A social media schedule can be a really great way to ensure that you are making the most of your social media marketing. It ensures that you have content on social media at all times, which in turn increases engagement and exposure for your brand. You might think that social media scheduling is too much work or takes up too much time – but it doesn’t have to! In this blog post, I will go over how to create a social media schedule from scratch and give some tips for starting out with social media scheduling so you don’t overwhelm yourself in the process.
Step One: What Are You Going to Post to Social Media?
The first step in creating a social media schedule is to figure out what kind of content you want to post. All of the content you post has to be tied directly to the services you offer and the lead capture you have on your website. I suggest you start with one medium, such as images, and one social media channel (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc…) Eventually you will need to incorporate every given medium such as blog posts, images, videos, and even just simple updates about what your company is up to. Once you have an idea of the types of content you want to post, it’s time to start creating a social media content calendar.
Step Two: Figure Out Your Schedule Using a Spreadsheet
The social media content calendar is essentially a grid that lays out the type of post, the day it will be published, and the corresponding social media channel. I personally start off actually writing the ideas out with pen and paper, and eventually transpose over to a Google spreadsheet. This can be really helpful in ensuring that your posts are spaced evenly apart and if you are publishing duplicates on different channels, you separate them by even just a couple days. When creating your social media content calendar, make sure to leave some wiggle room for last minute posts or updates. By having a schedule created ahead of time you are just getting the foundation started and you can always add more posts if you want to whenever you want to do so.
Step Three: Time to Make the Donuts!
Now that you have your social media schedule created, it’s time to start filling in the content! This is where things can get tricky if you’re not used to social media marketing. For each post, you want to make sure that you include the following:
– An engaging social media graphic (where applicable)
– A compelling social media description
– Links to blog posts, products, etc…
– hashtags (where applicable)
Step Four: Let an App Do the Monotonous Part for You!
Now that everything is created and laid out in a spreadsheet (or however you are writing it out) – you really need to do yourself a favor and use a content scheduler such as Lately or Planoly. This will help you layout every piece of content for every type of social media channel (Youtube, Instagram, etc) all in one place. These types of services usually offer analytics on top of just scheduling the content which can come in handy.
Eventually, you will also want to make sure that you are posting during the optimal times of day in order to hit the time most likely seen by your audience. You can track when people are most active on each social channel by using social media analytics tools.
This is a very basic rundown and the steps are really simplified to their most basic form, there is a lot to doing social media scheduling but every great journey starts with a single footstep, so get moving!
By following these simple steps, you can create a social media schedule that will help increase your brand exposure and help bring in more leads! If you have more questions or would like more in depth help, reach out to us now!