A social media content calendar is a lifesaver for businesses. Creating and posting content on the spot can be tricky for many businesses as you and your staff can be pulled in a million different directions on a daily basis, therefore, sweeping the social media posting under the rug. Also if you and your team wind up still trying to get some posts up in a rush you’re much more prone to typos and other mistakes.
Spending a little time upfront to create a social media calendar is much more efficient. Content calendars make your workday less stressful and make it easy to plan an effective content mix to help reach the largest possible audience.
What exactly is a social media calendar?
A social media calendar is an overview of your upcoming social media posts, organized by date and time. The content creators on your team can use these calendars to plan posts, manage campaigns, and review ongoing strategies.
Social media calendars can take many forms. Yours may be as simple as a spreadsheet, Google calendar or an interactive dashboard such as Asana.
A social media calendar usually includes some combination of these elements for each post:
- The date and time it will go live
- The social network and account where it will be published (i.e., Facebook, Instagram, Youtube)
- Text and creative assets (i.e., photos or videos)
- Links and tags to include
Where do I begin with starting a content calendar?
An easy way to start filling a content calendar is to just start scheduling one or 2 posts a week. That means you could have as little as 4 posts a month but it is a great start, especially if your business has been posting very inconsistently or not at all.
It’s also important to have a mix of what kind of posts you create so that you ‘re not posting the same thing every week and ultimately boring your audience. An easy combination of content would be:
Week 1: Blog post (You are the expert in your own company, write about some things your customers ask. A simple FAQ is a great start, you can add new questions and answers each month in your blog.)
Week 2: Photo of something going on at your business (Example: it started snowing and you have a beautiful snow-covered view outside your office. Post it! )
Week 3: Video content (This could be a quick explainer video of a new product you have or a formal interview-style video with you or one of your employees talking about the company.)
Week 4: Graphic (This could be a graphic about a new product your company has or a happy holiday post depending on the day/time of year. There are tons of fun holidays businesses can post for no matter what industry.)
Once you create the backlog of content and then simply add it to your calendar template with the caption, links, and tags. Once your calendar is filled you will need to then schedule the posts to publish to the desired social media platforms. You can use many different resources for scheduling posts depending on what the post is and where you are postingit. For many businesses using Facebook and Instagram, you can easily schedule your posts right on Meta Business Suite. Other options are Buffer, Oneup, and Hootsuite. Many of these options work with platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest.
Once you’ve planned and scheduled your social media content, you can get back to business as usual knowing your posts are scheduled to go live no matter how busy you get. Setting aside dedicated time each month to replenish your content calendar is crucial for the success of your social media pages.
If you need help creating content and managing your social media pages, contact Lead Lamp Media and we can chat about our content packages!