You're building a content calendar. How can you ensure it's well-organized and easy to use?

You better divide the top three content formats that works for you and then align it with your expectations and the topics that you want to talk about.

Something that people miss a lot is the touch point with other departments. Sure, if you are in a small company and do most of the work yourself, even a Google calendar can work. But in big organizations, you'd want to use the already existing cross-department task management system, so that other stakeholders can have transparency and so that you can incorporate other people's tasks and projects into your plan. And to be more specific, I mean platforms like Monday.com, Asana, etc.

To keep my social media content calendar organized, I rely on: * Google Calendar: It's simple and collaborative. I assign each platform a different color, making it easy to visualize. Plus, it syncs seamlessly across devices. * Trello: This tool is like a virtual bulletin board. I create cards for each piece of content and move them across boards representing different stages – from ideation to published. * Buffer: For scheduling posts, Buffer is fantastic. I can plan content across various platforms, set specific posting times and it even suggests optimal posting times for increased engagement. Easy and efficient!

To create a content calendar, choose a format that aligns with your team's workflow and preferences. Options include spreadsheets, calendar apps like Google Calendar or Outlook, project management tools like Asana or Trello, or content creation platforms like CoSchedule. Prioritize accessibility, seamless updates, and collaborative sharing. It's important to have a quick overview of scheduled content, with features for filtering and progress monitoring, to ensure efficiency and collaboration within the team.

User-Friendly Content Calendar in 3 Steps: Plan: Define goals, audience, schedule, and prioritize topics. Organize: Choose a tool, categorize content, collaborate, and make information accessible. Track & Optimize: Monitor performance, analyze audience response, adjust strategy, and regularly review the calendar. Tools: Planning: Trello, Monday.com, Airtable, Evernote Organizing: Asana, Smartsheet, CoSchedule, Google Sheets Tracking & Optimization: Buzzsumo, Sprout Social, Hootsuite, SEMrush

Your content calendar should give you a clarity of basic requirements and needs that will match to your final goal. And the result that you are looking forward for preparing content.

Effectively defining social media goals requires understanding your audience and brand voice. Beyond SMART criteria, consider audience aspirations, pain points, and preferences. Resonating goals create an authentic connection, making content valuable. Aligning goals with brand voice ensures consistency and trust on social media. Effective goal-setting involves understanding your audience and maintaining brand integrity.

?????? ?????? ?????????? Clearly define roles and responsibilities. Assign specific tasks and deadlines to each team member. This helps maintain accountability and ensures everyone knows what's expected of them. ??????????????: ?????????????? ????????????: Develops content ideas, drafts copy, and researches keywords. ???????????? ?????????? ??????????????: Schedules content across platforms, interacts with followers and analyzes performance. ?????????????? ????????????????: Creates visuals that complement the content. ?????????? ??????: Use a collaborative content calendar platform like Trello or Asana. These tools allow team members to easily see the big picture, track progress, and communicate with each other.

Here is a checklist of 10 items I use when creating a content calendar - Does the content align with our social media strategy? - Do I post X posts minimum per week? - Is this content valuable for my audience? - Am I balancing sales and value content? - Am I answering pressing questions? - Can I repurpose old content that performed well? - Am I posting enough video content? - Does every platform have X posts scheduled? - Does the content align with our tone of voice? - Did I define SMART goals for my content this month?

The goals for a social media content calendar are multifaceted. Firstly, it aims to drive audience engagement by fostering meaningful interactions. Consistency in branding is crucial to maintaining a cohesive brand image. Diversifying content formats ensures appeal to varied audience preferences. A well-planned promotional strategy enhances product or service visibility. Timely relevance to current trends and events is paramount for sustained audience interest. Integration of compelling call-to-actions focuses on converting engagement into desired user actions. Tracking analytics provides insights for performance evaluation and data-driven adjustments. Overall, be adaptable and have fun!

