Today\u2019s digital media environment means new content and ideas are constantly flowing, making it difficult to keep up. That\u2019s why successful social media marketers understand that an effective social media strategy lies between a \u2018set it and forget it\u2019 and a \u2018day-by-day, always on\u2019 mentality.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where social media calendars shine. Social media calendars save you time in creating the kinds of content your audience wants to see and allow you to test and track its performance. Here\u2019s how creating a social media calendar can help you plan and manage your social media posts.<\/p>\n
Your first step is to identify your goals. \u00a0Social media goals allow you to make sure you\u2019re getting as much value as possible from the time and effort you put into your content creation. They will dictate how often you\u2019ll post, the channels you\u2019ll use, and the type of content you\u2019ll create.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t already have established social media goals, check out our post on setting up social media goals<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s helpful to create a list of content categories or types, you can share with your audience. This can include the following:<\/p>\n Ideally, you\u2019ll create a mix of different content types to keep your audience engaged. You don\u2019t want to risk boring them with the same kind of content or push them away by being overly salesy. Follow the 80\/20 rule to strike the right balance \u2013 where 80% of your posts inform, educate, or entertain your audience and 20% promote your homes or company and drive conversions.<\/p>\n The main benefit of social media calendars is creating consistency. How often you should post depends on the platform and your available resources. Platforms like Twitter benefit from daily posting \u2013 even multiple times a day while others, like Facebook or Instagram, can be fine with less.<\/p>\n Base your posting cadence on your team\u2019s bandwidth. Larger marketing departments usually have the resources to post multiple times a day but that isn\u2019t realistic if you\u2019re a team of one. The goal is to create a sustainable cadence to maintain a consistent social presence.<\/p>\n Creating themed days to share specific types of content is a simple way to achieve a mix of content and streamline your schedule.<\/p>\n This is the fun part: content creation! Here\u2019s where you can write captions, create images and videos and schedule your posts. You can do this a week or a month at a time. If you know of special events ahead of time, it\u2019s great to plan for them so you\u2019re not scrambling to create something last minute.<\/p>\n We recommend using a social media scheduler to handle publishing to your social accounts. Most platforms have a built-in scheduler or you can invest in a third-party scheduler if you want to manage everything from one platform. The paid versions of these schedulers offer additional features like analytics, calendars, engagement options like managing inboxes and comments, and more.<\/p>\n There are a number of tools you can use to create and manage your social media calendar. The good old-fashioned spreadsheet is always an option, whether it\u2019s Excel or Google Sheets. Both are versatile and can be customized to fit your unique needs. Google Sheets is especially helpful if you\u2019re collaborating with a team or want to always have access to it.<\/p>\n You can also use project management platforms like Trello<\/a>, Asana<\/a>, or Monday<\/a> to create your calendar. These platforms allow you to create a visual workflow so you can check the status of your on-going projects and posts at a glance, including in calendar form. You can write copy, attach images, links, assign tasks and due dates in one place.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t want to create a social media calendar from scratch \u2013 or don\u2019t quite know where to start with designing a calendar \u2013 there are several premade calendar templates available for free (or at least for the cost of your email address) from industry leaders like Hootsuite<\/a> or Hubspot<\/a>.<\/p>\nDecide what kind of content to create<\/h3>\n
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Plot out a posting schedule<\/h3>\n
Create and schedule your posts<\/h3>\n
Creating a social media calendar template<\/h3>\n