What is a social media content calendar?

The social media content calendar is a very helpful tool in defining what, where, and when your company will publish developed social content.  It will encompass the complete social marketing strategy and break it up in to a cohesive and consistent message throughout your fiscal year and/or campaign(s) schedule(s).

Why is a social media content calendar important?

A social media content calendar is important because it helps ensure effective and efficient communication to execute your company’s overall marketing strategy.

The company is able to solidify that the marketing team will not miss important dates on needed communication to your consumers and that each message published will belong to a consistent story that was set in accordance to the marketing strategy.

By scheduling out content of each posts in advance, your team will be able to review and confirm that each posts has new and exciting content so nothing is repeated and that the allocation of resources to create each posts’ content is optimized.

How do you build your brand’s calendar?

By carefully examining and auditing each of the points below, your company will be able to develop a fully structured social media calendar.

• Review your social media platforms
  • Which platforms are being used and performing the best?
  • What is the current content that is being published?
  • How much is being spent per platform and overall?
  • Should your company begin to utilize a new platform?
  • What are the goals for each platform?
  • What is the new budget?
• Audit content
  • What type of content is currently being pushed out to each platform?
  • Is the content you are publishing “out of date” too fast for today’s news cycle?
  • Is the content being published reaching your goals (per platform and overall)?
• Determine frequency of posts
  • Consider each platform’s budget and organic data
  • Demographic of each platform’s following
  • Ensure open slots for last minute needs
  • Consider each campaign schedule (sales, sweepstakes, etc.)
• Proportional published content creation
  • Determine what type of content is needed to what platform
    • Promotional vs informational
    • Hashtags, sponsorships, influencers, etc.
  • Consider demographics for each posts per platform
  • Campaign schedule (sales, sweepstakes, etc.)
  • Develop extra content for open slots for last minute needs (final push, extended sale, etc.)
  • Set budget for each type of posts
• Structure of calendar
  • Spreadsheet set-up
    • Different sheet for each platform vs all-in-one
  • Column headers – sample below:
    • Network
    • Date
    • Time
    • Copy
    • Image
    • Link
  • Determine Roles and Responsibilities
    • How will each post get scheduled and pushed out?
    • Who inputs all necessary content for posts
      • Is it separated by platform?
    • How is the budget handled?
      • Does one person have access to setting up budget for each post?
    • Ensure access to the calendar to the entire team

Taking the necessary steps to create a calendar that incorporates all required items that your marketing team needs will only allow for smooth executions for each platform, increasing awareness and conversions, enhance department workflow, and allocates space for quick changes, if needed.

Over time, your company will gather important data that showcases what content your audience wants to see to interact and ultimately complete the desired action your posts indicate. This incredibly useful information will help guide new strategy of how your company can grow and what direction the brand should take in future campaigns.

At Colleen Eakins Design, we can help you create valuable social media posts your brand needs to connect to your consumers.