Making a content calendar might sound like a lot of work to put in, but having it ready in advance might just propel your brand into social media engagement clouds. Being ready for uploading posts, videos and statuses can make the difference between regularly viewed brands and some that pop up from time to time.
Even though it looks very time-consuming, it’s actually easier to prepare content in one go for the following week than to scramble your head about what’s the next story you should post in an hour! Another time saving is that most social media sites allow for scheduled posting. That way, you can prepare times for posts to be published when it’s best for your brand’s audience engagement rates and avoid having to babysit the process. Writing content that converts is key for upscaling your brand.
If you need some starting ideas to develop your own content for social media, use tools that can help you with that. Professional writing websites can also do wonders in this sense. You can use an academic dissertation writing site that will do all research and brainstorming for you, for example.
Being able to post regularly, check for typos, having time to edit stories, and also throwing in more creatives that you have a place for, are all the benefits content calendar offers!
How to set up your spotless content calendar
Building a calendar for your brand’s engagement starts with the smallest pieces. Splitting your content into smaller categories allows you to group and place them into further posting updates. Categories also make the purpose of content clear.
Here are a few examples of possible categories:
- Promotion
- Blog posts
- Engaging stories
- Quotes
- Announcements
The promotional part can be paired with influencer marketing to even further increase engagement.
Depending on your brand, you can go as broad as you want. Having separate categories means you can set days to post content separately.
Since you have nice categories lined up, try to prepare content to start with and further updates, having it all seem cohesive and not jumbled makes your brand look secure and reliable. There is no limit to how far you want to go into the future with updates, but leave some room for special events like product launches or big announcements.
Daily, weekly or monthly
Image source: Shaw Academy
Splitting your content calendar into daily, weekly, and monthly views allows you to have a clear overview of your brand upscaling content without having it looking too cluttered.
The daily view is basically serving to overview details of your day-to-day content. Since it is the most detailed view it should include the date, time, text, and image, link if you have it. If you prepare all the details in advance, it really cuts down on the time you have to spend later.
The weekly view is less detailed, but you can see how it looks as a whole. Maybe some daily postings don’t make sense when paired with others in the week.
And at the end, we have the monthly view. With it, we can visualize our brand’s content and combine them with big events that can be coming up.
Know your audience
Upscaling your brand’s social media engagement can’t be done without targeting the audience that will be responsive to your content. If you haven’t identified your audience yet, you can do so by analyzing their demand, media consumption, and demographics.
Fortunately for you, these can be easy using available tools. Having Google Analytics on your brand’s website shows your audience characteristics. This data serves to target properly your content that matters to upscale social media engagement.
Your brand can track audience engagement via social media as well. Facebook and Instagram allow you to see different demographics of your audience base. Seeing what works well makes it easy to share tailored content that improves engagement with your brand.
Exploring new hashtags or formats can add a new audience to your roster. Keep in mind, it’s good to shake it up a bit from time to time, but don’t forget about your loyal audience base!
Teamwork
Your brand has probably more than one person designated for marketing. Use your social media content calendar to share ideas, combine different marketing specialists to create an engaging story about your brand.
Having more than one person involved will allow your brand to bring something cohesive but different to the table. By allowing input not only from marketing, but other departments as well makes sure that other important events like product launches or big announcements are included in your social media calendar.
Maya Geller, content writer expert and editor at Get Good Grade, says “teamwork is incredibly important in content creation and marketing, but it’s not often talked about. Remember to always follow a clear-cut strategy that’s transparent and clear to all team members.”
Review, edit, update
Looking for that engagement on social media might mean that your brand can’t stay static but following trends and making trends.
Image source: Rignite
Having a content calendar makes sure you are set on the right path, but it needs to be regularly reviewed, edited and updated. Keeping up with your audience’s insights shows what you can work on, even add to your social media. Even tiny changes like time to publish content can have huge effects on audience engagement.
Conclusion
Writing a stunning social media content calendar for your brand brings a lot of benefits. Increasing engagement is only one of them, but you will soon start seeing other indirect benefits with increased engagement. Working smart at the beginning and planning your content in categories makes sure you will have more time for other important work later. Having categories keeps each avenue of your content in a constant update loop, so you can make sure to share the whole story and not just tidbits.
Take a look at the content calendar in daily, weekly and monthly views. Some posts make sense in detailed daily view, but it needs to fit in the overall monthly plan. Having consistency is key, so make sure to include what your brand is about in the whole story!
If you don’t know who your audience is and what they want, there will hardly be scaling to engagement. Find out more about them using available tools like Google Analytics, Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube insights. Establishing a new audience with testing might just bring you new avenues.
After all, a brand consists of various people, so share the content calendar and integrate it with other departments to bring authenticity and inclusion to your brand’s message.
Including these tips in your content calendar and then carefully reviewing and editing it, even updating regularly, will ensure that your brand’s social media engagement is upscaled to the top!