5 Content Calendar Tips

Social media can be overwhelming when you’re trying to grow your online community. A lot of small businesses aren’t well versed in marketing strategy, and can get bogged down with endless brainstorming and exhausting daily content creation. 

The antidote to this? A content calendar.

A content calendar is essential to simple and straightforward content creation for your business. It removes the need to constantly brainstorm content ideas, freeing up precious creativity, time and energy needed for other parts of your business.

Let’s break down exactly how to create a content calendar:

Pick an organization system 

Whether you enjoy digital calendars, a spreadsheet, or classic physical calendar, choose a system for your content calendar that you will actually use.

I used to write down in a physical planner until I always forgot to look at my planner, and realised I needed the flexibility of digital calendars for quick and easy edits. 

Whatever you prefer, pick something you will enjoy using and will help rather than hinder your planning. 

Map out the year

I recommend using a yearly calendar for an overview of the year’s goals, and a monthly calendar for month to month content management.

Start by mapping out the entire year for your business. Be sure to add in product launches, sales you want to run, and any holidays or special dates you want to include in marketing.

Then each month, refer to your yearly spread to make sure you don’t miss anything important. 

Monthly planning 

Create your content for the mid-month for the following month, so that you are always 2 weeks ahead. I like to get everything done over 1 week, but could do everything in 1-2 days if I were batch creating my content.

This gives me another full week if I think of edits, or anything else I want to add in, before scheduling it all out for the upcoming month.

Once scheduled, you have two weeks of zero content creation, before mid-month arrives and you start planning for the following month. 

The type of content you create 

Using a content calendar also allows you to make sure you’re creating balanced content by spacing out content topics and content types.

You should be creating three types of content; outreach to attract people who don’t know you, nurture to gain trust and credibility, and convert to get your audience buying or booking with you.

A monthly spread allows you to spread out content so that you’re not selling too much with building trust, or attracting new followers without selling to your current ones.

Work smarter, not harder

I know all too well how overwhelm can set in for small business owners, so I’ve created The Social Captions, fill-in-the-blank social caption templates that are strategically optimised and written with marketing strategy and sales psychology.

Simply copy, fill-in-the-blanks and paste into your content calendar for streamlined social media captions.

Writing and marketing aren’t everyone’s forte, that’s why I wanted to share my knowledge as a University-educated writer who spent years working in a fast-paced marketing agency.

Make your marketing simple and straightforward, with agency quality work for a fraction of the cost.