In last week’s post, I wrote about why you should have a social media content calendar. Here’s where you’ll learn how to create your social media calendar.

First, be clear

Before you start your social media calendar, you need to be clear about your marketing goals are. (That’s a whole different blog!)

You also have to know which social media platforms your target audience frequents. Are you on those platforms? Don’t waste your time posting to Facebook if your audience is mostly on LinkedIn! Do your research on this area too.

Create a Calendar

A spreadsheet will do if you don’t want to spend money on software tools. Especially if you’re just starting out or are a solo entrepreneur, you don’t need all the bells and whistles that paid-for tools provide.

Your spreadsheet should have the following columns:

- Platform

- Date

- Time

- Content Copy

- Visuals (images, video)

Create a Content Library

You need a place to store all your content and visuals. And you need to easily be able to find all these items, so your phone isn’t the place to store the pics you want to use.

Create folders on your computer to store your content and visuals. Name them something you’ll remember, like Social Media Content and Social Media Images.

I divide my files by year and then by month so I can easily find the information I need to post for the month I’m working on.

Establish a Workflow

Now that you’ve created your spreadsheet, you need to think about your social media cadence. How often will you post to each social media platform? What times will you post? Will you be writing posts for a week, two weeks, or a month?

Check your analytics for each platform to see what days and times your audience is on your page. Plan your posts for times immediately prior to the spike in views. Each platform will be different and let your scheduling reflect that.

Craft Your Posts

Having a folder with social media post ideas is great. When you think of a great post idea, write it down. Once saved, you have it for when you are planning your content for your posts.

Writing content does take time. You may not feel you’re a good writer, but with practice, you do improve. Just get something out there and move on.

Create visuals that align with your content. There are plenty of places to obtain royalty-free images you can use in your social media, such as picjumbo (https://picjumbo.com/) or BlogPiks (http://blogpiks.com/). If you want to add text to the images, give Canva (https://www.canva.com/) a try.

Schedule Your Posts

Now that you have your calendar filled, use a scheduler to schedule your posts. I love using a scheduler because I can be at a Chamber meeting and my posts are still going out without me thinking about it!

Hootsuite (https://hootsuite.com/) offers a free version that works for most small businesses. You can post up to 30 messages on three different social media platforms with the free version. The paid version is very robust so if you want unlimited posting capabilities, look into a paid version.

Now, create your own social media calendar and start being a rock star on social media!