Social Media without a plan will #Fail.
(Highlight any sentence to click and tweet!)
Let’s create that plan together. First, you need your overall marketing strategy. Don’t have that? Check out this post. In this post we’re going to delve into how social media will support your marketing efforts and how to create a social media calendar for that.
Social media is a great complement to any other marketing strategies that you are using. In fact, it can amplify and maximize the reach you are now getting. It helps to build excitement about your events, releases, and updates that are happening in your business.
To start creating your calendar let’s work from an example. Let’s say you have a sale that you want to support through social media. This is what your calendar might look like:
Another way……
Remember you are also sharing other content at the same time. This just ensures you are properly sharing your own your information.
Now, let’s break this down the logic behind this social media calendar:
A tweet has the life of a gnat. So, it’s important to share on Twitter more often. Repeating updates allows more of your audience a chance to see them. However, make sure you are continuing to share interesting and relevant content for your audience.
The Facebook algorithm is changing. So, you should change with it. Try posting more on your page. See what results you get. Alternate between promotional posts, tips, engagement posts and more (Don’t forget video). Why does your audience like you? Why do they come to you? What expertise are they looking for? Keep these questions in mind when creating your content. If you don’t know what kinds of content your audience responds to – look at what kinds of things they have liked or commented on in the past.
While you can see repins long after you first pinned an item. It’s important to pin at the right time of day. Unlike other platforms you can’t really pin the same item multiple times so that your audience sees it. It’s also important to consistently pin. Keep yourself top of mind. Whenever a follower is endlessly scrolling – let them see your name pop up consistently.
Now, a sale is a short term goal. You also add to this calendar your long term business goals. Maybe you want to increase your newsletter subscribers by 20% in the first quarter or you want to increase traffic to your website by 20%
Your other type of promotional posts will support these long term goals. Directing people to your blog to see a new post or talking about the subscriber only sale will have an impact on your long term goals.
This is not the exact schedule you need to follow! Social media is not, and will never be, one size fits all {Tweet this}. It’s best to understand your audience and their movements online. You can learn this from using analytics. Once you understand that, you can craft a schedule that works perfectly for your business.
But how do you start actually creating your schedule – how do you put pen to paper?
Well, I love to work backwards. Yes, backwards. Starting from my event I first just mark down the days and or times I will post to various platforms. Remember the 80/20 rule when you are deciding on how often to post.
Next, I go back and incorporate my tone and CTA for each post. When I say “tone” I’m referring to whether the post is urgent, educational, humorous or more. Generally, the closer to the event the more urgent I word my copy. Conversely if the event is further away I educate more about the benefits.
Finally, I create custom graphics for the posts ahead of time so I am not rushed.
Rinse and Repeat.
Now, this just works for me and my brain. I like to build in layers to make sure that I don’t miss anything. But maybe that process is just too slow for you. Well, you can plot the post, tone, and CTA all at once. You just need to create something that works for you and something you’ll do on a continual basis.
I suggest you plan out 1 month at a time. If you want to do more – have at it. However, this can be slow going and overwhelming so give yourself some time to complete this. Also, your social media calendar is a living document and should change when your events change.
Want to ask me questions about this? Sign up for my upcoming webinar this month.
You now have steps to create your calendar from top to bottom. Check out my Startup Program if you want some coaching along the way.
What are you going to include on your calendar?