Social media is an integral part of your digital marketing strategy. With so many platforms to manage, you need to create a strategic and carefully measured calendar to ensure that you are providing the right content for your audience. You can do this by creating a social media calendar to help you to outline what your content plan will be for the coming weeks and months. Here are Springboard PR & Marketing’s five steps to creating a perfect content calendar.

What social media platforms should I be posting on?

You should firstly decide which platforms will be your primary focus. We advise our clients to focus on key networks which they know will work for their brand. When you have an established profile on these, you may consider other platforms. Make sure that the platforms you use suit your brand image and reach your target audience.

When should I be posting on social media?

As you can post several times a day on Twitter, so you should create plenty content for this, whereas for Facebook you may only post a few times a week. Keep an eye on your insights to ensure that you are posting when your followers are active and engaging online.

Which posts are best for a social media calendar?

Use your social media insights and metrics tools to identify which posts garner the most attention. Make sure that the responding audiences are your target audience. There’s little advantage in establishing an audience that is unlikely to buy your product. You should be monitoring your content frequently and analysing which kinds of content to deliver next.

What kind of content should include in a social media calendar?

Decide what content you would like to use on your platforms and source it. Are you going to  create content internally using blog posts, photos, videos and more, or are you going to curate content from the internet, sharing posts from others? When you are creating content, make sure that you proof-read before scheduling or posting.

Pop it in!

Plan your content in advance, popping posts into your calendar as you go. You may choose to do this in Excel, Word or a calendar. At Springboard PR & Marketing, we always advise our clients to remain flexible with this calendar. If you see an opportunity for  a post take it, and similarly beware of scheduled posts. For example, companies have been known to accidentally schedule a ‘Happy New Years’ post for 12.01am on December 31^st instead of January 1^st. The result is that these posts arrive a day early!

With good planning and consistent management, you can create a content calendar that builds into your digital marketing strategy. You can deliver key content to your target audiences consistently, and see significant increases in your following and engagement.

Post by Susie Horgan

Susie founded Springboard in 2011, and has developed the business into a leading, director-led communications agency. She has worked for over 20 years in senior marketing and public relations roles.