In the blogging world, the ubiquitous Editorial Calendar is a much revered tool. And rightly so. It not only helps you to whip your content into some kind of focused and useful shape. It also takes the pressure off if you’re not good at posting on the fly. All those ideas are chalked up in your calendar, ready to be written up and pushed out into the world. Awesome!
It’s a great idea to apply this Editorial Calendar idea to your social media output too. Even if you are not a blogger, you need to pull together a carefully thought-through strategy that ensures you are publishing the right things on social at the right times.
If you have new products launching or a new content series on the way – it’s really important to plan mentions of those leading up to release, at release and post-release too. If you have media mentions or are guest posting on another blog – same thing. Schedule in some pre, launch and post mentions for that too. Add in your events, any notable days (International Women’s Day, famous birthday, etc).
Taking a little bit of time to plug everything that’s happening in to this calendar and then sorting out the best approach for mentioning those things on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (or Linkedin!) is going to not only capitalise on what’s happening in the best possible way, it’s going to take the pressure off you as a ‘Social Content Machine’ and give you more purpose and control over your output.
There are all kinds of ways you can create this Social Media Calendar. You can have an analog diary and note all your projects and corresponding social media mentions in there. You could use Google Calendar and have it running alongside you blog’s Editorial Calendar in there (if your blog has one!) You can also use platforms like CoSchedule, Buffer and Hootsuite (and their associated apps) to not only organise all these mentions but actually schedule those platforms to publish those mentions for you. Or you can use a combination of these (Google Calendar for forward planning and Buffer for implementing/scheduling/publishing, for instance).
We’re going to talk a little bit more about creating really great content to push out on social media during this course, but it’s a great idea to start laying down the bare bones of good habits – and adding this Social Media Calendar to your workflow. Not only will it help you optimise your social presence, it’s going to help you work on the social side much more efficiently (and much less seat-of-your pants!)
Task:
Create your own Social Media Calendar
Pencil in your social activity for the next 2 weeks, considering what’s happening in YOUR world and THE world.
Come back here and tell us how you went and what challenges/gains you faced