Un social media calendar It is essential for all those in charge of managing the social platforms of a brand or business, as well as if several of them are managed. Although at first it may seem like a rather laborious task, the reality is that this time will be very beneficial in the future, since you will finally be able to save time and have everything much clearer.
Whether it's a simple grid with a few links or a custom panel, the social media calendar It is a fundamental resource to be able to carry out a great management of this type of platforms. If you are interested in knowing more about them, keep reading this article in which we talk about it in depth.
What is a social media calendar
Un social media calendar It is an overview of the next posts you are going to make on social networks, which can be organized in many different ways, from a spreadsheet to a Google calendar or using any other social media management application.
Each entry in the social media calendar includes a combination of different elements such as:
- Exact date and time when the publication will take place.
- The social network and the account in which this publication will take place.
- The copy of the publication and the creative resources such as photos or videos that are needed for it.
- Links and tags to be included in the post.
- Any other type of information that is relevant to carry out each publication.
Depending on the scope of your social media strategy, the social media calendar can have a single social network or multiple social networks. However, it is best to always be present in the main ones, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or TikTok.
How to create a social media calendar
Creating a social media calendar requires a series of fundamental steps for it to be successful and, therefore, to be useful to you:
Social media and content audit
First, you must audit your social networks and identify areas for improvement and opportunities. This is key to being able to adjust the content strategy and achieve maximum ROI.
To begin, you will have to create a social media audit template, which will give accurate and up-to-date results, such as:
- Fake accounts and outdated profiles
- Account and password security
- Objectives and KPIs for each brand account, by platform
- Your audience, demographics, and personalities.
- Successful publications, campaigns and strategies.
- Gaps, poor results and opportunities for improvement
- Metrics that are key to measuring the future success of the platform.
Based on all this you will be able to know how to approach its management.
Choice of social channels
It is important to make decisions about the social media calendar to choose the channels in which we are going to have a presence, thus determining the main social networks in which we seek to be present. It is important to take this into account in order to address the most appropriate content for each of them.
In this sense, it will be essential to take into account the type of each social network and the audience of each of them, since this may be different for the same profile depending on the social channel in question.
Decisions on the calendar
Next you will have to decide the data that you need to track in the social media content calendar. It is necessary to have very clear aspects such as the platform, date, time, visual elements, links to assets and links to the published publication that is needed.
In addition, it is time to add advanced details that may be useful, and which you can always remove if you consider that they are no longer relevant. These are geographic targeting, value, affiliate campaign, platform-specific format, and so on.
Content Library
When you are clear about the above, it is time to work on your content library, also called content repository. In it you will have to organize through local storage services or in the cloud (preferable) a library in which you can combine and gather everything you may need for your publications and all of this properly organized.
In this way, when you subsequently create the publications in the corresponding social network, you will have everything at hand and it will be much easier for you to create the publications, more directly and without wasting time on it. The content library is essential for a social media calendar.
Workflow
Once you've created your content library, it's time to establish a workflow. With all the possible information gathered, you will have to draw the daily, weekly and monthly publication cadence. In this way, it will be time to have the publications well organized and all that remains is to know
Create your posts
The last step is to create posts, making use of all the ideas you may have and at the same time that you are creating them, scheduling them in your calendar to make everything clear and that you optimize your time.
Although there will be publications that need immediacy and that you will not be able to program, many other generic or seasonal ones will be able to do it long before, so that you will be able to optimize your time and dedicate a consecutive period if you wish to this type of task.
While you are working on your social media calendar You can see how this is looking, and be able to make some modifications so that it finally has the appearance you want each and every one of your publications is published wherever you want.
In this way, you already know the steps you must follow to know how to create a social media calendar, which is essential to be able to carry out the best actions in these types of platforms that are essential in different areas to reach a greater number of potential customers.