Yes, when it comes to content creating for the social media, most bloggers and marketers don’t post enough. Their updates aren’t spaced and for some, the updates aren’t even thoughtful like they were posted right on the moment.
Social media is busy and dynamic. So much happens in an hour, it is almost impossible to keep up. If we keep looking at the social media timelines, the feeds refreshes so quickly, it seems so difficult to keep up with it.
Unplanned content can fill in the space, after all something is better than nothing, but it mostly does not solve the purpose.
Social media feeds require micro posts, small yet catchy and purposeful. For this to happen and on a regular basis, one needs to plan things in advance. This is where the concept of social media calendars comes into effect. Once you know that you have enough posts scheduled for the next few days, your content panic will vanish and that will allow your creative juices to flow again and automatically you should be able to create great content for all micro blogging needs.
Let us now dive into the top 10 tips to create the best social media calendar.
1. Prepare different content for different networks: Social Media is just a term, it represents a number of social networks out of which Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and Pinterest are the ones that most people target. Depending on your audience or your presence, this can be different for you.
One simply cannot create a single piece of content and share it across all platforms without editing and tweaking. The audience of Facebook likes entertainment most, while Linkedin expects more professional touch. Pinterest and Instagram are both similar to an extent but the image sizes require in both platforms vary significantly.
2. Team Effort: When you have multiple people in your content team then why set up the calendar alone?
Creating social content is a team work, it should not be treated like some content sharing work that anyone can do. It is always best that you have an editor go through the entire content schedule and this is easily possible if you have a long queue of content ready on your calendar.
3. Plan for events in advance: This is the beauty of advance planning, you can pretty much plan anything, even months in the future. Say if Black Friday is coming, even that can be pre-planned.
This is also a huge plus because you know exactly when a festival is coming and you don’t need to worry about last minute social media updates as everything is already planned and you have relevant content ready.
4. Check for past success: We post many updates on social media but not all posts get us the same reaction. Check popular social updates and find out why those posts got more reaction than others. If you have to have more such successful posts then it is important to know why some updates get good results. This way you will find out more about what your audience wants.
5. Plan for content vs. promotions: It is easy to get carried away with promotional posts or even curating which is easier than creating unique posts. This is where a rule has to be set and followed.
Keep sharing content from own and other people to a minimum. Focus on creating micro blogging content, text and images that people want to read and consume. When it comes to sharing promotional content, it is best to keep it to a bare minimum, like less than 15% of the time.
6. Stick to a posting schedule: It is ok to tweak your schedule and understand what works, but when you start to follow a schedule then just stick to it.
Some platforms like Twitter is used to flood the timelines, which is why one should post multiple times a day to stay in the loop. However, not all platforms are similar. So, find out your optimum posting frequency for each platform and stick to it.
7. Ask Questions: It is often seen on the social media that posts that asks a specific question, especially if it is niche targeted, it gets a better response. A lot of followers on the social media simply read your update, some even take out the time to like or retweet, but adding a comment takes time which is why many people skip it. If you want more responses out of reluctant people then asking a question that connects with them is the best way to go about it.
8. Repeat posts: Sometimes it is fine to simply repost an update that you have posted earlier. But do this very rarely because only your really loyal following will get affected if you repeat yourself too much. On the other hand if you are repeating a quote, or a link to a relevant resource then it will still work as people are used to it.
9. Keep it error free: When social media updates are added at the very last minute, there’s always chance of making a mistake, but when you have a posting queue ready, you can easily proof read it.
However, checking status updates aren’t all about grammar. Sometimes, social media managers makes bigger mistakes that can seriously damage a brand’s reputation. But if you have a posting schedule ready, then it is easy to check things and know that your social content is harmless and worthwhile.
10. Share earned resources: Earned links and mentions should always be shared on the social media but the same can’t be planned ahead of time because earned mentions can happen anytime. Although, you can share earned mentions any time you wish, but for best results, it should be as soon as possible. That way, anyone who has mentioned you will remember you on the social media. But for this to happen, it is important that you allow yourself some space in your social calendar to include these last minute updates.
A social content calendar allows you to plan things ahead of time, which means your entire editorial team can check and add their feedback in it. Micro content is an easy way to go through a lot of relevant content which helps in planning the overall content marketing plan for a business.