A social media calendar is like organizing your entire social media strategy in order. It is not like how you add notes on your phone calendar, but it is different. The best social media content calendar can come in handy. Initially, it might feel like a big commitment but you can rest assured that it will pay that time back in the future.
Whether you choose a simple social media calendar template with some simple grid with a few links or a template with dozens of feeds. It will depend upon your brand needs.
In this article, we will focus on how to create the best social media content calendar.
Social Media Calendar
A social media calendar is a rundown of your upcoming social media posts in advance. They can be organized in the form of a spreadsheet, Google calendar, an interactive dashboard, or even an app. Each entry in the social media calendar includes many details. The few common elements being the date and time of the post, the social network and account, and more. Depending on the scope of your social media strategy, the details of your social media calendar may differ.
How to Create a Social Media Content Calendar?
Read on to understand the creation of social media content calendar:
1. Social networks and content Auditing
Having a clear picture of your current social media efforts will let you find the areas that need improvement and opportunities for new efforts. An audit is key to properly order your content strategy. Make some time and go through all of your social assets. This will help you to refresh your social strategy with the best information. That is the information you find will be unique to your audience, accounts, and brand.
2. Data your social media calendar will contain
Once you have figured out what improvement you need in your social media strategy, you might want to step into the next level. As you figure what your social media calendar will look like, you might want to map out the information and functionality it will be providing you.
You might be creating a social media calendar for a single and small brand. In which case you will require only a simple spreadsheet. But if you are managing a dozen different consumer brands with a seven-person team. In which case you will require a free social media calendar template that can tell you a bunch of things. Like, who is doing what, when it is being done, when it is going to be approved, and how successful it was.
Below we have mentioned a few very needed and basic details that you can start with for making the best social media calendar.
- Platform
- Date
- Time zone
- Copy
- Photo, video, illustration, infographic, and more
- Links to your assets
- Links to your published posts
3. Create a content library for your assets
This section of creating a social media calendar is known either as a media resource database or digital asset bank. Regardless of what it is called, it is difficult to access your content library with a bunch of folders. However, you can use Dropbox, Google Drive, a company network, or custom database software.
These social media content libraries have a few key features like:
- They are spacious enough for very large files.
- You can access these apps from your phone as well as from your computer.
- They can be easily shared with your team members.
- Have strong privacy features.
- Most of them even provide links to individual files so that you can add them to your calendar.
The way you set up your content library is very important and it will be better if you have to do less searching for assets.
4. Build a workflow
After you have gathered all possible information, you will have to start sketching plans for your daily, weekly, and monthly social media strategy.
Below we have mentioned few details that you might want to think about:
- How often do you want to publish your work to each channel?
- At what time you will post to each channel?
- What will be your content ratio?
- List of people who need to approve posts. For instance your business’s copy-editor, legal team, or the CEO.
- How and when to communicate with them.
- What is the process for getting new content? When to assign the content? And when to create it?
Once you have completed your social media workflow, you should document it in a place where it is easy to access. The more complex your team, the more helpful it is to break down definitions and processes so that it is easy not only for you but also for your colleagues to understand.
5. Start crafting your posts
As you work on your calendar and evaluate how your calendar feels. If your social media calendar looks heavy and difficult, you might want to erase some of the details from it. Or maybe if it is not detailed enough, you could add a few new detail columns. Use feedbacks to improve your social media calendar
Now that you have formed the foundation and organized your social media strategy in order, you can reveal your work to the world, or colleagues. Once you have shared the calendar, you should ask them to put it through its paces and schedule a meeting for everyone to connect on findings and feedback. You will probably find some gaps. At the end of this step, you should have a record. This document should be such that even the newest team member can understand it.
6. Start publishing or scheduling your social media calendar
After following all the above steps successfully, your social media calendar is finally ready to run. As you start publishing your work consistently, you might realize that it is going to take time to publish your posts. This will be especially true if you are working with some heavy and high-volume feeds. In that case, you can use a calendar or app that also has a scheduling function as your best bet.
If you don’t want to make a social media calendar from scratch you will find plenty of free social media calendar templates online. Hopefully, this guide has acquainted you with how to create a social media calendar.
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