The new year is in full swing, and it’s only natural to start making plans for what’s to come. In your personal life, you might be thinking about resolutions or looking for ways to knock out bad habits with more positive ones. In the business world, you should be focusing on your future marketing efforts.
While all of your strategies can benefit from early planning, it’s especially important to create a social media calendar that will guide your posts throughout the year. Read on for everything you need to know to plan for success on social media!
Why Do You Need a Social Media Content Calendar?
Social media content calendars are a great way to plan and organize upcoming posts so that nothing falls between the cracks and gets lost in the shuffle of day-to-day business. At first, it sounds like a big commitment, but the sooner you get everything organized, the easier you’ll find it to manage your social media accounts as the weeks and months go on.
While you may feel like it’s okay to post sporadically on social media, there are several benefits you’ll enjoy when you create a comprehensive social media calendar, including:
- Improved Efficiency – Because you’ll be organized from the beginning, you’ll spend less time planning throughout the year.
- Consistent Posting – Having your posts planned and scheduled ahead of time allows you to share a continuous stream of content, keeping your followers engaged.
- More Time to Catch Mistakes – We’re only human, and sometimes, mistakes happen. By planning your Facebook posts and other social media content ahead of time, you can catch errors before they go live.
- Improved Creativity – With a little more breathing room, you can get more ambitious with your social media accounts and test out new strategies throughout the year.
- Seasonality & Timeliness – When you plan your social media calendar in advance, you’ll be able to account for holidays and other events and incorporate them into your strategies.
How to Create a Social Media Calendar
Ready to begin planning your social media posts for 2021? Start by conducting a social media audit to figure out what content you should be posting on your brand’s accounts. From there, you can create a schedule that outlines how many posts you’re going to share per week on each platform.
Once you’ve determined how often you’ll post, it’s time to decide what to share. It’s not always easy to come up with a whole calendar full of ideas, so start by looking at what’s engaged your audience in the past. If you’re new to social media or don’t have old posts, check out your competitors’ history. Even if you’ve had an active social media account for a while, competitor analysis can be an effective way to source new ideas and inspiration. You should also search for hashtags or keywords related to your business and identify the posts with the most engagement.
When creating your calendar, it’s also important to incorporate any sales, product launches, holidays, and other key events you want to promote. By ironing out these details early on, you’ll have more room to pivot throughout the year if needed. Once your campaigns are up and running, always analyze and track your content performance to ensure you have baseline data for future months and years.
Planning for the Upcoming Year
As 2021 unfolds, analyze ways to revamp your overall brand on social media. This means updating your bio and profile picture, investigating which posts worked well (and which didn’t) in years past, and researching relevant hashtags to utilize. Of course, you never want to go stale when social media is involved, so try new things! For example, if you haven’t started using Instagram Reels or ventured into the world of TikTok, this is a great time to test the waters.
Need help planning your 2021 social media content calendar? Zero Gravity Marketing can help. Contact us today to speak with one of our expert social media strategists!
