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We have all used calendars at one time or another to keep track of upcoming events, birthdays, vacations, doctor appointments, sporting events, and deadlines so we remember them. They are also great for keeping track of holidays throughout the year. Knowing how helpful calendars are, doesn’t it make sense to create one for your small business’s social media efforts?
A social media calendar saves valuable time, keeps everything organized, and provides a visual roadmap of your content schedule. If you are experiencing frustration with your social media efforts and looking for a way to simplify everything, this Balboa Capital blog article can help. In it, we explain how to create a social media calendar that provides you with a structured schedule that is easy to plan and follow.
What is a social media calendar?
A social media calendar is essential for any business that wants to manage its content on social media effectively. It is a plan for organizing and scheduling content to maximize each post’s impact. With a well-planned social media calendar, you can create an effective strategy for engaging your followers and target audience and increasing brand awareness.
A social media calendar also helps you save time by planning your content ahead of time and giving you the flexibility to adjust your strategies as needed. In addition, it allows you to track and measure the performance of each post to refine your strategy over time. In addition, social media calendars can help you build and strengthen relationships with your followers and customers. For example, when you post content regularly, it can enhance customer loyalty and drive more sales.
How to get started.
Before you start creating a calendar for your social media efforts, you should revisit your business’s marketing plan to see your goals and objectives relating to social media. Your goals should be realistic, attainable, and measurable and complement your overall marketing efforts. Some common social media goals to consider are increasing brand awareness, driving people to your website, growing your follower base, and boosting your return on investment (ROI).
The next step is to ensure your social networks are updated with relevant information about your small business. Then, add your company description, logo, banner image, and contact information to each network, and be sure to size your logo and pictures with the proper specifications. Each social network has its guidelines for logo and picture sizes. This is also an excellent time to create accounts on social networks you still need to start using.
Once these steps have been completed, you can research the available social media calendar options and begin crafting your improved social media marketing strategy.
Social media calendar options.
With so many different calendar platforms to select from, finding one that works best for your needs can be challenging. That said, free and paid options are available with many helpful and time-saving features. You can also make your calendar using software that your computer has installed. Spreadsheets and essential calendars will work.
Consider the paid options if you are looking for an all-in-one social media calendar that can handle numerous tasks. For example, some paid platforms with built-in calendars let you schedule content days, weeks, or even months in advance. In addition, these social media management platforms connect to each of your social networks and publish your posts to each of them. This eliminates the need to log in and out of each network to post your content and hashtags. Plus, certain paid platforms show you the results of your scheduled posts, such as the number of impressions, clicks, shares, likes, and comments.
Putting it all together.
Once you decide on the type of social media calendar you will use, it is time to create a schedule with posts that align with your goals and that appeal to your followers and target audience. It helps you plan and organize your content in advance, so you can be sure that your posts are timely and relevant. One of the primary goals of social media is to maximize engagement, which can be achieved by posting links to unique, interesting content on your website or sharing popular content that you find on the Internet.
However, remember that posting too often can annoy your followers, lower your engagement rate, or result in lost followers. Using too many hashtags can also be detrimental to your posts and be viewed as spam by your followers.
What to post on social media.
When building your social media calendar, try to avoid over-promoting your company. Instead, schedule a mix of posts with information about your company and curated content from other websites that provide helpful information. Let us use a local garden shop as an example. Before the spring season, the shop scheduled posts from industry leaders and bloggers that feature spring garden tips, including how to prepare the soil and grow flowers and vegetables. Mixed in with these posts, the garden shop posted user-generated content and included links to its website’s storefront and special sales announcements. This approach saved the garden shop time because its owner and social media manager did not have to write everything themselves.
The time that you post is also essential. It would not benefit your business to schedule posts in the middle of the night, as your followers and intended audience are offline then. Instead, consider posting in the morning, lunch hour, or late afternoon. This will give your posts more visibility and increase the chance of engagement.
Conclusion.
As a small business owner, time is one of your most valuable assets. Planning and scheduling your social media efforts can help you make the most of them. By using a social media calendar to plan out your day, week, and month in advance, you can save yourself from wasting precious hours on tasks that could have been done more efficiently.
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.