Create a social media content calendar
8 steps to a perfectly solid social media content calendar that produces content like clockwork. This is used by some of the best agencies, marketers and teams in the world.
Step 1:
Use your audience profiles (aka personas) to determine which channels your users will be using and when they will be using them
Step 2:
Make a note of your brand archetype and tonality. Is your company known as The Jester (M&M) or The Ruler (Rolex) or The Sage (BBC)? There are 18 archetypes to choose from.
Step 3:
Perform a competitor scan. You can use konnectinsights to track your competitors on social media platforms. You don’t want to create content that your competitors produced months ago. You want to be radical, differentiated and relevant.
Step 4:
There are usually two models to choose from. The AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) model, pr the Hero-Hub-Hygiene model. The AIDA model is self-explanatory, but the HHH model needs some explanation. Your hero idea is the one piece of content that grabs attention. This can be a film, a visual or any other asset. Hub is an idea that builds intrigue and keeps conversation around the idea. Hygiene are smaller pieces that help sustain the thought of the campaign. You can start with this template:
Step 5:
Next, brainstorm on your content buckets/pillars. There are high-level ideas that your posts fall under. Example of content pillars are expert posts, any particular campaign, maybe a tv commercial, etc. Fiama’s content pillars were “Sounds that soothe”, “Guided Meditation”, “Feel good in Covid”.
Step 6:
Choose your channels and think about what kind of content you’d like to post. Each channel is unique and caters to a different audience. This should be reflected in the content that you create.
Step 7:
Prepare a content calendar with care. This is the one I use: https://bit.ly/cxlcontentcalendar.
It should include the following information: the date, the content pillar, a live link to the post, and links to the design. You can also include who is responsible for creating the content and have someone else validate it if it is satisfactory.
Step 8:
Your content calendar could be visualised as an Instagram feed visual, or it could look like an actual calendar with key cultural moments. You can also make a master content calendar, such as this one
