“The backbone of the success is hard work, determination, good planning and perseverance.”
While using the social media for managing the business and brands, it’s very chaotic, time-consuming and takes a lot of effort. The key to saving the time and effort is to be organized. To stay organized use content calendars to do the smart work. Just write down your thoughts on the calendar and rest will be the history.
Managing multiple social media accounts is not easy, it is essential to pre-plan everything. The last-minute thinkings and thoughts are always dreadful nightmares. Who wants that to happen right? Instead pre-plan everything beforehand for a hassle-free work and the best way to achieve that is to create social media content calendars. The social media content calendars are the best and simple ways to keep your workflow run smoothly.
WHAT ACTUALLY ARE SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CALENDARS?
Social media content calendars are spreadsheets or the apps used to schedule the plans and organize the content you thought of posting. These calendars make your work easy by noting every other idea and marking the date on which it should be posted.
Content calendars are available in many forms these days. We can use the printed form like in printed calendars, diaries etc in an old school fashion. Templates are also available in many types. The internet is flooded with many types of templates, apps, spreadsheets etc. Choose any one of the formats and start planning.
How to Create a Social Media Calendar?
Before creating and starting the planning, make sure to use a platform that is easy to handle, make sure that no complexity is present because you are using these calendars to make your work easy, not to take on more load. So, choose something that seems more comfortable for you. Here are some ways to create social media calendar.
#1 Using Social Media Management Apps
There are many social media management apps available online which will do the job for you. For Example:
How to use these apps:
Here is a step by step guide to creating social media content calendar using social media management apps
- Choose any one of the above-mentioned apps.
- Install it in the application store
- Enter your email, make an account.
- Add your social accounts
- Link to all of them.
- There’s this schedule option where you can schedule the way who want and also can edit whenever you need.
- Give the timings and frequencies on how often you need to post on the social media and then save the changes.
- It gives the reminder and helps in posting at the scheduled time as you have planned earlier.
#2 Using Set Templates
The templates save your work and time. The internet is flooded with thousands of both paid and free templates. These templates also called spreadsheets are in the form of Microsoft excel form and can be edited as needed. The customized templates are also available which have the option of customizing the way you want. Give the categories, designs, colors, formats everything the way you like. These have many options.
#3 Google SpreadSheet
Google SpreadSheet also serves as a great planner. You can plan in the google sheet in the table format. The advantage of this is it can be viewed by the people you share with. Share with your whole teammates so that even they can have the same idea as yours. This helps in maintaining teamwork, without leading to any misconceptions and work in hand in hand.
Now that you have the resources to create a content calendar for all your social media activities. Here are basic key points to remember while creating the content calendars are
- Divide your calendar into sections to insert your categories.
- Make sure you choose your categories that suit your work. Don’t insert everything you find that makes your calendar looks clumsy and cluttered.
- Choose on how often you need to plan whether it may be weekly, twice a week or monthly.
- Keep it simple and understandable.
What To Include In Social Media Content Calendar?
The information on what to include in the calendar is based on your own decision on the topic you choose.
Let’s say, I use my calendar for my business meetings and the promotional posts that are to be posted on all of my social accounts and the important dates and days on which there is a possibility of higher sales etc. And also I make my calendar monthly, so I include the categories as below,
- Events and engagements
- Dates and frequency
- Social media sites
I firstly choose or make a template that has the whole month in it and adds my very own categories.
- In the events and engagement section, I put all my meetings and events information on the particular date and time.
- In the dates and frequency section, I write down the posts that are to be posted on the particular social networking site and timings.
So this is the way, you can make create your own calendar and plan accordingly.
Experts Tips:
- Take your time while planning. Make sure you plan your whole weekly or monthly schedule at once. usually, it takes 6 to 7 hours to make a perfect planner. I know, it is a bit time consuming, but remember it’s all for good, once you plan for once you can sit cross-legged the entire month.
- Whenever you get an idea you just make a bucket list so that when you are planning, have a look at the bucket list and just plan it.
- Put a reminder on each day stuff, whenever you forget something just in case,it alarms you.
- After creating the calendar, checks as many times as possible and edits it if required.
- Once you complete any one of the tasks make sure to mark as complete. If not completed upgrade the progress, that let you have an idea about it.
Conclusion
Once you start to organize and plan the things in your business, the success is surely in your hands. Make sure to keenly prepare your calendar, because one step wrong can leads you to nowhere. Who says, work is always hectic and stressful? Once you follow all the steps,I ensure you the work can even be a lot of enjoying.
