A social media calendar is a complete list of your upcoming postings, sorted by date and time. It may take the form of a document, a spreadsheet, or an interactive dashboard.
Social marketers utilize content calendars to plan posts, manage campaigns, and evaluate current strategies.
Every entry in a social media calendar usually contains some combination of these elements:<\/p>
- The post creatives (copy, images, videos, links, tags, etc.)<\/li>\n\n
- The date and hour that it will be live<\/li>\n\n
- The social network and account from which it will be published<\/li><\/ul>
Benefits of Using a Social Media Calendar<\/span><\/h2>
A content calendar is essential for a successful social media plan since it provides numerous benefits, including time savings and improved collaboration.
Here are a few.<\/p>#1. It saves time and increases team bandwidth<\/span><\/h3>
A social media calendar helps you keep organized while maintaining many accounts, which saves you time. As a social media manager, planning a social calendar month saves you from having to scour current topics and news headlines every day for ideas. It will also offer you more time to track and try various techniques to see which ones are most effective with your target audience. Your team will also have more time to work on high-quality content.<\/p>
#2. Keep a consistent posting schedule<\/span><\/h3>
Of course, there is no hard rule regarding how much you should post, but posting frequently is necessary to maintain an active presence. A social media content calendar enables teams to emphasize quality over quantity. Furthermore, planning will result in greater consistency in terms of your brand voice and style, as opposed to posting in a reactive or unplanned manner.<\/p>
#3. Quality assurance and brand safety<\/span><\/h3>
Proactive scheduling enables social teams to review their work and maintain their brand’s reputation. When you’re not hurrying and have a workflow approval process in place, it’s easy to spot a typo or avoid a major public relations disaster. Using a social media calendar will help you identify these errors sooner rather than later.<\/p>
#4. Streamline cross-functional collaboration<\/span><\/h3>
A well-crafted social media calendar increases visibility by providing a comprehensive summary of all future content. A content calendar improves communication and cross-functional collaboration by allowing everyone to see what’s coming up. It also encourages alignment for departmental or organizational-wide goals by providing a consistent publishing schedule.<\/p>
Having a posting plan is essential since your social media should help your overall organizational marketing strategy. For example, your team can verify that social posts align with broader efforts. Stakeholders in the campaign may readily see what you’ve planned and provide comments as needed.<\/p>
Components of Social Media Content Calendar<\/span><\/h2>
- Key<\/li>\n\n
- URL and UTM Parameters<\/li>\n\n
- Date and Time<\/li>\n\n
- Message<\/li>\n\n
- Campaign<\/li>\n\n
- Image<\/li><\/ul>
Perfecting your social media content calendar shouldn’t be a chore. Below, I’ll walk you through the main components of any social media content calendar, which will serve as the foundation for organizing your social media strategy on a tactical level.<\/p>
#1. Key<\/span><\/h3>
An easy-to-read key can help your stakeholders grasp the information on your calendar.<\/p>
<\/strong><\/p>
As long as your key is obvious, almost anyone in your business can read your social media content calendar and understand what’s going on across all channels.<\/p>
#2. URL and UTM Parameters<\/span><\/h3>
URLs and UTM parameters are similar but not identical. URLs are the links you want to publish from your website (or another website if you’re curating content) on social media.<\/p>
<\/strong><\/p>
A UTM parameter is an extension to your URL. It’s a string of tracking codes added at the end of a URL that allows social media marketers to monitor how well their postings drive visitors to their websites. By tracking and analyzing UTM parameters, you may determine which content fulfills your conversion objectives and which material generates the greatest engagement on social media sites. To make this procedure easier, consider using a UTM generator.<\/p>
#3. Date and Time<\/span><\/h3>
Incorporating dates and times into your social media calendar is beneficial not only for planning purposes but also for stakeholders and other teams that rely on your content.<\/p>
<\/strong><\/p>
When teammates can check your calendar and see exactly when a post was or will be scheduled, they can move more swiftly through their workflow, which benefits you as well. AKA, you will not be interrupted to provide status updates on every tweet scheduled for the day.<\/p>
#4. Message<\/span><\/h3>
Transparency and context are crucial in social media content calendars. Giving a brief overview of the content or even sharing the caption for a post can go a long way toward helping individuals on and off your team understand what the post’s objective is.<\/p>
Pro tip:<\/strong> If you’re adding an unfinished video to your social media content calendar, include a short Loom video that provides an outline of what the video will be about. You only need to create the Loom once, so you won’t have to re-record your explanation each time someone asks a question.<\/p>
#5. Campaign<\/span><\/h3>
It is too late to start measuring metrics after your campaign has ended. Instead, begin tracking your social media initiatives within your content calendar. You can make this more prescriptive by including a drop-down choice of predetermined campaign names, or if your campaigns are few and far between, simply copy and paste the names next to the relevant information.<\/p>
Pro tip:<\/strong> For smooth tracking, align your campaign name with the campaign portion of your UTM parameters.<\/p>
#6. Image<\/span><\/h3>
Without images, your social media content calendar will be nothing more than a spreadsheet. Because much of your social media content will be visual, including a thumbnail-sized version of the image you’ll use in the published post. With the message, stakeholders who view the calendar photos will have a solid understanding of what will be communicated and when.<\/p>