Efficient planning is the key to building an impactful social media calendar. Planning your content calendar would allow you to align with the objectives of your brand, deliver relevant content timely, and stay consistent across social media platforms. Keeping up with the algorithm would push your content towards potential consumers and increase traffic on your website, benefitting your business in the long run. 

“Strategic Social Media Calendar = Flawless and Content-Savvy Business”

What’s a Social Media Content Calendar

Creating and publishing content daily can be hectic. However, organizing them based on the date and time you want it to go live, and adding detailed notes on what you want the content to be can be incredibly helpful. A social media content calendar is a spreadsheet, calendar, or interactive board that categorizes content and allocates time for brainstorming, structuring, creating, and editing the content, making the process much more efficient and hassle-free. 

How to Build the Perfect Social Media Calendar for Your Business

Apostrophy brings you the easiest step-by-step guide to build the perfect calendar for your brand –

Analyze social media platforms and conduct an audit

Take a look at all the social media platforms you have an account on at the moment. Assessing your performance would give you an idea of which platforms to focus on and how to go about that. Auditing would help you understand what demographic your posts are reaching and how are people engaging with them. You could gauge what your target viewers’ preferences are and use the insights to create more personalized content. 

Be sure to take a look at your competitors. This helps you position your content, assess what people are looking for, and bridge any existing gap. A Social Media Audit is the first and the foundational step in building a content calendar.

Finalize the platforms that best work with your business

Once you have completed a social media audit, understand what platforms are best for the demographic that you are targeting. This can depend on the age group, geographical location, content preference, and other parameters that affect people’s choice of social media platforms. You could use Facebook to promote your small business or create short-form videos for Instagrammers to engage with. You can also put up your content on multiple channels, and emphasize one. This would mean more number of posts on your calendar and can help boost engagement.

Work on the kind of content you want to publish

Outline the kind of content that would go on each of the social media platforms and include the details in your calendar. The best approach is to create a smart mix of different types of content. While reels are the go-to form these days, you might want to mix them up with text-based posts, product photos, behind-the-scenes moments, and even testimonials. It would humanize the brand and make it more appealing to the viewers. Decide on the aesthetics you want to create. You could choose a color palette, a particular font you use, and other repeating elements to make it appear consistent and reinforce the brand values. Jump on the most relevant trends to boost your reach on social media and impact.

Plan what information you want your calendar to have

It’s important to make your calendar detailed but not too chaotic. You need to pick and choose what are the most important things you want the calendar to mention. Start with including the different social media platforms and the date and time when you will post on each of them. You can add slots each week for brainstorming and structuring content, or planning a strategy for the next week. You can add the key points each topic would cover or highlight a platform you want to focus more on. Sit with your social media management team and choose what components work best for your brand.

Scheduling is a must

Scheduling is the best way to manage your time while acing your social media game. It saves you the chaos of going through the content every day logging into every single platform and posting content. You can get the job done way faster. Once you start scheduling, you will see how much more time you can take out to focus on other important parts of your brand. It’s also super helpful in maintaining consistency, especially if you are planning to publish content on more than one social media platform. Use the digital scheduling tools and plan your content weeks so your audience never misses out on what’s cooking – even when you are taking a day off. 

Review and Refine

Get your team together and discuss how to efficiently manage the social media calendar. You can ask for feedback to make sure everyone is on board with the planning and the content publishing moves forward smoothly. Review the calendar before finalizing to avoid any unwanted errors and refine the specifics wherever needed. A flawless calendar would enhance your brand’s performance and help optimize social media. If you want to make sure the right content is reaching the right people, building a strategic calendar is where you start!

Taking time to build the perfect social media calendar would help you generate more relatable content and keep your viewers captivated. Use these tips and start building a calendar now!