How do you create a content calendar for social media?

Before building a social-specific content calendar, I would consider and align with the business' overall content strategy and plans. Social often (but not always) leverages derivative content, so if the main content plan calls for topic X to be promoted - you can ensure that relevant social channels are considered throughout. For social-only content, then there is less of a need to align specifically, although general brand messaging should still present a unified brand experience to your stakeholders.

Begin by identifying your social media marketing objectives. Whether it's increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, boosting engagement, or generating leads, knowing your goals will shape your content strategy. Next, understand your target audience—their demographics, interests, pain points, and preferences. Tailor your content to resonate with your audience and address their needs.

In addition to understanding your audience's pain points and preferences, prioritize empathy in your content creation. Go beyond demographics and delve into the emotional aspects of your target audience's needs. What are their aspirations, fears, or desires?

In order to create a social media content calendar, conducting a Social Media Audit first is essential. This step helps one to analyze their social media presence and engagement and gain valuable insights into how their audience interacts with their content. When conducting a social media audit, reviewing and analysing the current social media content performance metrics, such as engagement, conversion, and clicks, is essential. In addition, it is important to analyze the performance of individual posts to identify the characteristics of successful posts. This analysis can help one understand whether their audience prefers educational, inspiring or entertaining content.

Set Goals: Define your objectives - brand awareness, engagement, conversions, etc. Know Your Audience: Understand your audience's preferences, behaviors, and interests. Content Themes: Outline themes or categories aligning with your brand and audience interests. Content Types: Determine the types of content (videos, images, blogs, etc.) that resonate best. Platform Strategy: Tailor content for each platform based on its nuances and audience expectations. Calendar Format: Use a spreadsheet, specialized software, or project management tools to organize content. Content Mix: Balance promotional, educational, entertaining, and curated content for variety. Scheduling: Plan posting times and frequencies optimized for each platform and audience.

Take into market dynamics into account! Remember that social media trends and algorithms evolve rapidly. Stay adaptable and open to change in your chosen platforms and content formats.

It's also worth considering the type of content you will enjoy creating. You don't have to tweet if you prefer to talk; create a short-form podcast instead. As long as you're clear about why and who you're trying to reach, you'll find your audience. Make sure to get buy in from stakeholders, and remember consistency is absolutely key. You won't get results unless you show up and deliver value at a consistent cadence. If you're giving up before 9 months of effort you're missing out on the rewards that are around the corner.

Select the social media platforms that align with your goals and where your target audience is most active. Each platform has its unique characteristics, so choose the ones that suit your content and brand image. Consider using a mix of text, images, videos, infographics, and other formats to keep your content diverse and engaging.

Integrate current events! Stay attuned to current trends and timely events within your industry or niche. Integrate these trends into your content planning to keep your social media presence relevant and engaging

Remember that social is just one channel in your larger marketing plan, so your themes should be consistent with your overall marketing efforts. As you map out topics, consider each social channel separately. Who are your followers? What do they want to hear from you? What action do you want them to take? All of these details must factor into your messaging decisions.

I find it helpful to look at content from a perspective of the forest as a whole, the trees within, and the leaves. Determine when you need to be broad in your presence, such as with content that has a more common ground appeal, or when you need to dig into specifics. Perhaps it's a cliché, but I've always found it beneficial to think of your existence in terms of an ecosystem. Social media, when done right, is kind of like a living entity.

Themes reflect your brand identity, values, and core message – they're the big picture. Topics are the specific ideas that bring those themes to life, providing value to your audience. Take healthy living as an example theme. Your topics could be nutrition tips, fitness routines, wellness products, and more! Aim for a diverse mix of themes and topics that cover different aspects of your niche, address various stages of the customer journey, and resonate with different audience segments. With a strategic content plan, you'll create a captivating narrative that keeps your audience hooked!

Devise a list of content themes that align with your brand and goals. These themes can be overarching topics that remain consistent throughout the year. Within each theme, brainstorm specific content topics that you can create. For example, a fitness brand may have themes like "workout tips," "healthy recipes," and "success stories."

Design a content calendar template that fits your needs. It can be as simple as a spreadsheet with columns for dates, platforms, content types, captions, and links. Use tools like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel for easy collaboration and accessibility.

Now, start populating your content calendar with planned posts. Schedule content in advance, keeping in mind important dates, holidays, and events relevant to your audience. Mix promotional content with valuable and entertaining posts to maintain a balanced approach.

More pointers: 1. Work with your internal stakeholders to make sure you know what outcomes they are hoping to see, and then set your reporting plan to include only KPIs to measure those relevant outcomes. 2. Select a source of truth for your metrics so everyone knows where the data comes from (is it the native platform? Is it a third party social tool?) 3. Measure only meaningful metrics that support the goals / objectives of your plan. Don't create a "data puke" of every metric under the sun. 4. Using rate (or rate of change) metrics is more meaningful than absolute numbers. An engagement rate of X% can be compared, while "X number of engagements" is less meaningful in a vacuum.

Use social media analytics tools to monitor the performance of your posts. Track metrics such as engagement, reach, clicks, conversions, and follower growth. Analyze the data regularly to identify which content performs well and resonates with your audience. Use these insights to refine your content strategy continuously.