Remington Begg
If you’re following the inbound methodology, you already know how crucial producing content and sharing it is to attracting, informing, and converting new customers. This is also great for delighting current customers into continuing their relationship with you. But as you regularly produce new, interesting pieces, it can be a lot to try to keep up with posting them on your various social media channels and then staying engaging on each post afterwards.
Enter: the content calendar.
Basically, a content calendar is a schedule of what you’ll post and when you’ll post it. It should span platforms, so you could use one to plan your social media marketing, email marketing, and content marketing. A calendar frees you up to listen to your audience and iterate accordingly. Here are some other ways a content calendar can benefit your business:
#1 It Helps with Holidays
Big holidays, company outings, and other special dates that you’ll want to incorporate can’t sneak up on you when you plan for them. Mapping out your schedule gives you the freedom to think about big-picture stuff while making sure day-to-day tasks don’t get lost in the shuffle. It’ll also give you plenty of time to plan your content marketing strategy around these events as well, so you’re “ Happy Holidays!” tweet can actually lead to a blog post and be more actionable.
#2 It’s Easier to Coordinate Channels
Your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and all other social media channels should have one unified voice representing your brand. This is easily possible with a content calendar. Beyond that, you can make sure your emails and blog are on the same topics at the same time as your social media posts.
#3 It’ll Save You Time
Not everything that is good for your marketing is about boosting your ROI. Sometimes you have to worry about yourself! Creating and sticking to a content calendar will save you time and tons of stress. You can still incorporate newsjacking and adapt as opportunities arise, but you won’t be in scrambling panic mode trying to figure out what to post every single day.
#4 It’ll Keep Your Posts Consistent
You don’t want any of your social channels to go radio silent, even over the weekends. In fact, that’s when people are most likely looking to be entertained and informed by you. There are few guarantees in social media strategy (other than cat videos, obviously), but one of the best ways we know to grow a social following is to consistently have something interesting to say.
Your content calendar is a framework for the ongoing voice you want to use for business. When you take this approach to your marketing output, you can turn ideas and broad strategies into an actionable plan that can be adjusted as you learn more about what works best. It’s all part of a highly successful social media plan for your company. For more tips on how to keep your brand visible on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more, download our free eBook Mastering Social Media for Business today.
