January 13, 2021
Social media has completely transformed how we live our day to day lives. People have been hooked to their mobile phones, even more today than before, sharing photos, videos, events, and even their opinions. What's more, is that social media has also significantly changed how businesses promote and sell their product/s and service/s. It has become one of the essential parts of how businesses are able to promote their brands, reach their target consumers and make more sales efficiently.
As a business owner, your online relevance is the key to establishing your brand and achieving more profit. Of course, you need to have a strong marketing and content strategy before you attain success. Thus, it is very important to remember that there are several leading platforms that the online community is engaged to. Leveraging each platform to its full potential can be overwhelming, so it is much advisable that you use a social media calendar for each of your business pages.
As for other marketers, a social media calendar can also be referred to as a “media calendar”, “marketing calendar”, “editorial calendar” or a “content calendar”. It is something you make use of to plan, schedule and organize all your content. Be it on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly timeline. A social media calendar is usually made by using a spreadsheet or an app.
Posting on social media whenever you feel like it will never be enough if you are aiming to establish an online presence. In addition to this, being on just one social media platform is not earning you a much better advantage against your competitors.
As an entrepreneur, you have to understand that one of the most important aspects of a good marketing strategy is knowing who and where your target people are. What better avenue to reach out to your target consumers than these social media platforms. In making use of these platforms, you also have to determine which type of content works best for each:
Here’s a list of the leading social media platforms to help you out:
This is the most widely used platform and is also considered as the largest social media network in the world. Its members are a mix of almost every generation. As for the second quarter of 2019, Facebook has an overall record of 2.41 billion monthly active users.
Unlike Facebook, this social media platform is all about visuals. This is where you can share artsy images, short video clips, live broadcasts, and stories. Instagram is the second most used social media platform as of our present year and is also considered as one of the fastest-growing social media platforms. A huge number of its total users are of the younger generation. According to Statista, 31% of its users are aged between 18 and 24, while 34% are between 25 and 34.
This is a type of social media platform where you can share, view and upload videos as well as interact with other users. Records show that an average YouTube user spends typically 40 minutes watching videos on the platform.
Twitter is where you can engage in the most current trending topics. While this platform may not have as many users as the two (2) mentioned above, its user engagement is very active. It has over 500 million tweets each day.
This type of social media platform is for professionals as well as the B2B audience. As for professionals, they are able to search and apply for jobs, present their portfolios, and also widen their professional connections.
As for 2018’s market research, over 92% of content marketers use social media to disseminate their content on different platforms. However, it is not enough that you just have a social media content plan. Juggling different platforms can be very time-consuming. You will need to be organized to save some of your precious time. More so, having a social media calendar will also help you with the following:
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Social media marketing as of today goes way beyond just posting on one specific social media platform. Now that you have a clearer understanding as to why you need to have a social media calendar, here’s how you can start creating it:
Set a goal for each type of content you want to post on each of your social media pages. Doing so will enable you to monitor which types of content works well with your target people, which doesn’t, and what content to change depending on each of your campaign’s performance.
Take note of the following before setting your monthly goals: be specific, start small, have a realistic time-frame. As for each month, you have to be able to check your brand’s performance, track down which ones worked and also have new goals in the future. Generally, your monthly goals will typically be under these categories below:
Remember that before you set your calendar, you need to create a content plan for your specific campaigns and goals. Once you have set up your content plan, your social media calendar will serve as your framework for sharing content. Usually, the type of content that most brands use are of the following categories:
In creating your calendar, you have the option to do it manually or download templates that are available online. Follow the steps below if you prefer to manually create your social media calendar:
Now that you have your calendar, you may insert all your planned content for each date. You may include the specific time you want to post, you can also add an email or other distribution channels. As for your additional rows, you may use them to highlight important events for each day.
Of course in planning your social media calendar, the type of content you will have to post on each platform must also be included. Keep in mind that social media, in general, is made for interaction. Brands can be able to catch their target audiences’ attention by posting engaging content that will enable a conversation.
Each social media platform has a specific type of content that can work on that platform. Below are a few types of content that can help you in engaging and influencing your target audience:
As from the name itself, this type of content is intended to create an interaction with the target audience. This can be done through the following:
Visual content is one of the leading forms of content which the netizens love as of present. Providing a strong visual content will earn you more than just an engagement. Your visual content will also strengthen your brand image and it will also encourage people to check out your blogs. Check out these three kinds of visual content:
People will not pass on an opportunity of having free stuff. Posts that offer incentives to the mass is one very good way of starting an interaction and drive more engagements to your brand.
People engage in posts that they can relate to, it’s a known fact. Posts that can highly create an interaction with the audience are relevant informative posts, valuable content, and content that reflects the audience, take a look at some examples below:
Aside from Google Drive, you can also make use of the following to help you set up and organize your social media calendar:
