How to create an effective social media calendar

A social media calendar is an overview of the events that you organized by date for upcoming events. It can be in any form like a spreadsheet, Google calendar, or any social media management tool. It can help you save a lot of time by keeping all your ideas and posts stored in one place.

You should use social media calendar to save time and organize your signs of progress, identify and execute more ambitious social media campaigns, improve posting consistency, create high-quality content, improve tracking and analysis of performance, and for long-term success.

But before anything, it is very important what kind of content you are going to post. A social media calendar includes a combination of elements like the date and time your content will go live, social media network and the account where your content will be published, copy and creative assets that are needed in your post, and links and tags that should be included in the content that you are going to post.

Now, the most obvious question here is how we can create an effective social media calendar, here are some of the best ways by which you can create one:

Audit your social networks and content: –

Before making your social media calendar you should have clarity on the number of accounts that you are handling. You should use social media template to create a precise record of imposter accounts and outdated profiles, account security and passwords, goals and KPIs for each branded account, demographics and personas of your audience, duty allotted to each member of your team, and track of most successful posts, campaigns, and tactics.

Choose your social channels and content mix: –

You should be very much particular with the type of content that you will be posting. Use the rules like 1/3rd of your posts promote your business, 1/3rd of your posts share curated content from industry thought leaders, and 1/3rd of your social posts involve personal interaction with followers.

Also read our blog on how to choose perfect social media platform for your business to know more.

Implement the 80-20 rule:

It is concerning the content that you make. 80% of your posts should be designed to inform, educate, or entertain and 20% should directly promote your business. You should also determine which of the social channels are going to help you and which ones that are not necessary.

Decide what your calendar should include:

Your calendar will be different from anyone else’s. For retaining maximum information and functionality you should map out the most important contents like platform, date, time, copy, visuals, links to assets, and link to the published post that includes any tracking info. You should also include details like platform-specific format, associated vertical or campaign, geo-targeting, is your content is paid or organic, and lastly is it approved?

Invite your team to review, and use their feedback to improve:

To know if your calendar makes sense then you should show it to your team. You should then ask for feedback and ideas from stakeholders. Once you start working according to your calendar then ask the team to provide ongoing feedback.

Click here if you want to know what is an influencer.

Some of the best calendar tools to plan your messaging are:

1. Hubspot’s downloadable template for excel: It is a content calendar and it is free.
2. Google Drive: It is a content calendar and asset organization. It is free for personal use but it starts from $6 per month.
3. Loomly: We use Loomely for content planning, creation, publishing, and calendar. It provides you with a 15-day free trial and its paid plan starts from $26/month.
4. Trello: It is best for task management and content calendar. It is free for individual use and the paid plan starts from $5/month.
5. Sprousocial: It is good for social publishing and for creating a content calendar. Its plan starts from $85/month for 5 profiles.
6. Evernote: It is used as a content calendar, task management, and asset organization. Is basic plan is free but you can $8/month.
7. Hootsuite: It is social publishing and content calendar. Its professional plan starts from $50/month.
8. Agoraplause: We use Agoraplause for social publishing and making a content calendar. Its plan is free but the plan starts from $80/month.
9. Storychief: It is used for content planning and distribution. It starts from $90/month.
10. Clear voice: It is used for content creation and management. It is a bit tricky as it requires a request for a free consultation for pricing.
11. Zerys: It is best for content creation and management. It costs $40/document plus $49/month for project management.

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Conclusion

You can use different social media platforms for planning like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest. You should create a content calendar template, draft your content goals, determine what types of content you want to publish, choose which platforms, and plan the most efficient posting schedule for your content.

These were some of the best ways by which you can create social media calendars and remain consistent in your work. I think by now you would have understood the importance of planning and the worth of its execution. So, always remember if you want a successful social media game then planning out with a calendar and to-do list can make your win more convenient.

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Also click here to read our blog on the Importance of social media calendar in growth strategy.