It is no surprise that social media will drive your ROI if done correctly. 74% of marketers saw an increase in traffic after spending just 6 hours per week on social media; 78% of Americans say social media impacts their purchasing decisions.
A social media content calendar should:
- Help develop your editorial strategy.
- Cut extra time out of your content marketing strategy and help you allocate your resources wisely.
- Help you consistently publish high-quality, high-performing content pieces.
- Organize the way you curate and create content.
Characteristics of a good social media content calendar:
- Include icons representing each network next to the title of the post.
- Easy to read and contains all the information for your content marketing strategy.
- Your calendar should reflect which of your writers is responsible for writing, publishing and promoting each piece of content.
- Have a separate sheet for each month, with activities further broken own by day.
Why your business needs a social media content calendar
Reason 1
It helps you keep track of what’s performing, so you can upkeep your content quality and consistency.
Case study: Eugenie Grey from FeralCreature credits consistent high quality content as the main growth factor behind the growth of her 216,000 Instagram following.
Content Marketing Effectiveness: According to CMI, 60% of those who have a documented strategy rate themselves highly in terms of content marketing effectiveness, compared with 32% of those who have a verbal strategy.
Strategy
Step 1: Perform routine checks on what kind of content is well-linked by your audience.
Step 2: Make regular adjustments based on these insights.
Step 3: Set up regular check-up times to record the important metrics on your content.
Step 4: Use this info to adjust your publishing schedule and post content.
Reason 2
It keeps your channels from poorly timed posts and missing posting dates.
Facebook: Engagement is 18% higher on Thursday and Fridays.
Twitter: Tweets get higher CTRs on the weekends.
Fast Company surveyed 330 people on the most annoying things on social media. 22.1% voted posting too much.
Strategy
Step 1: Populate your content calendar with all the dates important to your business.
Step 2: Set up reminders at a reasonable internal to put the date on your radar in advance, in order to adjust your writing and research time to the deadline.
Step 3: Add holidays that may affect your business, whether they mean low or high reader traffic – depending on the nature of your business.
Reason 3
It helps prevent spamming one social media network and neglecting another.
Strategy
Step 1: For each piece of content planned in your calendar, assign the social media channels you want to use to promote it.
Step 2: Add social media network icons underneath the content title and author name.
Step 3: If you see that one icon comes up too much, and another has not shown up in a while, it may a sign that you need to rethink your social media promotion strategy.
Reason 4
Prevents you from posting poorly researched and written posts.
Fast Company surveyed 330 people on the most annoying thing on social media. 32.4% said “poorly written posts” are the most annoying thing.
Strategy
Step 1: Set your publish date and assign tasks to your writer in advance, this allows for sufficient time to do proper research.
Step 2: Add protocol for proof reading for quality control.
Conclusion: Start using a social media calendar to manage your social media creation and curation.