How To Create A Content Calendar: Get Your Marketing Back On Track
If you struggled to keep your business’s Instagram, Facebook, blog, and Pinterest up-to-date this past year, it’s time to implement a content calendar for the upcoming year.
What Is A Content Calendar?
A content calendar – also known as a social media planner – is a way to plan your marketing content.
This is to ensure you are consistent and intentional in posting and aren’t left scrambling at the last minute to get an Instagram post out!
When you have a specific plan and calendar, it’s way easier to make sure your content is centred on a purpose and you’re moving towards your business goals.
What Should Be Included In A Marketing Content Calendar?
When it comes to content calendars, it is kind of like a choose-your-own-adventure situation – you can tailor it to your specific needs and business goals. You can insert the topics you want to cover in different slots as well as what channels the content is to go to.
How Do I Create A Content Calendar?
After you take these steps, you’ll have a content calendar and feel a huge weight lifted off of your shoulders!
Define Your Marketing Goals
First, it’s important to clearly define what you want to get out of your marketing. Hubspot explains, “A marketing goal is a specific and measurable objective that helps you meet your broader business goals. It can be anything from generating high-quality leads and raising brand awareness to increasing customer value and improving your referral rate.”
Your goals will also depend on what you’re planning for the year. For instance, if you’re planning on launching an e-book or a course in the second quarter of the year, your goal for the first quarter may be growing your audience and getting people to sign up for your email list.
Choose A Location
You can opt for a Google Sheet and have different tabs for each month, or you can download a designed content calendar from Etsy.
Choose something that you find user-friendly and is malleable enough to amend according to your unique needs.
Decide On Your Marketing Channels
What platforms do you want to focus on? There are a ton of ways to reach your ideal clients – from Instagram and LinkedIn to Pinterest (our personal favourite!). You don’t have to have a presence on every channel. Decide on which platforms make the most sense for your business. Check where you’ve found the most success previously, and where your ideal clients are.
Here’s a guide on how to use Pinterest for business.
Plot Out Specific Dates
Look to the year ahead and note down any specific dates you want to create content around. For example, big cultural, seasonal, and religious celebrations that you want to acknowledge, as well as fun social media days, such as National Pet Day and World Chocolate Day.
Tip: Google ‘social media calendar’ to get a list of all important dates that could be relevant to your marketing plan.
Then, plot down specific dates related to launches. Once you’ve got these dates down, you can schedule build-up content leading up to the event.
Choose Content For Repurposing
You don’t need to create all brand-new content. Review your content from the previous year and decide what you’re going to repurpose.
For example, blogs can turn into Instagram posts and previous podcasts can be repurposed into blogs.
Find out how to repurpose content for Pinterest here!
Plot Your Content
It’s important to be realistic when it comes to how often you’re going to publish content. Trying to post every single day can be a fast way to burn out! Choose a publishing frequency that works for you and your business schedule.
Remember: Your content plan isn’t set in stone! Leave room for flexibility – it’s okay to change things up when you need to.
Note down when blogs are going to go out, days for reels and TikToks, and what days you’ll be pinning. Extra points for scheduling content creation days – days on which you focus on creating your videos, pins, and writing blogs.
Review Your Content Plan And Finalise A Quarter
After you’ve got the skeleton of your content plan down, review it to see if everything fits together and makes sense.
Are you making the most of your content? With one blog, you can create a range of content such as a reel, three Instagram posts, a Live, a pin, and more! Marketing is often about finding ways to work smarter, not harder.
Then, you can finalise the first quarter or month in advance by actually creating the content and scheduling it.
Once you’ve got your content planned and scheduled, you will feel so much better! Here’s to a year of intentional marketing and growing your business!
Hello, I'm Megan!
An introvert at heart, Pinterest is the perfect platform for me. Simply posting your content using the right marketing strategies gets you an abundance of website traffic? No engagement or ‘showing up’ needed?
Who wouldn’t want to use this powerhouse of a platform …
