Why You Should Create a Social Media Content Calendar
Thursday 13th June
by Beth Perrin
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Staying organised and consistent is a highly important part of being a social media manager or content creator. Publishing posts sporadically, leaving things until the last minute or ignoring each platform’s best practices will not only make your job harder and more stressful, but can also lessen the impact of your content, resulting in diminished reach and engagement from your audience. That’s why it’s a great idea to assemble a content calendar where you can plan all of your posts, share them with relevant people on your team for approval before scheduling them, attach media and have a clear overview of what’s going out on each platform.
It Helps You Plan Ahead
Above all, a social media content calendar helps you plan your posts in advance so you don’t have to create them directly on each platform at the time of publishing. This means you can set aside a block of time to write all of your content ahead of its scheduled delivery date and plan what you want to share each day of the week or month, rather than having to rush to do it at the last minute. As a result, you’ll have more time to carry out any necessary research for your posts, think of the right copy, request imagery from the relevant team if needed (more on this later), and bring everything together in one place.
Team Collaboration & Approval
If you’re working as part of a wider social media team, having a content calendar will allow you to share your proposed content with your team members, meaning they can suggest edits and/or approve posts before you schedule them. Collaborative cloud-based tools like Google Docs and Google Sheets are a great option for this, as multiple users can work on a document or spreadsheet at the same time, and can add comments and suggestions for their coworkers to action.
Creating posts directly on each social media platform instead of using a calendar makes it much harder for team members to share and review posts, meaning content may sometimes be published that hasn’t been approved by the relevant person or people.
Out-of-Hours Presence
If data shows that your target demographic is most active on social media at 9pm, but you leave the office every day at 5, without a content calendar you’re likely to miss out on a lot of potential reach. Scheduling your content for delivery at key times instead of only posting when you’re at your desk gives it a higher chance of being seen by the right people, boosting your chances of engagement and interaction, especially when paired with an out-of-hours Community Management service.
Don’t forget that optimal times can vary across platforms, so instead of scheduling your posts at the same time on every network, it’s best to analyse the activity levels of your audiences and plan your publishing times based on when they’re most likely to take notice and engage. Your Facebook fans, for example, might be most active on weekday afternoons, while your TikTok followers may prefer to use the app during the evening on weekends.
National Awareness Days
Posting sporadically without any prior planning can mean missing out on opportunities to celebrate national or global awareness days relevant to your brand. Resources such as awarenessdays.com and publicholidayguide.com are among our favourites, outlining all of the upcoming events taking place across the world that can be incorporated into your social media posts. These can include anything from widely recognised days such as Easter, Mother’s Day and Halloween, to super-niche celebrations that are much more specific to your brand’s industry or sector.
Have a look through and pick out a selection that you’d like to mention in your content, then add them into your calendar on the correct dates with a suggestion of how they can be tied in with your brand’s offering. Each awareness day usually comes with its own hashtag that can help your posts get seen by an even larger audience and can introduce your brand to some new prospective fans.
Designed Media
A content plan also gives you (or your creative team, if applicable) time to assemble branded assets to accompany each post - such as graphics, GIFs and video clips. Although attaching a simple, untouched photo is often sufficient, there are cases where designed imagery can really add an extra dimension to your social content and make it stand out from the crowd.
Within your content plan, you can attach briefs for your designer(s) outlining the media that needs to be produced for each post and when they need to be completed, enabling you to streamline the creative process and distribute content that’s not only interesting to read, but visually appealing too.
A Visual Overview of Your Instagram Grid
Another great benefit of having a content calendar is that it gives you a visual overview of how your Instagram feed is going to look, which is important for maintaining an eye-catching and aesthetically pleasing page. To preview your Instagram feed, simply add a table of square cells into your content calendar with 3 columns, then insert your proposed images and Reel covers into each cell in the order they’re going to be posted, adding new rows above the previous ones as you go along.
If you notice any images that clash, don’t look good next to each other, or are going to be cropped incorrectly when viewed as a square, you can rearrange or replace them as needed, saving the trouble of having to do so after they’ve already been published.
Edits, Changes and Updates
Lastly, unlike posting on the go, planning your content in advance allows you to edit your proposed posts before they’re published. Competition T&Cs changed at the last minute? Promoted product no longer in stock? Noticed a spelling error? No problem - a content calendar makes it quick and easy to amend your scheduled copy and imagery ahead of time, avoiding the awkwardness of having to delete and repost incorrect content that may have already been seen by your followers.
Summary
Content creation can be fun, innovative and engaging, but posting haphazardly can give your brand a disorganised image online and can render your marketing efforts ineffective. Save time and stay ahead of the game with a consistent calendar and a steady schedule that shows off your business in its best light. Need some strategy suggestions or an audit of your existing content to see where it could be improved? Get in touch with our expert team today to find out how we can help your brand boost its social media marketing results.
