Month: May 2015

When you decide to get serious about your social media presence, one of the most important things you can start using is a content calendar. These can range in both style and form, but the goal is always the same. You need to be able to know what information is going, when is it going out and where is it going?

Content Calendars can range from full-blown web apps to basic excel sheets. When you combine a content calendar with scheduling tools such as Hootsuite and Latergramme, you can quickly and efficiently post to the specified social platforms.

So what type of information should you consider when creating a content calendar? These are the columns that I like to use:

Time

What time do I plan on posting the content at on a platform? When you research and study your analytics, you can find out what times yield the best results. In my situation, I know that posting content on Facebook at 1:00 pm leads to more people seeing it.

Services such as Hootsuite provide auto scheduling for your content. It’ll look at the best times to post content while taking into consideration any other content you want to post. It structures your day and picks the times that will yield the best results.

Platform

This column is pretty straight forward. Where do you plan on posting this content? I like to give each platform it is own row even if the content is the same. So a post about Periscope, for example, that is going out on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter would result in three new rows. This lets me see how much content is going out in the day quickly for each platform.

Content

What do you plan on saying with your post? Whatever my message is I put it here. I like to use Grammarly to ensure that my posts make sense when I get approval the content goes on my calendar. I also include any hashtags I plan on using, that way it is easy to copy and paste into Hootsuite when the time comes.

Link

Again, this is very straight forward. Where do I want my post to link? If you are promoting a blog, service or product, it is here that you would add your link.

Media

The final column in my content calendar. If you plan on including any imagery or video in your post, this is where you would include the link. I like to keep any imagery being sourced from my machine in the same folder as my calendar; this makes finding imagery quick.

All in all, content calendars are pretty simple to use. There isn’t much to making a post on a social platform but when you take an hour to organize your content, you put yourself in a better position to execute successfully.

1) Post Content Regularly

One of the best things you can do to leverage social media better is to use it on a daily basis. Once you have determined what social media platforms make sense for your business, start posting custom content to each platform.

2) Use the right content for the platform

This is something that people struggle with when they first start out. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram are all very different so why treat them all the same? These social media experiences are designed for specific purposes and goals. When you do not customize the content for each platform, you end up with a lousy customer experience and an automated feel. When every post on each platform looks the same, it looks like you do not care, and you start to look fake.

3) Engage with your client base

Twitter is extremely powerful in this sense. When people are talking about your business or your industry, jump in and have a conversation. This is a chance to give yourself some excellent brand equity with your customers and also keeps you in the loop with what your customers are talking about or expecting. When you engage with a customer, it works out great for everyone.

4) Post Valuable Content

This may be a difficult concept to understand at first, but not everything should be a hard sell on social media. The content you post should be valuable to your users. If you are trying to build traction in the social media world, ask yourself the following question “Would I share this onto my wall if it were from someone else?” If you answered No, don’t post it.

For example, you are in real estate. Instead of posting images about your employees, their skills and how they can help buy a house; make the conversation about educating a home buyer. “What to consider when buying your first home” or “How to stage your house to sell quicker” are the types of content that provide real value.

When you provide content that is valuable to everyone, it is far more likely to see people engage with it.

5) Don’t be afraid of giving away knowledge

One thing that I’ve often heard brought up as a reason not to post better content is that companies do not want to give away a competitive edge. I believe this is just another excuse not to do the work.

Customers want to deal with companies who are experts in their fields. While some might perceive it to be a bad idea to share knowledge, as you are giving competitors information, you are positioning yourself to be an industry guru. You’ll be able to point to your competitors and claim that they are just following your advice.

When you are the “go-to” source on a certain subject, potential customers are far more likely to engage with you.