There’s nothing more stress-inducing than knowing you should be all over your socials but not having a clue what to write about. Or realising you missed a fab trend that could have sent your engagement spiralling. Planning a social media content calendar can help you avoid all these issues!
What is a social content calendar?
That’s not hard to answer. It’s a calendar on which you plan out your social media content. Whether you plan out the whole year or just a month in advance, you use the calendar to mark important events both general events and ones specific to your business. You can create it on something simple like a spreadsheet or use a dedicated calendar app or third-party programme. Or if you prefer an old-school approach you could write your calendar on a whiteboard or piece of paper.
Why you need a social content calendar
Save time – Planning your content and knowing what you are going to post and when can save you time. As well as reducing time spent coming up with ideas on the fly, it also means you can batch your social content creation into a set time which is more efficient and then queue everything up.
Improve consistency – When it comes to social media, there’s no point in posting once and then not posting for weeks. When you are inconsistent your followers stop looking for you and the algorithm stops loving you. Having a plan for your social media helps you post more frequently and at consistent times so your audience knows when to expect things from your brand.
Increase engagement – A content calendar helps you plan content for big events like holidays and tie your content into things that people will respond to. This boosts your engagement among existing followers and makes it more likely that your content will be seen by new people. Planning content also helps you check that you are not repeating the same content or topics too often or too close together which can lead to boredom among your followers.
Do your double-checks – Planning and creating content in advance gives you the time to double-check things for accuracy and brand relevance, that you don’t have if you are always posting in a hurry at the last minute. It also gives time for others to review and approve the content if needed.
A content calendar can be extra helpful if you have several different social media accounts for your organisation as it helps you keep track of content for each one. Or, if you work as a freelance social media marketer with several different clients, keeping a content calendar for each one ensures you don’t get confused between clients.
How to create your social content calendar
Before creating your content calendar you should have identified which social media channels are most appropriate for your organisation so you know where you are going to post.
Start with some general planning:
- Make a list of important general dates throughout the year. These dates might include holiday periods such as Easter and Christmas and relevant national days or initiatives. For example if you run a pet food store you might want to look out for International Dog Day or International Cat Day (they are both in August by the way). If you do social media for a well-being app you’ll want to highlight something like Mental Health Awareness Week which takes place in early September.
- Make a list of business-specific dates – This might include any milestones for your organisation such as the anniversary of its founding or dates when you run big promotions or other events.
- Write a list of ideas for other content that is relevant to your organisation. Remember that as a general rule you want around 80% of your content to be educational or informative and only 20% directly promotional.
- Create a list of other organisations, creators or influencers who might be talking about your brand or whose content you might want to share
- Decide on how much of each type of content you want to produce. For example, do you want a certain number of video posts, or do you want to host some live events during the year?
Audit your current social media channels
Looking at what you are doing now can inform your future planning.
Go through your existing social media posts and look at which posts have performed well and not so well. Note down when your audience is most likely to be online and when different types of posts had the most engagement. This helps you know when to post in general to be more likely to get eyes on your content and when to schedule specific content. For example if you sell a product and you notice engagement or sales spike at a weekend, then you might schedule posts about special offers on a Friday or Saturday.
If you haven’t already set goals for your social media marketing, whether it’s to increase engagement, boost traffic or push sales.
Start mapping out your calendar
Once you’ve done your planning you can start mapping out your calendar. You might want to include a high-level overview for the year which includes key dates, and then a more detailed monthly or weekly view. This will include:
- The date and time of the post
- The social platforms you will post it on
- The content itself if it is short, or a link to the file where the content and any associated images are stored
- Any hashtags you want to include on the post
- Whether you are going to boost the post with any paid boost or ads
Add all these details to your chosen calendar to create your content plan.
Don’t forget to review and revise
Advance planning is good. But a plan with no flexibility is bad. That’s why we recommend only creating a detailed schedule for weeks or at most a month in advance. You may even want to leave one or two spots open each month for content to be decided closer to the time.
That way you can add posts at short notice if needed. You also need to keep an eye on wider events and trends in case you need to pull a planned post that could no longer be appropriate.
It’s also important to review your analytics regularly to ensure your content is hitting the mark. If it’s not then revise your calendar accordingly.
If you’ve been struggling to keep your social media on track, try creating a content calendar for a few months and see if it helps. It might be the structure you need to get things back on track.
Want more great social media marketing tips? Enrol in our Content Marketing for Social Media short course or our Social Media Marketing Strategy micro-credential course.
