How to create a content calendar – 7 useful tips for your first content calendar

Hello you!

We presume that you are reading this because you want to be consistent with your social media posts. You have probably asked yourself how to stay trendy and provide interesting, engaging and relevant social media content to grab the attention of your current and potential customers.
Do not worry – you are not alone in this. Even better – we have the solution to the problem and it consists of two words:

📆 Content Calendar. 📆 

This article will explain why you should have a content calendar, how it helps with your social media posting consistency, and how you can create one that would be efficient for you.

A content calendar is your best friend when it comes to planning, consistency and efficiency of your social media posts. It can be an effective tool for coordinating content creation and helps divide your team’s or your upcoming workload into clear, easy to manage units. 

Implementing a social posts calendar to your planning process will help you manage your time better as you will spend a lot less time wondering what to write, instead you will be able to focus on the actual creation process itself.

We’ve prepared 7 tips to help you get you started in creating your content calendar:

👉 Identify your goal

The first and most important step when creating your content calendar is to have a defined goal. This means that, for every post, you should define whether you want to attract new leads, gain brand visibility or grow the number of your Facebook followers.

Not having a clear purpose for your content will not benefit your company. It will waste resources. This is why it is extremely important to create a calendar with a clear idea of the expected results.

👉 Choose your channels wisely

Estimate which channels work best for you by finding out which platform current and potential customers use the most. This will help you determine whether you should focus more on publishing articles on your blog, or focus more on video and visual content on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter or LinkedIn. 

👉 Start from the beginning of the year

When you create your plan, it’s best to use the calendar year as a base to plan your content better. This way you can mark down all important events like public holidays, seminars, training events or fun days – i.e. pancake day. This easy but vital step will help you foresee and determine the kind of content you will need to work on in the future. This in its turn will help you estimate your or your team’s upcoming workload, so you can prepare in advance.

👉 Use your content

After you have completed step 3, you can then write down any other relevant content ideas that will help you stay consistent with the posts and engage your customers. This content can include:

➖ Theme posts – Is something important happening in your industry, or are you participating in an event? In other words, just ensure you follow the general conversation within your industry and post about it first.
➖ Series of posts – You could start a small post series where you educate your customers and bring your expertise forward. The simple tips and tricks posts bring extra value to your customers and help you stay in their minds.
➖ Seasonal or holiday content as well as any events you may organise

Another great way to communicate with your customers is to present them with insights from your company, i.e. backstage from events, stakeholders or videos from the CEO. 

No matter what you post, make sure that you have enough relevant and interesting ideas to fill your schedule. 

👉 Create a template for the calendar

There are a lot of different tools that offer content calendar features on the web. You can easily choose the template that suits you best although learning what to do on new software can be time-consuming and to some extent confusing. What you can easily do is create a content calendar which can just be done on a simple spreadsheet.

You can construct your content calendar however suits your needs best. It is however best to include some of the following information:

✔️ The channel in which the content will be published

✔️ The topic 

✔️ The type of content (blog post, video, image)

✔️ Date and time for publishing

👉 Decide on the publishing frequency and set time limits

It’s best to think about how often you can realistically publish your content. Creating good content can be time-consuming. It is important to choose a frequency of posts that works for you. You should post enough content to increase the overall traffic to your website and bring value to your customers on a regular basis.

👉 Monitor how your content is received

Measuring and understanding the data behind your content is crucial. For example, if you get many interactions, likes, comments but not enough traffic, leads or sales, then you should most probably work on your call to action (CTA).
Keep in mind that the results from your content will not come straight away, especially if you are not promoting it with paid ads, so you need to be patient and consistent with it so you can then bear the fruits. 

Once you see the type of social content which interests your readers, you can focus on creating even more of it.

If you need some more inspiration, check our publisher tool for your free 14-day trial and see how seamless it is to schedule and publish your content.