- Struggling to keep up with your social media marketing?
- Not sure what to post on your social media channels?
- Losing productivity by spending too much time on social media?
How do you manage your social media effectively and efficiently?
A (well thought-out, strategically planned, eye-catching) social media content plan is your answer. In short, an awesome content plan.
Having a social media presence is a necessity in today’s digital world, even if you are just on one platform. Managing it well and learning to work with tools that can make you both productive and efficient in your business can make a whole world of difference to the outcome, not to mention your mental health!
Many small business owners don’t realise or understand the need to create a content plan, it’s often done on a day-to-day basis and is based on whatever the person is feeling that day. There’s no strategy or thought behind it, just what comes to mind when they remember they have to post. This can create chaos on your social channels, with no real meaning behind any of it.
We understand that everyone is busy, marketing is not always at the forefront of your mind, but when you get distracted or side-tracked into doing other things within your business, your social media marketing is often the task that gets pushed aside and often forgotten, creating an inconsistent pattern. Not only does this provide inconsistency for your audience but it doesn’t give you direction or help with long-term targeting or strategies for marketing, and in turn, sales.
The most basic tool for your social media planning, is getting to grips with a content plan.
A content plan will be your best friend for life!
Here at KJP Creative, we use a pen and paper for this at the beginning stage, and write everything down so we can see everything clearly and laid out in front of us – usually working to a month’s plan. Here’s our top 5 tips for creating an awesome content marketing plan:
#1 – Map out
Create a blank view of your calendar for the month ahead, and start to fill in the gaps… Tip: use a different colour for each type of content so you can see at a glance. The more you start to fill in, you’ll see gaps of where you need content, or where you’re putting too much of the same thing together etc. Learn to spread things out, or manage a campaign at a glance.
#2 – Get thinking & start writing
Write in certain things that you know you want to share that month, these could be things that tie in with overall goals, things that work towards wider targets. Next comes some of your own content, blog posts, or articles that you’ve written. Then think about telling people about what you do, detailing different aspects of your business.
#3 – Use curated content
You can then start to drop in articles that you’ve enjoyed reading, or content that would be beneficial to your readers – it doesn’t have to be all your own content, it’s good to get an all-round view on topics. There might also be people or accounts who you can reshare content from, make notes of dates that this might be applicable.
#4 – Utilise awareness days
How about some awareness days to get your audience talking? We wouldn’t advise jumping on every awareness day that happens, but choose ones that are relevant to your readers and get them thinking and talking about real issues they face and ones they can resonate with. These are great to keep up with trends, things that happening around you, world events etc.
#5 – Tap into emotions
The key to your content plan is to create content that is going to be engaging for your readers, and is going to tap into an emotion. Emotions are so important, and there are so many out there to trigger, but hitting a nerve can be the difference between someone stopping to take notice of you, to scrolling right past and not. Find the balance, find what works well with your audience. Do they enjoy a joke, or would they prefer a motivational post?
What’s next with the content plan?
Once you’ve got your content plan together, it’s about writing the content to go with the plan, creating the images/ graphics, and scheduling. Everyone works differently, so find a pattern that works for you. And find a scheduling tool that you can get on with. Some are easier than others, some have analytics, some integrate with other platforms, some are easy for a mobile device… the choice is really down to personal preference – the key is to actually find time to doing it!
Don’t have the time? Block out sections in your diary for each part of the plan:
- Content planning
- Research
- Writing
- Graphics
- Scheduling
If you’ve only got an hour one day and half hour the next, block these times out and stick to them. Make this a regular part of your to-do list. Once you get into the habit, it’ll become easier and quicker – promise!
However, if you’re still reading and wonder how you’d ever get time to create a proper strategic content plan, or it’s simply not your forte, or what you want to be focussed on right now, we can help! That’s what we love to do, and it’s our speciality. Just contact us, and we’ll be in touch to talk further.
But for those who are ready to see your social media take off to new heights – we challenge you to take content planning seriously and give it a go. And we’d love to hear back from you once you have!
In the meantime, why not checkout our FREE Awareness Days calendar to get you started…
