Influencer Marketing in Asia: An Interview with Aaron Brooks
Aaron Brooks
April 21, 2017
A social media calendar is an invaluable tool for your brand. A well-designed calendar will get your social media flying, and it will help you to collaborate with other people on your team (as well as in other teams), organise your schedule more efficiently, and get immediate visibility into your activity.
Because your social media calendar will help you stay on track of your publishing schedule and the type of content you publish, it will minimise the risk of duplicate posting or being too repetitive. It helps you plan, stay ahead of deadlines, and add zest and sparkle to your content.
There are different types of social media calendars available. Most people are either a spreadsheet person or a tech person and there are calendars available for both.
Whatever version you choose, your social media calendar gives you a day-to-day breakdown of your social media posts across the platforms of your choice and will serve as a framework to help you plan and track your campaign.
It provides you with a one-stop-spot to assess your social media across multiple accounts and campaigns and means that elements of your posts can be kept in one place, from videos and photographs through to hashtags and the names of any other brands you want to tag. It can be used by agencies that need to run numerous social media accounts, or by in-house marketing teams – the value lies in how accessible it makes your information so that you can make decisions quickly.
You can download free social media calendar templates online (scroll down for Vamp’s free template), or create your own to fit your brand and needs. Whether you go for a Notion calendar, a Google Doc or just a good old spreadsheet, your social media calendar should include the following elements:
Along with your social media calendar, it’s a good idea to use an editorial calendar to plan out all the individual content assets that you’re going to be promoting via your social media, such as blog posts, articles of interest, any new research etc.
Here’s a free template from Hootsuite, which you can use to plan your content – download it and use a new tab for each month.
Hootsuite’s editorial calendar has the following columns:
As no two social media campaigns are ever the same, you might want to add some columns of your own, such as keywords and/or hashtags.
If the thought of planning your social media calendar feels overwhelming, don’t panic. The best approach is a step-by-step one and once everything is in place, managing it will be a piece of cake going forwards.
Follow this simple guide to planning your social media calendar:
According to Hootsuite, a good social media calendar will stick to the rule of thirds.
This means that:
Alternatively, you could opt for the 80/20 rule, which suggests:
It’s always a good idea to find brands similar to yours for inspiration. However, remember that the tone and messaging of your social media should be in-line with all your other marketing efforts, i.e. your website, brand messaging, PR campaign, brand direction etc.
Once you’ve created your social media calendar, you’ll need to decide how to post. Using a scheduling tool like Hootsuite and Buffer means you don’t have to post live, which makes it a lot easier to post consistently. It also means you can take a holiday!
Scheduling your posts in advance will also give you an overview of what’s coming up in your social media calendar. You and your team can fact check and edit posts while they’re in the queue waiting to be posted – you’re much more likely to spot typos and other errors this way. It’s so easy to make a mistake when you’re posting on the hoof.
You can also use analytics tools to find your best performing posts. Use this knowledge to refine your social media calendar by including similar content that you know has a decent chance of performing well.
We have plenty of resources to help you with choosing social media management tools, boosting your Instagram posts, and running Instagram Reels ads. We’re also official TikTok partners.
The short answer is yes. A social media content calendar will save you time, help you to post regularly, make it easier to remember important dates and enable you to optimise your social media content – posts that are repetitive and samey will leave your audience cold.
You might not get it right the first time, but using a social media content calendar as a planning tool means you can improve your campaigns as you go along. The more you post, the better idea you’ll have of what works and what doesn’t, and you can plan accordingly.
According to Planable, these are the recommended number of posts you should schedule for each social media platform in each week:
That said, not all social media platforms may be relevant for your brand, and it’s usually better to focus on quality rather than quantity. There’s little point posting content daily if you don’t have time to interact with followers.
To get started, download Vamp’s social media calendar template for free.
Fancy learning from brands that have nailed their social media campaigns? Take inspiration from our case studies.
Hootsuite also has eight examples of clever social media scheduling over on their website. One of them is Thrive Market, which capitalised on Teacher Appreciation Week by running a giveaway just for teachers. They also used the post to highlight that Thrive Market offers free membership for teachers all year around.
A well-thought out social media campaign can attract a lot of attention. WWF ran social media posts challenging big brands to mark World Wildlife day by removing nature from their logos. The social media campaign attracted a lot of attention and Greta Thunberg got involved.
Get started on your social media campaign with Vamp. Our pricing is transparent and there is a FREE option. Check out why Vamp is perfect for businesses who want to take their social media campaigns to the next level.
