A content calendar is a tool that helps you plan, organize, and schedule your content across different channels and platforms. It can help you align your content with your goals, audience, and brand voice, as well as optimize your content for engagement and performance. But how can you create a content calendar that maximizes engagement? Here are some tips to guide you.
Before you create your content calendar, you need to know who you are creating content for. What are their needs, interests, preferences, and pain points? How do they consume content and on what platforms? What kind of content do they engage with and why? You can use data from your analytics, surveys, feedback, and social media to gain insights into your audience and create buyer personas. These will help you tailor your content to your audience and increase engagement.
Chief Marketing Officer @ TruWest Holdings | Distinguished Sales & Marketing Award Winner
A lot of companies and SMEs create content that they think is important or about a topic that they want to get out because it supports a revenue goal. But at the end of the day, the content that you post needs to be based on the interest of your audiences. That means trying different pieces of topics and formats and constantly evaluating the performance. You may feel that you have to be on every channel to hit your targets often but if the data doesn’t support that, it’s better to focus on a limited channel strategy and to do it really well. Constant evaluation on performance is the key and listen to silence and pivot!
Next, you need to define what you want to achieve with your content and how you will measure it. What are your specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for your content strategy? How do they align with your overall business objectives? What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will show you how well your content is performing and engaging your audience? You can use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, email marketing reports, and others to track and analyze your metrics.
To create a content calendar that maximizes engagement: Know your audience. Set clear goals. Diversify content types. Maintain a consistent schedule. Research keywords. Plan content themes. Use content calendar tools. Encourage audience engagement. Promote on social media. Utilize email marketing. Repurpose content. Monitor analytics. A/B test. Collaborate and use visuals. Adapt and learn. Measure ROI.
Then, you need to decide where you will distribute your content and how you will adapt it to different channels and platforms. You should consider the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of each channel and platform, as well as the best practices and trends for each one. You should also consider the type, format, tone, and frequency of content that works best for each channel and platform, and how they fit with your audience and goals.
When you are planning a content calendar, I assume that beforehand, you made a content strategy. Content strategy should cover your content pillars and clusters of topics, your goals and your messages. If you have already done it – it is very simple to 'slice' the big topics into smaller pieces of content and adapt it to every channel.
Now, you need to generate and organize your ideas for your content. You can use various sources of inspiration, such as your audience's questions, comments, and feedback, your competitors' content, industry news and events, keyword research, and content analysis tools. You should also use a content mix that balances different types of content, such as educational, entertaining, inspirational, and promotional, to keep your audience engaged and interested. You can use tools like spreadsheets, calendars, or software to organize your ideas by channel, platform, topic, format, date, and status.
Split your content into themes or blocks: informative, entertaining, interactive, promotional, etc. Adjust the ratio based on your objectives and audience profile. Make sure your calendar includes holidays, cultural or religious events, and other happenings resonant with your community. Stay flexible and allow room for urgent topics and trends, and leave room for exploration of new formats and styles if your brand policies allow that.
Next, you need to create and optimize your content according to your plan. You should follow the best practices for each channel and platform, such as using catchy headlines, clear and concise copy, relevant and appealing visuals, strong calls to action, and appropriate hashtags and keywords. You should also optimize your content for search engines, social media algorithms, and mobile devices, to increase your visibility, reach, and engagement.
Take strategic approach to crafting content that resonates with your audience and is optimized for each platform is key. First, understand your audience's preferences and behaviors. Each social media platform has its own set of best practices. For instance, Instagram relies heavily on visuals, while LinkedIn values professional, informative content. Diversify your content types - from blog posts and articles to videos and infographics. This variety caters to different audience preferences and keeps your feed dynamic and engaging. Continuously monitor the performance of your content. A content calendar should be flexible. It's important to stay responsive to current trends and audience feedback, adjusting your strategy as needed.
Finally, you need to publish and promote your content according to your schedule. You should use tools like schedulers, automation, or notifications to ensure that your content goes live at the optimal times and frequencies for each channel and platform. You should also use tools like email marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, or paid advertising to amplify your content and reach a wider and more targeted audience. You should also monitor and respond to your audience's engagement, such as likes, comments, shares, and reviews, to build relationships and trust.
If you are looking specifically to increase engagement, the time of day that you publish plays a big role. You want to send out your posts when your audience is online so that they react to it pretty soon after it is published. Those early reactions will help the algorithms know that this piece of content is interesting and they should show it to more people. Take the time to look at your analytics to see when you are getting the most engagement. There is also a ton of research on the topic. Make sure you plan your schedule around the times that work for you, and keep iterating every so often to change the time you post to ensure you're really posting at the optimal moments.
Get input and involve stakeholders, but don't be a slave to group think. Let the metrics speak for themselves! Make sure your strategy is a two-way street!
Make sure to stay up to date and catch the trendy topics, but at the same time it has to be related to your communication pillars in order to make sense and add value. Be one step ahead, who starts earlier can lead the media narrative. One more important tip, never compromise on your communications quality, it always has to be flowless and definitely error free!