Developing a Content Calendar

As personal users of Social Media, our content is often sporadic and spontaneous, posting imagery, video and other content that sparks our imagination or keeps our network updated with our everyday life. 

Social Media marketing however relies on a more strategic approach, to ensure our audience consistently grows and is served content that they will find engaging and useful. 

One way to ensure a ‘rich and varied’ grid or timeline, is to plan your posts in advance on a ‘Content Calendar’, identifying key themes, events and messaging that you can post consistently throughout a set period of time. 

Regardless of industry, sector or offering, these key themes could include: 

• Seasonal dates 
• Promotions 
• Competitions 

• Answering ‘frequently asked questions’ 
• Partnerships with other brands 
• Your people and culture 
• Insights and useful facts 
• Products and services 

• Statistics and infographics 

The most successful Content Calendars are planned in two-week/one-month ‘blocks’, where select days of the week are identified (based on how your audience already interacts with your brand) with content assigned to those days. 

Top tips for content planning: 

• Use a spreadsheet or other calendar format to plot out your posts, before transferring to a scheduling tool 
• Stick to one message or theme per caption 
• Adapt your messaging to the appropriate channel, considering character count, image dimensions and other factors 
• Careful use of hashtags to amplify your message 

• Share hyperlinks to external websites where appropriate 
• Tag other relevant businesses or individuals 
• Video content is twice as engaging as static images 
• Less is more – select use of authentic and relevant messages are far more impactful than vague, daily posting! 

Looking for further information? This useful video tutorial from Hootsuite Labs provides a free Content Calendar template and step-by-step instructions on how to populate it.