Last Updated on 5 months by Enise Ürek
Social media is significant in marketing strategies, so most procedures are carried out on social media. In social media, planning must be done correctly in order for things not to fail and for brand safety to be compromised. At this stage, it may be useful to use a social media content calendar for your strategies. Generally, a social media agency puts the plans they have prepared in a calendar and follows the course of the strategy through this calendar. These tools are needed to save time and to be well organized while managing multiple social media accounts. There are also social media content templates prepared in different ways and offering different features. In which platform you use, it is very important to support your strategies using an appropriate calendar and facilitate your workflow.
What is Social Media Content Calendar?
The social media content calendar is a detailed list with the date and time when content on all social media platforms with your brand will be shared. There are many important details in this list, such as the contents of the posts you created, links, tags, and conversations. It is very important to prepare this type of calendar for platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and LinkedIn because the social media content calendar allows you to see, control, and track the content you have prepared in one place. It can also be used to share daily posts and effectively track them for multiple social media accounts. This type of calendar can be prepared for the short or long term.
Why Use a Social Media Content Calendar?
Using a social media content calendar is essential to manage all social media accounts regularly because it allows you to be organized and use time more efficiently. It can be difficult to be active in related accounts throughout the day, to set the sharing hours correctly, and to remember and apply them, especially when managing multiple accounts. Using a calendar in such a situation allows you to be more organized. In order to achieve good visibility and reach the target audience, activeness in social media accounts is very important. Although there is no specific rule about the number of posts, it is necessary to share content consistently at regular intervals. This content calendar makes this situation easy for you and allows you to see your plans in advance. When you plan and list in advance, you have more control over your content. You can fix possible spelling errors or make updates and additions based on trends. In addition, it makes it easy to create well-thought-out and planned content. Thus, your social media profile looks better quality and can stand out faster. From these perspectives, it is very useful to use a social media content calendar.
How To Create a Social Media Content Calendar?
Creating a social media content calendar is a pretty easy process when you don’t skip the details. First of all, you should make an audit for all social media accounts you use in your strategies. In this control, it is possible to see what you need, your strengths, and your weaknesses. In addition, it allows you to better understand the interests of your target audience and the interesting content ideas that you have to create. As a second step, you need to choose the social media channels you will use. You should plan your content according to the platform you choose, and your target audience. For example, TikTok content is more effective for a young target audience, while Facebook may be more effective for middle age. You should also take a look at the features of each platform, and how to use these features effectively. At this stage, it is possible to select multiple social media channels, but each account you add extends your calendar and the list of content you need to create. It is also necessary to add content suitable for these platforms in this direction. In addition to ready-made templates, it is possible to create your template manually. You should make sure that the template is segmented according to the social media accounts you will use and that details such as date, time, media, hashtag, collaboration notes, and links are added. In addition, you can make advanced additions to increase your performance and facilitate workflow. These additions may include details such as budget information for ads or network-specific format. In the final stage, it is important to receive feedback and share this calendar with your teammates. It is ready for use if it is an easy-to-use social media content calendar.
The Benefits of Using a Social Media Calendar
It has many advantages that make it attractive to use social media content calendars. Among these advantages, the prominent ones are as follows.
1. Saves time
A social media content calendar is advantageous in many ways. Calendars save a lot of time because it makes easy to organize. If you run your marketing strategies on multiple social media channels, using a calendar becomes a necessity, not an option. Streamlining workflow, determining everyone’s tasks, and preparing content in advance allows you to use your time efficiently.
2. Maintains a consistent posting schedule
There is no specific number of content to be shared per week, it all depends on your strategy. However, you need to set a consistent posing schedule according to the platform you choose. It is necessary to stay active on every channel and do this in a certain order. This calendar makes it easier for you to draw a more consistent profile.
3. Brand safety
Even a little mistake you make can be important when you want to create a strong brand. That’s why you need to make sure that the content you create is of good quality and well-planned. Using a social media content calendar makes it easy to check the content you prepare. Content can be checked by more than one person or revised according to trends. In this way, brand safety is preserved.
4. Streamlines collaboration
Using a calendar makes it more possible to collaborate. Creating an easy-to-read calendar that is understandable to everyone facilitates communication with different departments. When the calendar is accessible to everyone, the people concerned know what awaits them and what they are responsible for.
Social Media Calendar Examples
Creating a well-functioning and effective social media content calendar can be difficult. For this reason, it is very useful to browse well-applied examples for inspiration. Jotform social media content calendar is one of the interesting calendar examples. It has both a visually interesting and functional template. You can add tabs such as social media channels, a list of people responsible for the content, details of the content, and easily interpret these tabs. As a more traditional example, the Firefly content calendar can be explored. The lines are separated from each other, week by week. Each tab is also used to indicate different months. In this way, it is easy to follow especially long-term plans. Apart from that, there are different alternatives such as Google Sheets. No matter how you use a template, it’s important to use colors in code form and set tabs correctly.
Social Media Calendar Apps
There are many calendar creation applications you can choose to facilitate your workflow. The 3 most preferred apps are as follows.
1. Google Calendar/Sheets
It is possible to create a social media content calendar for free with both Google Calendar and Google Sheets. There are many templates that you can choose for your strategy. It is quite easy to follow the calendars and there is a feedback area from other teams for collaboration.
2. Sprout Social
It is possible with Sprout Social to collect different social media platforms in one place and create a calendar from here. There are features such as planning your posts, managing, and reporting interactions. It is an ideal practice to effectively manage strategies on social media platforms and offers a wide range of features.
3. Hootsuite Planner
Another application you can use to plan your content is Hootsuite Planner. It can be used to coordinate and plan content between different social media accounts. It is also ideal for tracking follower interactions and following the success of your content. These tools make it easy for a performance marketing agency to make an effective social media strategy for your brand. Effective creation of such strategies is essential to increase visibility and create an effective identity in the digital environment.
