Social Media Calendar For Your Business
April, 2022
You need to be your best social media self and that means using a social media calendar to get your social together. Your calendar can be all you and your personal style: visual, spreadsheet, mind-mapping. There isn’t a right or wrong when it comes to social media calendars, but there are certainly tips and tricks to keep it easy and interesting. We’ll show you how.
Why a social media calendar for your brand?
Creativity and organization are your keys to social media success. Keeping it interesting is the advice we give for everything because it’s true. If you’re not interested, you won’t do it. The organization is the hand that holds the interesting together. Your social media calendar is your guide through the dark tunnel of social media posting. The calendar helps you know what to do know and connect that to your future posts.
For the Gen X folks out there, remember Blockbuster video stores? All week you’d think about the movies you want to rent on Friday, you’d walk into the huge store with all the options and completely blank on the movies you wanted to rent for the weekend. Most of the time you’d walk out of there with something that you didn’t plan on and then immediately remember what you actually wanted to rent once you got home.
That’s the way it is for folks on social media. They open up Facebook and they can’t remember a damn thing they wanted to post. At the same time, maybe your post ideas are waking you up at 2 am. Your social media content calendar will fix this.
What’s included on a social media calendar?
Whatever your business needs is the answer. There aren’t hard and fast rules when it comes to this because it’s your organizational style based on how your brain operates best. A few usuals in the calendar can include:
Topic categories (engagement, education, event, promotion, service, inspiration, holiday)
Keyword category (refer back to your metrics so you know you’re hitting on strategy)
Goals (list your intention or goals with each post)
The social platform to be posted (Facebook, Twitter, Google My Business, TikTok)
Get specific on type of post (Reel, Story, shopping post, poll)
Post copy or the general idea of the copy (can be exact or just guidelines)
Image/video ideas or the actual files (if actual files, they can already be named properly to save you time)
Hashtags (if appropriate for the platform)
Links or tags to include (be sure you’re copying account names that you want tagged exactly from the platform and not from memory)
Best times to post based on your unique metrics (not what an article says are the best times to post)
Notes (this is other info you or someone else may need for this particular post)
How do you make your social media calendar?
Alrighty. This is where you get to choose what’s best for your brain and your brand. There are so many free project management software options out there that can be used as a social media calendar. Yancey doesn't have a preference and we’ve used all of them at one time or another. We meet our clients where they’re at, so we will use just about anything that our client is comfortable with (that’s not true when it comes to content management systems). Some examples you can play around with:
Google Sheets: Everyone knows how to use a basic spreadsheet and Google keeps it safe and shareable.
Airtable Editorial Calendar: They offer 5 editorial calendar templates for high-velocity content production.
CoSchedule: They are all about planning your work, then working your plan.
Trello: Visual and versitle.
How do I keep it together like a boss?
Schedule your social media planning time. This can’t fall to the bottom of your to-do list every week. It can’t be the work you do when you are most tired and drained. This is your creative time, your planning time and you need to be fresh and ready.
Yancey is a morning person. Her brightest hours are between 3 - 5 am. The house is quiet, the pets are asleep surrounding her, the fire is lit and the words are flowing. Find your time and do your social media planning then. You got this. And if you need some help with the planning, we’re here for you.