Why You Can’t Live Without A Social Media Content Calendar

Feeling overwhelmed by all the demands of social media? Between creating content, engaging with followers and creating an online experience that nurtures leads through the buying experience (across multiple platforms no less!), it’s no wonder many business pages fizzle out after a couple months.

But not yours! You’re in it to win it…and you’re going to succeed with the most important, most helpful, most can’t-live-without-it tool – a social media content calendar.

What is a content calendar?

Social media content calendars can take many forms, but as long as yours gives you an easy-to-follow plan for when you’ll post, what you’ll post and who will post it, then you’re off to a good start. You can make separate calendars for your different networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), or keep everything in one – the key is to use your calendar(s) to plan ahead, post consistently, develop strategy and keep you and your team accountable and on task. And these four reasons are why you can’t live without one.

Plan ahead to make social media a priority

It goes without saying that you’re busy. So busy that your good intentions to interact on social media often fall by the wayside? Yeah…you and most everyone else. The trick to keeping your head above water with social media is to plan ahead. Take a couple hours and plan out each post for the month (or week, if that’s more manageable). You’ll appreciate not having to scramble to think of content each day, and you can even schedule posts on many networks to go up automatically.

Keep in mind though that posting content isn’t enough. Set aside time each day to interact – answer questions, ask questions, click like, retweet, comment, double tap. It doesn’t have to be any more than a half hour, so work that into your calendar, too.

Post consistently to reach more followers

One of the biggest factors in reaching as many of your social media followers as possible is posting consistently on your pages – fresh content is extremely important to news feed algorithms. A social media content calendar practically ensures regular posting because you’ve made a plan to do it. Schedule a couple posts a day, and concentrate on evenings and weekends – those are the times when most social media users are most active. But don’t stop there – you still have to follow through on your plan to post consistently!

Not only does consistent posting help you reach more people, but it also gives your followers something to look forward to, which fosters community and increases engagement. If followers know you’re going to deliver content on a regular basis that they appreciate and find helpful in some way, they’ll visit and interact with your brand more often.

Develop strategy that nurtures leads into customers

If you think of your social media followers as leads based on their interest in your brand/products/services, you have a fantastic opportunity to bring them through the buying process, hopefully converting them into your customers at the end of it. And being able to look at a block of social media posts – a month’s worth, perhaps – as a whole is super helpful when it comes to developing a lead nurturing strategy.

Looking at a month’s worth of posts all at once also helps with cohesion. If you’re launching a new product or announcing a new service, you can pinpoint the date on your calendar and develop posts around it that work to generate excitement. If you’re focusing your social media efforts on a particular campaign, you can use your content calendar to make sure your messaging is promoting it adequately.

Keep your team accountable and on task

No matter how many people post on social media for your business, a content calendar keeps everyone on track and on message. No one is left guessing if they’re supposed to post today. People can carve out time if they know they’re responsible for a set of posts or interaction on a network. Plus, if a period of time passes and social media interaction is spotty, it’s easier to find a solution – maybe the person in charge of a particular network has too much on his or her plate. Maybe it makes more sense for your business to give one person responsibility over all the platforms your business utilizes for one month at a time, instead separating it out. If it’s just you, then maybe you’re able to better anticipate busy times and schedule posts ahead of time.

Do you have a social media content calendar? What are some “cant’-live-without” ways you use yours?