Social networks were born to generate communities and conversations, and it is the best way you can take advantage of them for your business as well. To achieve optimal results, planning with a content calendar for networks is the key.
One of the most common mistakes is using social networks solely to sell. The reality is that they are the perfect place for your potential customers to connect with much more than your products or services.
You can implement strategies so that they know your history, the values of your brand, your world and all the work and love that your entrepreneurship implies. And to get to know them too, to generate conversations and a back and forth.
To achieve all that there are two crucial words: planning and consistency.
The only way to tell a story is by thinking and organizing your social media content calendar ahead of time. Thus, each publication will have consistency and coherence with the others and the , your Facebook wall or the TikTok profile in general.
Having a content calendar helps you have your publications thought out and prepared ahead of time. Your community and potential consumers will see a point in your communication strategy. In addition, a much stronger connection with your brand is generated.
Today we share 4 master tips to make the most of your social networks and create an annual or monthly calendar that allows you to plan and create your content ahead of time.
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If you are already thinking about making a content calendar for social networks in Excel, don’t waste time! We save you some of the work by designing one ourselves. Keep reading this guide and access the template for free at the end of this content.
Advantages of having a content calendar
An editorial calendar for your social networks will allow you to design a consistent strategy and clearly visualize not only your plans, but also the results that you are obtaining with each action.
This transparency in the management of your content gives you the possibility to understand what efforts are worth the time involved.
Let’s see all the benefits of having a content calendar for social networks:
- Organize your broadcast channels understanding if it is effective to share the same content on all social networks.
- Diversify the content according to the specifications of each network or type of publication. For example, in your content calendar for Instagram it is important to specify if it is about photos or videos in the feed, stories or .
- Generate increasingly engaging and relevant content by analyzing and comparing which posts perform best.
- Ensuring consistency in your communication channels. Seeing in your monthly calendar how much content you are uploading, you will understand if it makes sense to continue with that strategy, if it is necessary to add volume or, on the contrary, not produce as much.
- Post content at the right time, when you know that the majority of your audience is active on the platforms. For this, we suggest you review the .
- Increase the quality of your content producing, for example, photos or special designs for each strategy. Instead of using improvised images because you have to publish “now”, by planning ahead you can prepare specific content.
- Optimize work time. We know that maintaining and promoting a business can represent a lot of effort. Since being present on social networks is a must, this is a good way to use your time efficiently.
- Measure results to optimize your strategies and design increasingly profitable actions. Having the posts in order allows us to compare metrics and understand which actions are bringing more and better results.
- Anticipate important dates of the year where sales are increased for special occasions or anniversaries. At this point we especially recommend you download our with all the key dates of e-commerce.
- Avoid errors and impropriety such as repeating publications or being too insistent with some diffusion campaign.
Content calendar for social networks: how to create it
1. Be clear about the most strategic definitions
The first point is to have security in the strategic definitions, so that everything you communicate makes sense and is coherent with your business in an integral way. That is, avoid isolated efforts.
The primary objective at this point is that each of your actions effectively help you capture more customers and sell more. Some of the key definitions that you have to be clear about are:
- Who is your ideal client? Who exactly are you talking to when you post on your social media? Trying to talk to everyone is the same as not talking to anyone, so this first point is the most important of all.
- What is your brand personality? Imagine your brand as a person and write all its characteristics.
Is it canchera or classic? Elegant or relaxed? Is she active or calmer? Is it serious or funny? . - What is the visual identity of your brand? Once you are clear about the personality and values you want to convey, how is all that reflected visually? What kind of images, colors and fonts are you going to use?
Remember that one of the main goals is consistency. It is key that you choose these visual elements to keep them consistent in your publications, so that that potential client can begin to recognize and remember you.
2. Determine a base scheme
Once you have those strategic definitions, the next step is to think about what you are going to talk about to put together the content calendar for social networks: your base scheme or pillars.
The idea is that you think of a base scheme that you repeat every month, so you don’t have to be inventing everything from scratch every month.
Let’s imagine a possible structure to see it clearly:
- On Mondays you will share something behind the scenes of your design or production process.
- On Tuesdays you will present a new product.
- On Wednesdays you will share some advice or tip on how to better use one of your products.
- On Thursdays you will do a raffle or some promotional activation.
- On Fridays you will show yourself as an entrepreneur.
The idea is that you define these pillars in your monthly calendar and complete them with specific ideas.
As we seek that not all publications are for sale, take advantage of your social networks to show much more. Creativity is the limit here!
The behind the scenes, the things that inspire you, your day to day as an entrepreneur, tastes and passions that you know your ideal client has, the values and beliefs of your brand, advice or ideas on how to better use your products.
⭐️ Search.
is a good example of someone who uses their social networks to show much more than their final products. It shows her process of inspiration and creation, when she is buying the fabrics and also the final moment of testing and delivery.
He involves his followers in his entire process and invites them to be part of his creative world.
3. Complete the concrete ideas for the following month
Once you have the blocks clear, the third step is to fill in the concrete ideas in your monthly calendar.
So, if you defined that on Mondays you are going to share something behind the scenes of your process, now it is a matter of effectively thinking what behind the scenes you could share for the 4 Mondays of the following month. And so with each of the pillars you defined!
Having thought about and defined the pillars before, will allow you to think of content ideas more easily. Instead of openly asking yourself “what do I share today?”, you are going to consider “what can I show from the day to day of my business?”
Being a much more concrete and specific question, you will avoid blocks and come up with ideas much faster.
So, build your content calendar for social networks by writing exactly what you are going to publish each day, following those blocks that you defined in the previous step. Here you will also consider if there is any to take into account in your forecast.
4. Bringing Ideas to Life: Effectively Creating Content
Once you have specified what you are going to share for each of the days of the following month, the last step is to plan the creation of that content. What photos do you have to take? When are you going to do them? What texts do you have to think?
For example, you have a store of products with natural ingredients and you defined that one of the days you are going to share “5 benefits of lemon”. With peace of mind you can think about what photo to create showing that ingredient, the copy of each publication, etc.
The objective of these steps is that you plan your content calendar in advance, to increase its quality.
If the same day you want to publish you have to think about what to upload, take the photos and write the text, it is most likely that you will not be able to create the best content.
On the other hand, putting together this calendar days or months in advance, you will be able to generate content that stands out on your audience’s social networks.
Tools to schedule the calendar in social networks
There are many tools and applications available to put into practice the actions planned in your content calendar. We recommend the most outstanding.
- : Google spreadsheets will allow you to dump ideas into a spreadsheet. This is the tool we use to design our editorial calendar and you will see how useful and clear it is for you. We share it with you at the end of this section!
- : both to create and schedule content. It gives you an overview of your copy, images and links.
- : This is a simple and friendly option to start organizing your content over weeks or months. It works with the board modality to structure the information.
The time has come! 🎉 We bring you our Content Calendar for social networks that you can download for free. Get ready to boost your social networks and take your brand to the next level:
conclusion
Once you follow these steps for the first time, then it’s a matter of repeating step 3 and 4 every month.
When you integrate this routine as a habit, the suggestion is to plan more than a month in advance, for example, take periods of 2 or 3 months. It is enough time to create content with time, but not so long that it does not allow me any flexibility.
With practice you will find the routine that works best for you, it is about trying to find your own rhythm!
Put it into practice and create your online store for free!
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