Keeping an organized social media calendar completely boils down to planning. Make sure you freeze: - Content buckets - Content formats - Posting schedule Pretty much everything else doesn’t need to be in your calendar, but it’s up to the team involved of course.

Content planning is important. Just do one thing. Check out which days your content performs well? Divide it accordingly and pick those topics that are most discussed according to the performance of your previous post.

Social media these days is nothing but reels, memes, quirks. No one’s interested in your monthly content calendar, however that’s how the bubble is still functioning, like it was in 2017 when social entered India. Even swiggy, zomato, durex, some brands who rocked social from 2018-2021 have minimised it now. However my plan of action for any social piece is to not to plan it fully. World is large enough to give you topicals/moments every 2/3 days. And rest you can wrap it up with spike campaigns for social media. Being young and making things for ppl active on social media is required. For a templatised approach, print media is enough, digital should be dynamic.

1. Plan evergreen and timely content: Balance evergreen content that stays relevant long-term with timely posts capitalizing on current trends and events. 2. Leave room for flexibility: Allocate buffer days for unexpected opportunities or breaking news.

Planning your content is just that - planning. Set your planning in buckets: 1. Research - research target customers, research competitors, hashtags. 2. Create content - Focus on 1-2 weeks at a time. Create in buckets - quotes, videos, articles, etc. 3. Batch this content - Ex: All videos done in one day. Or how many videos can I get done in 30 minutes? Then stop. 4. Schedule all of your content. Productivity is key. A timer is set and this gets all of your focus. Give yourself boundaries on how much time you’ll spend to prevent burnout. Don’t overthink the process. Keep it simple.

Make sure you update you content calendar on what is already needed to be done and what is already done. Divide content into smaller to do-lists to clarify what is needed for every content created (data, format based needs, other resources)

Creating compelling content involves synergy in 3 things: 1. Target Audience : Understanding your TG and their content preferences. 2. Brand Objective: Keep brand tonality and objectives at the forefront. 3. Platform Optimization: Navigate platform algorithms adeptly. Successful content emerges when these elements seamlessly converge. eg: Dominos' approach exemplifies this synergy, ensuring content not only entertains but also aligns with brand identity and suits audience preferences, optimizing impact across diverse platforms.

Bring your plan to life by creating content aligned with platform best practices. Utilize high-quality visuals, engaging captions, hashtags, and calls to action. Ensure accuracy by proofreading and editing before publishing or scheduling. Tools like Canva, Lumen5, or Grammarly can enhance content creation and polish. Adhering to these practices not only elevates the visual appeal but also maximizes the impact of your content across diverse social media platforms.

Creating effective content requires understanding your audience and telling compelling stories. Tools like Canva and Lumen5 help with the technical aspects, but the key is crafting narratives that resonate. Tailor your content to evoke emotions, solve problems, or entertain, aligning with your brand voice. Infuse authenticity into visuals and captions to connect with your audience. Prioritize quality over quantity, reflecting your brand's values and speaking directly to your followers. Effective content creation blends creativity with understanding your audience's desires.

I don't believe in having "1 step" to create content, since you start creating content when you start brainstorming. I'll call this part "Redefine your content and convert drafts into final content"

Effectively distributing content across various platforms is a crucial puzzle piece. The power lies in repackaging one piece of content for diverse audiences and platforms. Key elements in this process include: 1. Platform Insight: Grasp the nuances of each platform. 2. Strategic Scheduling: Utilize scheduling tools like Later for seamless content dissemination. 3. Quality Assurance: Implement stringent quality check points.

Re-use and repurpose. There is no need to creating the wheel every time you post. Make sure repurposing your content is part of your plan. This could be taking the same piece of content you shared 3 months ago and sharing it again. It could also be taking a static post and turning it into a reel. Try to make content that is evergreen and not platform specific, this way you can save time by sharing the same content to multiple platforms.

