How to create a social media calendar
Hi everyone,
Welcome back to Mastering Marketing. This week we're firstly going to look at some big news from the 2 tech giants - Meta and 谷歌 .
Time to get started...
And then we'll learn why and how to create a really effective social media calendar for your brand. Let's get started.
Meta wins against UK Gov in the controversial fight to break encryption
Tech companies and privacy activists are celebrating as the UK government backs down on a contentious "spy clause" in the Online Safety Bill. This clause would have undermined end-to-end encryption but is no longer being enforced due to the government's admission that technology to scan encrypted messages for child sexual abuse material without compromising privacy doesn't exist. While the government claims it won't impose unproven technology on tech firms, critics remain cautious, as the controversial clauses remain in the legislation, potentially allowing encryption-breaking surveillance in the future. This development has global implications, halting momentum in efforts to weaken end-to-end encryption worldwide.
The question lingers: Will this UK decision deter other nations from pursuing similar mass surveillance measures? Read more here.
Google Universal Analytics has stopped processing data, it's all GA4 now.
Google Universal Analytics (UA) has ceased processing data after 68 days of anticipation. The transition to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is now a pressing concern for those who have been postponing the switch. This shift marks the end of an era for UA, which had been collecting data from 2012 to 2023. If you haven't migrated, you need to do it this week or you'll have issues both now and in the future. Let me know if you need help with this.
It's worth asking: Have you successfully migrated to GA4 yet?
????How to create a social media calendar?
Social media is part of a marketing team’s everyday routine. With nearly five billion people across the world (and counting) using at least one digital social platform, any modern business that wants to be known and continue to grow can’t neglect to post on its profiles.?
Yet whether you’ve had your Facebook page for years or are just starting a TikTok account, bad social media management habits can start to creep in and make your hard work less effective. In fact, it’s not uncommon, with 63% of businesses not using a documented strategy .?
Creating a social media calendar that works is the centre of any effective online business presence. But just because it’s a basic requirement doesn’t mean it’s easy. Read on for some helpful tips and tricks.?
Why create a social media calendar?
Social media is a fast-paced world. So you might wonder at the point of investing time and effort in creating a set calendar when trends can turn any planning on its head overnight. Yet there are lots of reasons why putting together a social media plan can benefit your business, including:?
Of course, if you spot an emerging trend or topic, then adding to this calendar with reactive content will also benefit your business. A good social media calendar just sets out the base activity for your team to elaborate on.?
How to create a social media strategy
Before they open a new spreadsheet or planning tool, your team needs to think about the direction your social media and content should go in. This means establishing a strategy .?
Review your data
It’s likely that your business has a presence on at least one platform. Even if you’ve not posted for a while, pulling off any performance data you have will give you some insight into the type of content that has and hasn’t chimed with your audience in the past. This will give you a jumping-off point for content generation, even if it’s for a different platform.?
Look at competitor content
Rather than ignoring a competitor who’s smashing social media, copy them! Ok, not entirely. But your competitors’ profiles can prove a rich source of content generation and inspiration. Particularly if you want to understand the topics, trends and formats that your target audience is enjoying. Let your competitors do the hard work, then reinvent it in your own style.?
Set your aims
Whether you decide to set short-term KPIs for each platform, a long-term strategic objective, or both. It’s important that you establish an aim for your content. Otherwise, your activity will start to lose focus and you risk confusing your online communications and audience. Even if you change your aims after a month or so, setting this direction will put you on the path to success.
How to build a social media calendar
Once you’ve set out your strategy and objectives, it’s time to start generating ideas and slotting them into a schedule. While you’re brainstorming some new content, make sure you keep the following points in mind.?
Think about the platform
You might think that posting the same content across your Facebook, TikTok and Instagram accounts will save you time. And you’d be right. But it won’t be as effective as if you’d posted with the specific platform in mind. It might also mean you run into quality problems such as incorrect image formats or caption character limits.?
Plus, each platform has particular features that could give an extra boost to your content creativity. For example, Instagram has reels and stories. Reels are great for longer-form videos or delivering more in-depth content, while stories are short snippets are updates. Adjusting your content so it fits the specific platform will help you engage with your audience more effectively.?
Think topics and trends
As well as developing content ideas based on the messages you want to share with your audience, take a look at the social media topics and trends that are emerging in your industry. This won’t just help you generate relevant ideas but get involved in topical conversations with your audience straight away.?
Don’t just follow the leader with your content though. If you can take a topic or trend and add your own expertise, opinion or perspective on it, then this will make you stand out from the crowd.
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Write in the right tone
Whether you have brand guidelines for your business or not, you need to think about the tone of your social media content. Specifically, you need to think about how you will translate your personality onto each social media platform.?
For example, it’s likely that you’ll write a totally different caption on LinkedIn than you will on TikTok. Yet your brand’s traits need to come through clearly on both.?
Setting out guidelines and examples on how to do this will help you keep your social media messaging consistent across all platforms. This will avoid confusion amongst your customers, even if different team members are writing your posts.?
Don’t forget the extras
When you come to scheduling your posts, don’t forget to add and adjust the extras to fit the platform you’re using. This includes checking:?
Vary your post times
Though you might be tempted to schedule posts on the same time and day every week, this could get you stuck in a performance rut. By changing up your post times and frequency, your activity will look more natural to the platform algorithms and make it more likely for your content to appear on people’s feeds.?
It also means that, once you’ve posted regularly for a few weeks, you’ll be able to see the times and days when your audience is more interactive and engaged.?
Remember your audience
If you find yourself getting lost in a brainstorming pot of ideas, formats and platforms, then always return to your audience and their needs. At the end of the day, they’re the focus of all this activity and planning, so the content you’re producing needs to be inspiring, helpful and interesting to them.?
Book Recommendation:
Make It All About Me: Leveraging omnichannel and AI for marketing success
Make it All About Me is a great book to help marketers understand how to work with omnichannel marketing and artificial intelligence without getting stuck in a certain channel or silo. Rasmus and Colin provide the background for understanding the six main omnichannel disciplines and demonstrate how you can manage them in a more customer-centric manner. It's a really useful book to read in the AI and omnichannel world that we all play in.
For The Love of Marketing
S2 E8: Social Selling with Michelle Louw
Whilst we're talking about social media, here's a throwback to an interesting chat with Michelle! If you're looking to learn more about social selling, then this episode is for you! Michelle Louw is a leading authority on social selling, and she shares her tips and tricks in this episode. If you're interested in selling using social media, then this is a great episode to watch!
We're busy working on Season 3 - coming in Sep/Oct.
Subscribe to the podcast:
Apple?|?Spotify?|?Google?|?YouTube?|?Amazon
Stay tuned for more??
Here's an interesting read from my strategic marketing agency, SK
The Genius of Barbie
Barbiemania hasn’t just captivated movie audiences, but marketers too. Find out how and why the film’s promotional campaign has sent branding experts wild.
Thanks for reading!
I hope you found this week’s newsletter insightful. If you did, I'd be really grateful if you could share it with your network and tag your friends & colleagues. I’d love to grow a community of MM readers so we can all learn from each other and deliver our best results.
I have been helping companies with their marketing from start-ups to global corporates for over 20 years and I’m also the author of 2 best-selling books in the field. Whether it’s growth, branding, performance, content marketing, SEO or many other areas, I have helped companies all over the world to deliver market-leading results and I'd love to help you if I can.
Simon
Managing Director (Information Technology Consultant) & at TIM Technology Services Ltd and an Author.
1 年You are right. You cannot be successful with your business without Social Media. Many people spend more time on-line than off-line. Thank you for the opportunity.