What is a Content Social Media Calendar?

A content social media calendar is a tool or a document that helps you plan, schedule, organize content posts ahead of time. Using it instead of a list of content has the following advantages:

• Provides every member with clarity as to what they are to publish, with the time and the channel for publication

• Prevents mistakes

• Provides visibility over the strategy

• Helps plan the content with key dates or events

• Helps distribute content equally across timeline for better engagement and social media strategy

• Streamline the workflow of the content creation

What are the types of Social Media Content Calendar and why should you have one?

Listed below are the different kinds of social media content calendar:

• Hard copy calendars – It is a printed calendar with dates. It helps with visibility and when combined with a digital version, it allows everyone to check and follow.

• Spreadsheets – These include Excel and Google Sheets and are easy to use and cost-effective but time-consuming.

• Google Calendar – Works best for a single blogger.

• Apps – These digital tools help to create and manage social media in just a few steps.

• Editorial Calendar WordPress plugin – It is a drag-and-drop interface that works in posting directly from WordPress.  

• Project management tools – It is a great social media tool that helps in task management when used by a social media content calendar.

However, using a social media calendar helps you with:

• Planning the content strategy

• Aligning the content to marketing campaigns

• Plan for an extended time, either quarterly or the entire year

• Managing multiple social media posts on different channels

• Accountability

• Is easier to collaborate

How to create your Social Media Content Calendar?

1) Choose what Elements you would like to place in the social media calendar

• Editorial Board or a Content Repository – This is where you can place the content that you wish to publish on all social media channels

• As a collaboration platform – This is the best option to manage your team members, as this social media calendar template helps you add the status of the content, notes, and also assign tasks.

• As a promotional schedule – One of the major goals of a social media content calendar template is to help you organize the content promotion. Its schedule mentions the dates of publication that give

• It works as a platform to place notes – This can be used as a part of the Editorial Board or in different tabs to place the ideas on the product and also for the future content.

2) Select when and how you would like to Publish On Your Social Media Content Calendar 2021

You must at first know the kind of content you are looking forward to publishing, be it in the form of articles, social media posts, tweets, and email newsletters. However, make sure that the content for the social media calendar mix aligns with the content strategy, providing consistent value to the target audience.

Make sure you get started by creating social posts that will help analyze the content and the post to be of good quality. To help you come up with these types of content for various social media platforms you can choose to create them with the Glorify App. It will enable you to create free social media content of good quality in just a few minutes.

Here are the frequencies for social media that  you could aim as per the rule of thumb:

• Facebook – 1-2 posts per day

• Twitter – 15 tweets daily with the gap of 2 hours  

• Pinterest – 11 pins daily

• LinkedIn – A post a day

• Instagram – 1-2 posts in a day

3) Guide to creating and build a Social Media Content Calendar

Step 1 – Analyze or rework the Social Media Content Calendar Ideas

Choose a kind of content for your social media accounts that haven’t been covered as of yet or try to mix the content as per the requirement and the levels of engagement. These kinds could include, white papers or reports ( large content pieces in the form of series), slide decks ( transforming slides into video tutorials), old blog posts, or the new unpublished posts.

Step 2 – Design the Strategy for your social media content calendar

It doesn’t really matter as to which social media campaigns are we talking about, but a strategy is one constant need for all. All you need to do is to know what content would work the best on the platform and at what frequency.

These strategies help you identify the three main content strategies for the social media content calendar template:

• A content series: These are shared in the same theme and format. For instance, podcasts, video or webinar series, article columns.

• Season special: These are the contents that are posted as per the season. For instance, Christmas-related offers, Halloween specials, etc, all appear quarterly or annually. Also, the theme stays consistent across the years and are aligned to the tone of the bran

• Regular posts: This helps to maintain the interests of the audience and help them stay engaged. However, this strategy need not stay consistent and can vary in terms of its topic and the format and must be aligned with the general content strategy.  

Step 3 – Schedule the new content and Execute the Plan for your social media calendar

Now that you have your content in place, all that’s left to do is to plan is the schedule. This involves you to take a look at the types of posts, plan a meeting and finalize the important dates as per the publishing period.  

Allow your team members to involve in the posting schedule based on the best time as per the social calendar. You can also review the content in advance, and keep track of the content performance of the last period.

4) Building a successful Social Media Content Calendar for the social networks

Listed below are the best practices that will help your social media calendar content look like a blog post that is well organized and promotes a good marketing strategy on the social platform.

• Make the social content accessible to all involved: This is the best way to uplift the marketing goals. So make sure to keep the stakeholder, team members, and relevant clients informed with the content in advance. However, make sure the editing permissions are restricted but the editorial calendars are visible.

• Update constantly: As per the content needs, you would want to post, change, tweak and update as a part of good content marketing.

• Content repository: You must review the content repository ahead of time and also frequently. This is a great opportunity to refresh, repurpose and enhance the ideas storage.

• Tweak the editorial calendar: Optimize and tweak the calendar to fit the content strategy as a part of the social media strategy.

Pro Tip – Test the type of Social Media Content Calendar before you add it to the Calendar

Have a quick check with the help of the questions below to check your content before posting it to the social media calendar:

• Does the content hint or match the brand profile of your company?

• Is it informative or has a message that you wish to convey?

• Does the content force engagement?

• Is it worth the share?

• Test the content for analytics.

To Conclude:

Creating a social media content calendar helps you increase your social media marketing, the engagement with the audience, enhances your reach and improves the strategy. The content calendar also helps organize the staff and the content flowing.

Creating A Social Media Calendar FAQs

1. What should a social media content calendar include?

A social media content calendar or an “editorial calendar” is a written schedule that includes the content marked across the months or year as to when and where you plan to publish the upcoming content. These include upcoming pieces, status updates, planned promotional activity, partnerships, and updates to existing content.

2. How do I create a social media content calendar strategy?

– Choose the social media marketing goals to align the business objectives
– Learn about your target audience
– Be alert and know your competition
– Have a social media audit frequently
– Set up accounts and improve the profiles
– Look for inspiration
– Create a social media content calendar
– Evaluate the marketing strategy

3. What is a social media calendar or a content calendar?

A social media content calendar is also known as the editorial calendar. It is a spreadsheet or an app that is used to schedule media content blog posts for the social media platforms in advance. A social media manager can plan what content to post, manage campaigns, and track deadlines using the calendar templates. Adding on, it is built by using three different formats: printed paper, spreadsheets, or software services.

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