How To Make A Social Media Calendar

Successful campaigns on social media come with a great deal of content planning, especially when multiple networks are involved. Remember how Myntra and Flipkart fought during Raksha Bandhan? One wouldn’t want to mess up such a brilliant marketing campaign!

Having a social media calendar in this respect will help you to manage what type of content you have to post and when. Read on to understand the necessities of a social media calendar template, how to make one for yourself, and then hit a little present from us to you!

What is a Social media calendar?

A social media calendar usually provides you with an overview of your upcoming social media posts, organized by dates. They are used to plan posts, manage campaigns, and review ongoing strategies.

A content calendar on social media usually includes the following elements:

• Copy and creative assets such as photos or videos of the planned post. This can also help you to avoid any tone problems, typos, or any other mistakes.

• Date and timing of the postings.

• The social media network and account where the content will be published.

• Links and tags of the post.

The reason we are being so insistent about maintaining a social media calendar is that we want the best for you. Content planning on social media will help you work effectively on social media strategies. Let’s find out how and why!

Why is content planning on social media important?

Content planning is simply when you decide which content will go up and when. Content planning helps you to define marketing goals and set definite priorities, specific to a social media network. Every social media platform like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, serve different purposes.

According to research, there are top three goals you should have your focus on:

1. Generating brand awareness

2. Building credibility

3. Educating the audience.

Hence, preparing your content calendar with all the platforms in regard will help you generate the perfect strategy for the channel where you directly interact with your customers.

Trust us, there’s no way even industrial experts like us would have been able to deliver the right content to you without first drafting a social media calendar. And of course, we have here to impart those magical tricks to you!

How to make a social media calendar?

There’s a possibility that social media calendar might seem an intimidating prospect to you. When was the last time you properly sifted through a calendar to organize your hours? If it’s taking you a significant amount of time to recall, work with us and design proper content planning for your social media accounts.

Now, your social media calendar can take many forms. You can use a spreadsheet, a google calendar, or an interactive dashboard to list down your activities. By following the steps mentioned below you can easily build your own social media posting calendar:

1. Review your social networks and content

Before you begin building a calendar for yourself, be mindful to run a check to find any imposter and outdated profiles, account security, and passwords. Pay attention to:

• Goals and KPIs for each branded account

• Target audience and their demographics

• Who’s responsible for what on your team

• Strengths and weaknesses of your previous content, successful or not

• An area of improvement you need to focus on

• Key metrics to measure successes on each platform

2. Choose your social channels and define the content mix

You need to decide what kind of content you want to deliver to your audience, and this forms an important step toward building a social media calendar.

Fun Fact: About 80% of marketers say that witty content is the most effective on social media! Also, users spend an average of 19.6 hours a month on Facebook.

Don’t forget the strategic content mixes for your platform: each one-third of your posts involves promotional content, curated content from industry thought leaders, and personal interaction with your followers. The 80-20 rule of which 80% of posts inform, educate, or entertain while 20% of posts promote your business, should also be kept in mind. Also, add schedules for user-generated content either!

3. What should your social media calendar include

Every business has its own social media calendar. So, decide which elements will be the most useful for you to include on your social media calendar. They can include basic details like:

• Date

• Time

• Social media channel

• Copy

• Visuals

• Links to assets

• Links to published content

Or have more targeted information like:

• Platform-specific formats like reels, videos, polls, etc.

• Marketing campaigns

• Paid (budget details) or organic

• Approval information

4. Feedback session!

Nothing works well without team discussions and constructive feedback. Everyone in your marketing team should understand the workings of your social media calendar and everyone’s needs should be paid attention to.

In case you feel that the content calendar on social media isn’t detailed enough, feel free to add a few more columns to it. Your calendar is likely to grow with the growth of your business!

So, a detailed calendar as mentioned above will help you maintain track of what’s happening on the social media front of your business. With direction from experts like us, you’ll be able to manage your postings and brand image much more efficiently!

Bright Brain is a Digital Marketing and Advertising Agency with a focus on building digital solutions for Branding and Increased Sales efficiency. Our expertise includes Digital Advertising, Campaigns, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Web Development, and Online Branding. Our Google Partnership brings a unique opportunity to work with the internal team at Google, adding even more value to our team & clients.

Look, we even have a present for you!

Here’s a social media calendar template for you!