Today, all businesses, large and small, are using social media. Because your customers, potential customer, and your competition is on social media, it is imperative that your small business establish a dynamic social media presence and create a social media marketing strategy.

Having a successful social media marketing strategy means you have and maintain an effective social media content calendar.

Why you need a social media content calendar

Your social media calendar should be a mix of original content about your business services or products. You should also include holidays such as Thanksgiving. Having a calendar also allows you to post some fun holidays that might pertain to your business or that your followers will enjoy, such as National Donut Day, Talk Like a Pirate Day, or Name Your Car Day.

A calendar allows you to keep track of all these dates and holidays. Special holidays can offer your business an opportunity to post great content and engage your fans.

Determine who your audience is

Each business attracts different audiences. A car dealership’s post on Name Your Car Day will definitely resonate with their followers but a florist’s post about this ‘holiday’ would probably flop.

Understand who you want to engage with. Know their interests. This information will help you choose the most appropriate information to post.

What are your social media goals?

Every social media post for your business should be guided by a clear objective. When you know what your desired outcome is, you create and implement a better marketing strategy.

Clarify your goals. Do you want to encourage discussions with your followers? Do you want them to share your posts? Are you selling products on social media and want to make sales? Do you just want to increase your number of followers or increase traffic to your website?

Make a list of holidays

This is the fun part! Start by making a list of important holidays that you want to include in your posts such a Christmas, Labor Day, Memorial Day, or 4th of July.

Are you involved in a particular community? If so, then include meaningful dates such as Pride Week, Black History Month, or Hispanic Heritage Month.

Think about other fun holidays and how they might engage your audience. Research online for fun holidays and add relevant ones to your calendar. Think about how you are going to connect these significant dates to your business, products, or services.

Google’s Doodle archive is a great resource for finding unique holidays.

Create your calendar

Stay organized by using an actual calendar to keep track of your dates for holidays and business posts. Using a calendar saves you time and energy. You don’t have to remember when a holiday is, you’ve got it right in front of you.

A calendar lets you see that you’re not posting too many fun holidays and not enough business posts. You want a good balance. Educate your audience about what you do in your business posts.

A calendar also lets you see how much time you have to write and post information and images for your posts.

Schedule your posts

Whether you use a scheduling app, such as Hootsuite or Buffer, or schedule right in the social media platform, never miss a date by scheduling your posts. You can be out networking or meeting with customers and your posts are popping up on social media.

With a social media calendar, your social media marketing will be organized. Fill in your calendar, write your content in advance, schedule it, and you’ll see great results on your social media platforms.

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