How to create a content plan that works
We all know managing a social media account is a job on its own and when you’re trying to run a business, managing your online presence is at the bottom of your priority list.
Which is why we offer social media management to businesses, to take something off other business owners’ already filled plates. However, we do know that could be costly too, so we are here to help you create a plan that works. To make it a little easier for you.
Before the plan, you would have decided on the platforms you are focusing on as you will be creating for said platforms and each platform has different features and algorithms. Our plan is created for Instagram but can be repurpose for other platforms too.
1. Create themes
It goes without saying that your content will depend on what your business is or offers. So you will need to list the areas of topics you’d want to share or touch on and then create content around that.
For instance, we are a creative agency so our themes are:
Design
Creativity
Branding for small businesses
Social Management
Content
Coffee
If you follow us on social media you’d know that this is pretty much all we post about.
2. Break down the themes
So under each theme, decide what about this area of topic you want to share, how you want to share it, in what form etc.
For instance for Design, we want to share design tips to business owners who do their own graphics. So design tutorials. But we also want to share quotes about design.
So under Design we have:
Design Tips/Tutorials
Design Quotes
3. Decide your medium
Social media platforms keep rolling out new features, which gives you multiple ways to share content. Like for Instagram, you can either share
An image on your feed
Or a +/-60 second video on your feed
You can share a video that’s longer than 60 seconds as an IG TV entry.
You can now create Reels which are videos up to 30 seconds.
You will need to decide which type of content works for which medium best.
3. Formulate a posting schedule
Depending on your time and abilities decide how many times a week you will post, what days and at what time.
For e.g. You can decide to post three days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. (If you can’t post every day, this is recommended.)
4. Lay out the calendar
After, you have determined and broken down your themes and posting schedule you can now lay it all out on your calendar.
Which you will create using Google Docs. In this google doc you will insert your exact content ideas/plans. It will feature the themes, concepts, mediums, schedule, captions you name it. It will be a detailed plan for all the content you will share.
5. Create the content
Having the calendar is great but the content won’t create itself. So you will need to pick out a day in your week to create the content. You could create a week's worth or a whole month’s worth of content in one day and not have to worry about what you are posting everyday. Because your calendar will tell you and your content bank will already have the content.
6. Schedule the content
If you aren’t looking to hire a social media manager, you may have to invest in a platform that can post the content for you so that you don’t have to. Our trusted platforms are Hootsuite and Planoly. We hear Facebook has introduced something similar which we are looking into and will create a blog post about once we know more. *wink
7. Analyze the Stats, Manage your community
Carve out some time during your week to check stats and see how your content was received. Look at what did well and do more of that. If you can take an hour or less in your day to look at comments and respond to queries or DMs about your services that will help build trust and a relationship with your community. No one enjoys following an account that doesn’t respond to comments or DMs.
If after reading this you still aren’t happy with your content calendar or not sure how to lay it all out?
Download our free template here.
For social media consultation or services: