What Should Go Into a Trustworthy Social Media Content Calendar?
5 min readIn the absence of a clear strategy, managing many social media accounts might feel like a thankless chore. If we’re just “posting in the dark,” it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, especially when working in a team setting where quality and consistency are paramount to social media success. A social media content schedule comes to the rescue in such a situation.
Indeed, you should be prepared for live posts, instantaneous promotion, etc. But what happens if there is nothing happening at the moment to publish about, or if you run out of new stuff to share, or if your social media posts become a chaotic mass with no coherence? In posting to a social media platform, keep the broader picture and the message you want to send in mind. Planning out your social media management in advance by deciding what and when to post and then using concrete content ideas can save you time and, more importantly, your sanity.
By creating a content schedule and social media posting calendar months in advance, you can save yourself a tonne of time and energy that would otherwise be spent coming up with new material to share. Also, it will assist keep the tone and voice consistent across all of your brand’s social media channels. Moreover, aesthetics are highly valued on social media platforms like Instagram.
Answering these three crucial questions is necessary before you can begin developing a content calendar: The What? So, Why? How soon?
- While creating content, what should I focus on?
- Can I summarise the goals I have for each content type?
- I want to know when my ideal readership will be online, thus when would be the greatest time to post?
But don’t be fooled by its brevity and seeming simplicity; this problem requires quite a bit of trial and error to solve. Let’s dissect this whole thing.
In other words, what should you post, and why should you post it?
You, as a social media manager, must have a grasp of what content is appropriate to share. In order to improve your social media marketing approach, it is important to look back at information you have previously posted and take any necessary conclusions. Learn which content performed best on each network. In this approach, you may determine what kinds of material are most well received by your target demographic.
If you’re just getting started and don’t have any material to look at, it’s a good idea to examine what your rivals are doing on social media.
The two are not mutually exclusive; instead, you should examine both your own and the rivals’ social media presences. There are a number of compelling reasons why it’s a good idea to study your rivals on social media before you develop your own content strategy.
It’s useful for creating personal objectives
If you want to know how well your material is doing compared to the competition, you need to look at how they’re doing on social media. Setting your own social media marketing objectives is much easier when you compare your progress against those of a similar, successful firm. Selecting the KPIs you want to focus on is impossible without first conducting this benchmarking exercise. If you want to increase your engagement on social media and produce more engaging material, all you have to do is analyse the most popular content posted by your rivals.
It inspires you to write new material
The primary goal is to identify the specific kind of material that will best appeal to your intended audience. While it’s tempting to venture into the unknown by releasing and experimenting with a wide variety of material, doing so might quickly become a frustrating exercise in trial and error. Instead, research what content has been successful for similar businesses. Don’t just blindly imitate anything that seems out of the ordinary; instead, study it carefully and see if you can incorporate some of its ideas into your own, more effective content management approach.
Costs are reduced
As a result of its perceived difficulty, many businesses will pay a premium to have third-party firms perform competitive analysis on their behalf. It may take you days, maybe even weeks, to do it manually. You may save yourself a tonne of time and effort by taking use of social media management tools.
Establishing a Recurring Posting Timetable
Once you’ve decided what to share, you need to choose the optimal time to publish. Find out when your target audience is most active online so you can post at optimal times to maximise exposure and interaction. This information is readily accessible because to the fact that you and your rivals have the same, or at least extremely comparable, target groups.
The story doesn’t end there, though. In other words, after you solve The When, you’ll have to deal with The How Often. Limits on how frequently you may update your social media profiles are determined by each individual network. This, courtesy of Louisem, is a general estimate of how often we should post on various social media platforms.
- Daily Facebook Activity: 1-3 Posts
- Tweeting: three to thirty each day
- Daily Instagram updates: 1-3
- One LinkedIn update per day
Remember that these are only the overall numbers. Consider your rivals’ posting schedules on each social media site as you develop your own.
Schedules for social media posts
Nobody here has time to waste. On sometimes, we are forced to rush to make an appointment or get to another location in time for an emergency. The problem is, we have a lot on our plates already; how can we handle our social lives? A social media content schedule template is necessary even if we have a good idea of what to post and when to post it.
Include the time, the description, and details about any other material or links you want to add to the post to make your calendar useful. Add coworkers and assign roles if you plan to work together.