How To Create A Content Calendar : Step-by-step Guide To Content Creation

So you’ve been hired by your agency to handle the social media communication for an XYZ brand and you’ve been asked to send across a strategic content calendar. A content calendar is a necessity and is useful in many ways, which you‘ll find out in due course of time. It’ll primarily help you to organize and manage content and keep posts relevant. So here’s a step-by-step guide that’ll help you plan & create your content calendar, after you’ve set up a page for your client’s brand -

1. Create a Blueprint for your Content Calendar.

Basically, the first step would be to create a customized calendar according to your brand’s communication objectives on social media. One can create either a weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual calendar to follow. If you don't find excel sheets to be convenient, you could just download one from the many websites offering ready-made digital calendars online. Your social media content calendar should be easy to read, and contain all the necessary information for your content marketing strategy. The easiest method of organizing a content calendar is by using a separate sheet for each month and breaking down all the activities on a weekly basis for the convenience of everyone in your team. The most crucial part of organizing a content calendar is that it should always reflect your weekly responsibilities right from writing content, deadlines to get client approvals, post timings otherwise managing tasks can go haywire.

2. Skipping out the Client’s Approval process could be a huge blunder.

Time with your client should be spent talking about strategy and new business plans. After setting up the brand’s social media accounts, the next step is to get a brief from the client, understand the brand’s objectives & work on the monthly content calendar. It is imperative to get your content calendar approved by your clients to avoid any mis-communication. Once the client has had a glance through it & approved it, you can go ahead executing the plan with ease in the following weeks. Keeping the client at rest is a trick to keep your client happy. This will not only avoid last minute hassles, but will also win the confidence of your client, that his brand is in right hands. Skipping this crucial process would be a blunder!

3. Deciding Social Media Platforms As Per Your TG.

Based on what would interest your fans depending on their age group & other demographics, plan ahead the variety and quantity of content you want to put up. The marketing format for your content should be varied so as to avoid monotony. Marketing your brand with a mix of text, creatives & video content on Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter to mention a few social networking sites, are ways of keeping your audiences updated. Also a monthly review of your target group with the help of analytical insights and tools, is a good way of monitoring the online behavior of your followers. In this way, you can decide which time of the day, your brand will receive the highest amount of visibility and engagement.

4. Formula For Content Creation

• Carefully analyze the behavior of your target audience. (Age group, location, likes/dislikes, comments, good/bad reviews on your product)
• Define your different audience types is not the job of just a single team member. Content team, sales team, marketing, customer services and HR have to discuss this matter unanimously and stand at a unified decision.
• Categorize your calendar according to sections and categories and allocate each category for every day of the week.
• Utilize Facebook Insights, where you can gauge at what time and on which day of the week your fans are the most active – thereby letting you post accordingly to get the maximum reach.
• Apart from publishing content related to strictly for sales, posting something entertaining once a month-whether a YouTube video or a comic strip that will make your audience see the lighter side of your brand will surely garner more followers.
• Avoid spamming your feed with repetitions and re-posts. The audience gets annoyed by spam and doesn’t like to read repetitive content and might unfollow and unlike your page. Quality over quantity always.
• Start a conversation every week –ask for opinions, suggestions, feedback, reviews etc. Do not neglect user comments on your posts.
• Twice a week teach followers to do something, or give them valuable information that’s not necessarily related to your business.
• Three times a week provide followers with information relevant to your business.

The trick at the end of it is to delight your online customers & fans, more than worrying about client expectations! Go ahead and make your very own content calendar for your brand, each month.