12-34 use X, compared to 28% who are 35-54 and 15% who are 55-plus.
3: Brainstorm content ideas
Because different people have different content preferences, having various options ensures that you cater to all of your audiences. You can also keep your feed engaging and fresh by incorporating a mix of content types, such as blog posts, images, videos and user-generated content.
4: Organize
Organize your content ideas into a calendar and color-code each post by social platform. Project management software like Asana allows you to connect posts to other assignments such as photo, video and storytelling. With PM software, you can also assign individual social tasks to various team members and drag and drop posts to different dates as your needs change.
5: Plan ahead
Quarterly planning provides a big-picture view of your social media, making it easier to align with other strategies such as blog posts and events.
As you map out a schedule, be sure to consult lists of holidays, events and observances from sources such as Hootsuite and HubSpot. You can repurpose evergreen content and create original content around relevant topics by leveraging daily, weekly and monthly events.
During early COVID-19 shutdown days, I asked my coworkers to send photos of their children studying alongside them while they were working. We then created a series on our organization’s social accounts for Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day, tagging all employees pictured and the sponsoring organization. The employees’ reposts and sponsor engagement helped to boost our reach and impressions.
6: Regularly review
Finally, regularly review your results to ensure you are hitting targets like engagement, reach and audience growth. Celebrate your successes and adjust your strategies as needed to maximize the impact of your social media marketing efforts and achieve your business goals.
Featured image above: Photo by Anna Nekrashevich for Pexels
Hydrangea Studio 