We’ve said it before, but we’ll keep saying it, social media marketing is a must-have for small businesses today because 26% of internet users use social media to find products to buy. But having accounts on all the major platforms and posting periodically isn’t enough. Most platforms have specific algorithms that reward pages for the types of content they’re posting, how much engagement they have or even the times of day that they’re posting.
To stay relevant with your followers and attract new customers, you should have a solid strategy for your social media posts. That all starts with a pre-planned content calendar.
In this post, we’ll dive into everything you need to know about how to make a content calendar of your very own.
You might be asking yourself, “What even is a content calendar?” A content calendar is a timetable that outlines when and where new material will be published. It should list the topics that you'll be posting across your digital marketing platforms throughout the year. Your calendar should also include the publish date and time, type of content (post, reel, story) and which platforms the post will live on.
74% of consumers rely on social media to help guide their purchasing decisions, so keeping your social media presence active is crucial, and a well-thought-out content calendar can help you do that. Here are four key benefits of making a content calendar:
1. Schedule posts ahead of time: When you can plan further ahead, your content is better because you have ample time to create content. Additionally, if you need to post at certain times of day, you don’t have to worry about missing your window due to meetings or customer interaction.
2. Balance the content you're putting out: A calendar helps you visualize your content better so you can balance it out. There is a strategy for social content posting called the rule of thirds (we’ll get more into that later,) and having your posts laid out on a content calendar will help you follow it.
3. Keep social media activity consistent: It’s no secret that social media algorithms reward accounts that are consistently posting, so creating a calendar will keep you on track when days get busy.
4. Taking the time to plan makes your content intentional: We just mentioned consistent posting is important, but it’s also important to be intentional with your content. A calendar saves you from those “oh shoot I need something to post so let me throw something random out there” moments.
Now that you know what a content calendar is and what should live on it, it’s time to get to the fun part—making the calendar! Here are the key steps to take to make a content calendar of your very own.
1. Define your goals: What are you trying to achieve with your efforts? Are you looking to increase traffic to your website, improve engagement or generate leads? Set measurable goals that align with the rest of your digital marketing strategy to help inform your content planning.
2. Research your current strategy: Take a look at what you’re already doing. Is there anything you’re already doing really well? Or maybe something that just hasn’t worked for you at all? You can use these insights as a starting point.
3. Create a template: Now that you have some ideas of where to start, it’s time to make a social media content calendar template. A template is a pre-designed layout that you can use to organize your plans. You can customize to your liking, but it usually includes fields for things like the title of the content, the type of content, date and time of publication and the distribution channels.
There are lots of options online for finding content calendar templates. These include Canva, Asana and Hootsuite among others. You can also create your own template.
4. Start with the calendar year: The easiest way to begin filling in your content calendar is by starting with the calendar year. Go ahead and schedule holiday posts, any yearly events your company holds or sales that you run.
5. Add recurring and evergreen content: If you want to run a specific series every month like an “Ask Me Anything” or employee spotlight, add that content next along with evergreen content. Evergreen content is content that remains relevant and useful to your audience over time. This can be things like tutorials, how-to guides or other educational content.
6. Fill in with fresh content: You want your calendar to remain dynamic, which means some content may need to be filled in at the last minute. Maybe a new trend has just popped up that you want to share with your audience or you’re having a last-minute product launch. You want to be sure to leave some open space in your calendar for these types of posts.
7. Revisit and repurpose old content: If something works well for you, don’t be afraid to reuse it! Not every single person who is a part of your audience is going to see every post you create, so repurpose previous content to get more eyes on it. You can also try old content in a new format. What worked well as a Facebook post might also work as a short video on Instagram.
8. Determine your publishing frequency: Your publishing frequency means how often you’ll publish new content. This helps your audience know when they can expect new posts from you and consistently delivering fresh content will keep them engaged. As a general rule, we recommend posting three to four times a week. This is just enough to stay active, but not too much that your customers will get annoyed.
9. Schedule out the posts you can: Finally, finish up your calendar by scheduling out as many posts as you can. Use a tool like Hootsuite to set up the date and time you want a post to go live along with the platforms you want the post to go live on.
And there you have it! You now have a place where you can easily see what social media content you have coming up, what’s complete and scheduled, and what you still need to work on.
We’ve briefly touched on a few ideas of exactly what kinds of content you can add to your calendar to post, but we’ll go a little more depth. As promised, we’ll start by coming back to the rule of thirds that we mentioned earlier.
The rule of thirds simply states that the content you post should be split into three categories. Each of these thirds includes:
Following this rule when you’re first starting your content calendar can help you stay on track with consistent posting. Once you figure out what works best for you, you may want to tweak this a tad.
Looking for even more specific ideas about the types of posts you should add to your calendar? We can help with that too! Check out these social mead calendar ideas:
Start out with some of these and see how they work for you. Once you get a couple of months of posts under your belt, then you can start to dig deeper into the analytics. Compare your posts month to month and even year to year to find out the formats and time frames that get you the most engagement.
Now is the time to take charge of your social media strategy, and creating a content calendar is a great first step. We hope the info, tips and template resources provided in this blog give you the confidence you need to get your calendar up and running. At first, it’s all about trial and error and finding what works best for your business and your audience. So don’t get discouraged if some of your posts are a total miss—it’s all a part of the process!
If you like this quick guide for how to make a content calendar and you’re looking for even more social media help or just help with your digital marketing in general, reach out to RevLocal today for a free, no-obligation consultation with a marketing expert.
Mideya Kinney, Junior Content Writer
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