Planning your social media calendar
In today’s highly digital world it seems that when it comes to marketing, only one rule applies; “Social Media is Life”. Everything we do as consumers and as business owners tends to revolve around social media. Whether you’re researching new places to travel, what gifts to buy for the holidays, or where to go to lunch, social media rules all.
For any business, having an effective social media strategy is key to staying successful. While you can argue about different color themes or which platform is best for your business, the one thing everyone can agree on is consistency.
Social media is a numbers game and its crucial to stay on top of it. With the countless platforms and trends, you need to juggle along with the rest of your work, having a social media plan will save you from drowning in work. That is why working with a social media agency in London can help you gain more customers and grow your revenue.
Why You Should Use a Social Media Calendar
With social media being such a high priority for modern businesses, staying organized has never been more important. Social media calendars are a great tool when building a social media plan. Here are some important ways creating a social media calendar can improve your operations.
- Stay Flexible: Having a social media calendar lets you stay flexible in your workday and with your social media activities. Sometimes there are new trends that you want to act on immediately, or you need someone to take over posting for the day due to an emergency. With organization comes flexibility, and that is something every social media team should have.
- Grow Your Audience: Social media is about building a story for your brand. Creating meaningful social media materials is a time-consuming process, as it should be. The only way to give yourself enough time to produce high-quality materials and meet deadlines is to plan ahead.
- Track Your Performance: When you create a schedule, you’re creating a data set that can be analyzed over time. By looking into which days, types of materials, or platforms performed the best for your business, you can optimize your social media plan moving forward.
The Best Tools for Your Business
Modern business requires modern tools, so the 2022 Cutest Puppies calendar isn’t going to cut it when making a social media plan.
Below are some popular tools and methods to help you plan your social media activity to stay ahead of the competition. Each tool and method can offer different ideas that you can take customize to your own business and make your own.
Google Apps & Google Drive
Google Drive is a one-stop-shop for everything and anything you can need as a business. Google offers a wide range of products that are essentially the free versions of necessary programs like Microsoft Word (Google Docs), PowerPoint (Google Slides), Excel (Google Sheets), and more. For social media planning, Google also has apps like Google Calendar and Google Tasks which are great tools to master.
The best part of Google’s apps is that all your work is saved on Google Drive. It is free to use and with your Google account, you can access your documents from any device in the world. The only downside to Google’s products is that they are not built specifically for social media. While there are a lot of templates out there to help you plan your social media activities, these programs aren’t solely meant for social media planning.
Trello
While Google offers a wide range of products, there are plenty of services that are free or cheap that are specifically designed for social media and content creators. Trello is one of the most popular services because it is free to use (with paid upgrades available) and built for any size company.
Trello works by creating tasks that can be assigned to individuals or teams. Each task is pinned to different boards that can be customized for lists like “Weekly To-Dos”, “Q1 Presentation”, “Resources”, or whatever you like. Trello is loved by many because it is easy to use and highly customizable.
HubSpot Templates
Not every business is going to need a complex solution when making a social media plan. Whether you’re a travel blog just looking to boost your SEO or a small business hoping to reach customers from a neighboring town, learning a new system like Trello or Google Drive might be overkill.
In this case, using a preexisting template to make your social media plan is probably all you need. While it might look simple, having pre-made tools designed for efficiency can be a game-changer. In the same way, you’d rather have a power drill over a screwdriver, using a template that’s been proven to work is a great first step in building a social media plan.
Hootsuite
For operations looking to get serious about their social media plan, look no further than Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a social media planner that can create campaigns, organize your entire organization in one place, and improve collaboration efforts across teams.
With Hootsuite, you can curate content across multiple social media platforms without having to log into each one. Hootsuite will save your organization time and ensure that your social media plan is executed without fail. While Hootsuite is no replacement for the best London social media agency, it is a powerful tool that would be useful for any organization.
How to Proceed
Social media is more important than ever. Regardless of what industry you’re in, it’s likely that the majority of your new customers are coming from your social media activities. And if they aren’t, they will definitely look at your social media to learn about the business you are and the story you’re telling.
While every business’s social media plan will look different, every business should have one.
Staying organized with your social media will allow you to maintain and high standard of work without missing a beat.
