How To Create A Content Calendar
WHAT IS A CONTENT CALENDAR?
A content calendar is a calendar that helps you visually plan and execute your marketing strategy on your social media accounts. It should hold the details of how, when and what kind of content your business will publish over a given timeline
WHY DO YOU NEED ONE?
Like any calendar, a content calendar gives structure to your social media campaigns by highlighting important dates, holidays, events and deadlines relevant to you, as well as any internal promotions and campaigns that you will need to market for you business. Once these are clear to you, organising your posts to be published at the right time with the right kind of content to convey your message becomes a much easier task.
A content calendar is also beneficial as it acts as a visual guide; it allows you to seeall the content and copy you plan to post, all on one page. This will help during content creation and making sure that you keep you content interesting and diverse. This is especially important on platforms like Instagram, where you not only have to consider what you kind of content you post, but also the order you post it in. After all, four consecutive images of the same dish all photographed at the same angle may not be the most effective way to promote your cafés delicious fare, nor make for a very engaging profile!
Another benefit of having a content calendar is being able to streamline the processes involved in executing a social media strategy. Detailing all your ideas and plans in one place means that everyone in your team can be on the same page about what kind of content needs to be created and when it should be posted. Being able to see each step of your campaign strategy will also aid you in organising and allocating budgets for any ad spends you may have dedicated to your social media marketing.
Using a content calendar also allows you to plan how to engage your audience consistently. Posting regularly is crucial to effectively growing your audience on your social media profiles. In fact, many platforms have algorithms in place that do not easily allow you to reach your audience, even your existing followers, if you start posting content again after a long period of inactivity. Thus, avoiding time lapses in publishing content will help you avoid falling off the radar, so to speak.
In short, a content calendar is important for increased effectiveness, efficiency and consistency in your social media marketing.
HOW DO YOU CREATE A CONTENT CALENDAR?
Here are the main steps to creating a content calendar:
- Identify what you want to post – this is where paying attention to key events/ dates/ holidays and referring to the important dates on your marketing calendar is crucial.
- Content creation – what kind of content best helps you convey your message? Photo, GIF or video?
- Copy – write your captions keeping in mind the tone of your brand.
- Hashtags and geotagging – these are additional things to think about to increase the reach of your posts, especially #hashtags!
We’ll go into more detail on each of these steps in our following blog posts!
So what are you waiting for? Go for it!
If you need some advice on how to create your own social media strategy, or perhaps you would like someone else to manage your Facebook and Instagram for a while, so you can real results, get in touch with us HERE.