5 Tips on how to create a successful content calendar

We can invest a lot in adverts or in promotional posts, however, what will make our social media profiles really pop is having a content calendar and successful social media communication.

 

Content creation for social media is not as simple as it seems and should not be taken lightly. While we may have a lucky break by jumping on to a trend last minute and going viral, this will not always happen, so the best way to ensure good numbers is through a social media strategy.

 

A content calendar includes all the posts that we want to make. You can outline several aspects like:

• number of posts
• frequency of posts
• distribution of content themes
• scheduling
• posts for seasons and holidays
• different social media
• content and format plannning

 

However, the simple act of making a content calendar is not a one-way ticket to success on social media. For that reason, here are 5 tips that will turn you into the next online sensation.

 

Outline your social media goals and work towards them in your content calendar

Think about what you want to get out of your online presence. You can outline a general goal or one for each social media profile and adapt it to its characteristics.

 

The goals can be as varied as they come, always responding to some specific need for your brand. Think about whether you want to share viral content to generate interaction, or if you want to take your audience to your website, or if you want to increase your number of followers, or if you want to finalise sales and encourage people to visit your physical shop.

 

Once you’ve outlined your goals, you can create content for social media with intention and content that is much more effective in achieving your goals easily.

 

Experiment with different formats on your content calendar

A post does not necessarily need to be a meme or a photo, so try out different formats and let your imagination run free.

 

Think about the content you want to share and the format that could most help boost engagement rate and effectiveness of the post. If you’re thinking of making informative content, an infographic will be the best option as it allows you to show more information clearly and simply. If you want to show all the different products you offer, instead of a fixed photo you can post a 360 image, or a collage of images.

 

3D images, canvas, collages, gifs, cinemographs, videos, blog posts and stories and just some of the possibilities out there that you can explore, and you can put them to good use on the right social media sites. On Linkedin you can share images or blog posts, whilst on Instagram Stories you can let your creative, audiovisual imagination run wild. This way, people will be pulled to your content on social media and what you offer on your page.

 

Make the most of trends and seasons for your content grid

There are moments that once they happen, they never come back again, so if your brand allows for it, it’s practically obligatory to make the most of them.

 

There are often social, natural or sporting events that not only allow you to generate content on social media but can also increase your engagement rate. The premiere of a film or series, an eclipse or the result of a football match give rise to countless memes and posts on social media and you, as a brand, can benefit if you are one of the first to take advantage of viraljacking.

 

That said, many of these events cannot be planned in advance, especially if you update your content calendars monthly or fortnightly, so for that reason, you should also be able to improvise. You can, though, plan posts for set dates such as Christmas or Valentine’s day, the start of summer, the end of term, election season or awards season.

 

When it comes to seasons, your content grid will let you make the most of them and don’t let any of those opportunities get away from you. Just remember to use those dates that fit in with your brand and brand’s message and don’t work against you in achieving your goals.

 

Outline the themes of your content

This will allow you to have content with more varied themes, and so your audience won’t get bored when always seeing promotions or only informative, formal content.

 

You shouldn’t only outline the types of themes you’ll use, but also the monthly or weekly amount that you post on each theme and how often. This way, you’ll offer more varied posts and users won’t get bored when they visit you. If you know that in a given week you have to include 5 promotional posts, 3 varied posts with different themes and 1 to do with the season, creating your calendar will be much easier as all you have to do is fill in the gaps.

 

You can even create recurring segments, for example, you can post content created by users the last Friday of the month, or put up a “Do it Yourself” segment every Tuesday, or post promotions and discount every two weeks, on Monday at midday. This way, you can ensure that your followers will visit your page to see the segments they like the most.

 

Don’t forget about reporting: learn what works and change what doesn’t work

Reporting can be the most tiring, tedious part, but it is the part you learn the most from. You may have had a great idea for a post or new thematic content, but after making your report you realise that people didn’t like it as much as you did, so you may need to change or tweak it for your next template.

 

As we have said many times, in marketing we must test and learn through trial and error. For example, if you notice that one month a content theme did amazing, you know that for your next content calendar you should allocate more space to that type of content, this way you will end up optimising your work and, in the long run, your results.