Effectively distributing content requires understanding each platform's dynamics and tailoring your approach. Use scheduling tools like Buffer/Hootsuite, but success lies in strategic timing and adapting content for diverse audiences. Leverage platform-specific features (e.g., Instagram Stories, Twitter polls, LinkedIn articles) to engage followers genuinely. Monitor analytics for overall performance, peak engagement times, and audience demographics. Go beyond automation by actively engaging with your audience, responding promptly to comments and feedback. A personalized, platform-tailored distribution strategy enhances content impact and fosters a meaningful connection with your audience.

There are so many tools available, free and paid, that will make your life easier. Use planning tools like Trello and Notion. Use idea generators or AI tools. Use Scheduling tools like Later to make sure everything goes out on time

Are you going to take the short cut and post the same post across all your platforms? Of course you're not! You're different! Because we all can tell when we visit your social media pages that you've rinsed and repeated yourself on your LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter without even changing the copy slightly. Or without changing the dimensions on the graphic. You're different! You're going to take the few extra moments to change the caption to be relative for your LinkedIn audience. Or change the graphic in a way that's more engaging for an Instagram audience. It's these little changes and adjustments that make all the difference. Because you're providing value contextual to the platform you're engaging with.

The essence of content performance extends beyond mere numbers; entrust HubSpot or another tool to analyze them. Direct your attention towards the genuine impact it can deliver to your target audience. Consider this example: a higher engagement rate by comments may surpass a benchmark, but was the sentiment uniformly positive? When planning our content calendar, we pose crucial questions for each post: Why are we creating it? Is it truly relevant and insightful? Embrace a brighter perspective on content evaluation!

A person who doesn't know their data, doesn't know where they're going or where they've been. Reviewing how your content performs is a key difference maker between the businesses that perform well in the long term and those that do not. So many companies just post and forget. Or simply go off of "how many followers do we have" - when that is the worst metric to follow. Has your audience become more engaged? Have you started receiving more comments? Are new accounts finding you more often? These are the questions you should be answering as you review your content. Do not - ever - fall victim to vanity metrics on social media. They'll distract you from what matters most, creating an engaged online community.

Ask for feedback on the calendar, and try to plan it so well, that anyone else could use the calendar for running the social media account if necessary.

Check your social media reports and analytics weekly so you can get an idea of which posts get the most engagement. Update and adapt your content based on what your audience likes the most. Stay dynamic for lasting impact!

The MOST important thing is to check your content performance. You have spent a lot of time researching, brainstorming, and crafting content; if you don't measure them, and compare the results with your initial goals, then you are wasting your time. I always recommend that when this time comes, you pull up your smart goals and compare the results with what you initially wanted to accomplish.

Experimentation - something gets completely ignored. SM growth is never a surefire endeavour. We all know it happens as a result of algorithm deciding to get your brand in the (promote a couple of your content to a larger audience > getting more views > adding a few followers who share your content > repeating with another set of content if the first one engaged the users) loop. Think back. Pages that go viral, or even single videos/posts alone - they do that once the “unique” quotient exceeds a certain point. “Breaks the pattern” as they say. Can’t happen if you’re producing content the same way cars are produced on conveyor belts now, can it? So, make sure you leave room for experimentation within your social media calendar!

You need some strategy and process around creating a content calendar. Otherwise you’ll have a lot of content, but no real story or journey to take your audience on. If you’re wondering why your content isn’t yielding results, it’s because you’re creating content ad hoc and lacking the strategy piece. Better to create less and strategize more.

I whenever create a content calendar. I make sure that I have it divided into the top funnel, middle of the funnel and the bottom of the funnel content. So that I can clearly categorize my goals and expect the results with content marketing.

There are ways to improve the efficiency of keeping the workflow and workstreams running. Look at AI and enablers like Zapier or home built apps in Python for instance. If you have found a nice way to do things manually - your next step is to see how you can build even easier ways to do it next time. Thru automation and integrations.

Content should be both fixed and fluid. Plan content ahead of time but also use social listening to see what’s trending and respond with timely and relevant content