As anyone who actively posts on social media can attest to, crafting a winning post takes time – from finding the right image, to drafting a witty caption, to incorporating the right hashtags, it can be a long process. If you manage social media for a brand, coming up with thoughtful content on the fly can be stressful, particularly if there’s a deadline looming over your head.
Avoid scrambling for content by planning out a social media content calendar every week. A calendar can also help ensure you are accurately capturing your brand’s voice across channels and finding the right balance between curated and promotional content. In addition, it allows you to schedule your messages for optimal times to broaden the exposure.
There are many different formats and tools that can be used to manage a social media calendar, but if your company is new to social media management or working with a limited budget you can build a basic, effective calendar using Excel. If you plan on managing the calendar with other team members, try using a cloud-based spreadsheet tool such as Google Sheets or Smartsheet so everyone has access to the latest version at all times.
Below are step-by-step instructions on how to create the calendar. The sample sheet below was created using Smartsheet, but can be adapted for a traditional spreadsheet tool.
1. Create tabs or sections for each month. If you’re using Excel, create a new tab for each month. Add a row for each week of the month.
2. Create a column for social channels and for each weekday. Then add a row for each of the social channels you plan on managing.
3. Create a color coding system. This will help manage posts if multiple people are contributing to the calendar. Add a key at the top of the sheet to ensure everyone knows the system.
Once your basic calendar is set up, you can customize it by adding more columns for posting multiple times a day or creating a more complex color coding system. If you’re using Smartsheet, you can also set up email reminders associated with specific rows to remind content managers to create or publish posts.
Before you start developing and publishing content, research what your content ratio should look like, how to develop a brand’s voice, and the optimal time to post on each channel. This will help inform your content development and publishing schedule.
If you decide to publish multiple times a day, you can streamline your efforts by investing in a social media management tool such as Hootsuite that allows you to schedule posts for publication at a designated time. This can save significant time and prevent you from stopping periodically throughout the day to post on social media.
Achieving success requires advanced planning, and this is particularly true for social media management. With some thoughtful planning, you can help your brand establish a strong presence on its social channels.