Creating A Content Calendar For Your Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

In our world’s current digital state, all businesses use social media in some way. If your business manages multiples social media accounts, disorganization can quickly take over. Did you forget about the sponsored post you had with that highly reputable company? Or did you post the wrong thing to the wrong account? When there is little structure to posting schedules, your brand reputation can be seriously damaged.

The solution? Creating a structured content calendar. This should ensure a smooth and organized journey towards social media success.

What is a social media content calendar?

A social media content calendar is a detailed schedule of when and where you hope to publish content for your social media accounts. This level of planning can ensure that the overall business and team can keep on top of all tasks required. You will clearly identify the posts needed, their deadline, and people involved. As a result, nothing will fall behind. Everything will run smoothly for your social media presence.

This can also be a great way to see previous posts, manage upcoming deadlines, and consider potential requirements from multiple team members. This will give a detailed outline of what the post is, which social media platform it will be posted to, and the date and time of said post.

Where do I start?

When setting up your social media content calendar, there are a few things to consider. Here is a 4 step guide on getting started!

1. What are your desired social media channels and content mix?

The first step to creating your content calendar is to decide which social media channels you actually would like to use. What would benefit your business the most in reaching an engaged audience?

Another important step is to also choose what content you would like to post on each account. This includes the form and themes of your posts. In regards to different forms of content, you could create standard photo posts, reels, Stories, a photo carousel, etc. Then for themes, you might like to split your content into different categories, for example. You may have promotional material for the business, educational posts related to your industry, and also content dedicated to entertaining the audience.

Of course, it would be extremely overwhelming if every piece of content is original and hands-on. Therefore it’s important to identify some curated and user-generated content into your social media account. Doing so also presents your business as engaged and active with the community. This achieves greater connectedness with your audience.

2. Create an audit of your social media content

Before creating your calendar, you should have a record of the current performance and statistics of your social media accounts. By making an audit, you should identify:

• Your goals and KPIs for each account you manage
• Which posts and campaigns have been most successful
• Your target audience and demographics (these may be different across each platform)
• Social media metrics (which relate to audience interactions on your accounts)
• Areas of improvement on the social media

As a result, you will gain a better idea of how to schedule your posts according to each of your social media accounts. This can help to identify the best approach to organizing your calendar.

3. Plan what will be included in your calendar

Now for the fun part: actually planning and creating your social media content calendar! This is highly individualized towards your business. Therefore it’s up to you to consider the specific details of each post. Some important things to include are:

• Date and time of the posts
• Platform
• Visuals (such as photo, video, infographic etc.)
• The format specific to the platforms (eg. reels, stories etc.)
• If it is paid or organic content (and the relevant budget information if paid)
• Related campaign
• If it has been approved

It is also extremely useful to create a calendar that your team can collaborate on and interact with. Information can be added that may have been missed by yourself, and all activities are understood and considered by everyone.

4. Review and track the schedule with your team

The final step is one that shouldn’t be slept on. Reviewing the calendar consistently ensures that processes run smoothly for each social media account. This is also the time to ask for feedback from your team to acknowledge any improvements for the calendar itself. Perhaps there is too much information which has made a cluttered planning space. Or maybe there isn’t enough information, where important details are missing.

Everything all in one place

So now you have a central hub for all of your social media content! It’s a space for keeping up-to-date on posting deadlines and strengthening communication throughout your team. This can now offer you and your business more opportunities to expand your content, and feel confident in succeeding on social media.

If you would like help creating a personalized social media content calendar for your business, feel free to give us a call on ‭03 8797 5398‬ or email us at hello@socialfixation.com.au

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