This insights post is a summary of the blog post published by Medita Communication. View the full insight at: Näin rakennat helppokäyttöisen sosiaalisen median julkaisukalenterin.
A social media publishing calendar is one of those tools that, once you use it, makes you wonder how you ever got by without it. As the name suggests, a calendar always keeps you up to date, letting you see where you’re going at a glance.
The old adage “well planned is half done” definitely applies here. Using a calendar, it saves time on both publishing and planning posts. When all upcoming and past posts are easily found in one place, everyone can quickly ensure that their social media strategy is being implemented on the selected channels at any time.
Checklist for planning your publishing calendar
When planning, it is worth starting from what is common in all communication planning, i.e. content that supports the organization’s strategy. Here are some basic elements that it should cover:
- Core and key messages
- Interests and assumed expectations of the target audience
- Themes / Events (industry, seasons, strategic goals, events, campaigns, launches, products and services, important anniversaries, etc.)
- Planned posts and spontaneous situational posts
- Reposts (e.g. partners, experts) reinforce expertise and can also entertain
The simplest tool for compiling a calendar is good old Excel or Google Sheets. It is easy to copy the materials to be published into, for example, a marketing automation system or publication management system. Here are some easy tips for setting it up to begin creating the calendar.
- Open a separate tab for each month and channel
- Add publication dates and text or text template designed for the dates, a link to an image or video, and a link to a file that tells more about the content, preferably on your own pages
- Strategic themes can be added color-coded at the top of the page, where it is convenient to copy them to each post and see the overall picture whether more or less of a certain type of content is needed.
- Add columns as needed, e.g. Things to consider, Marketing budget
Regularity makes planning easier
And it also makes it more efficient! When you set aside time in your calendar once a week to work on the content drafts for the coming week and schedule them, and add the drafts to the calendar as new things to communicate arise, planning and implementation take significantly less time. If you can do all this while sparring with a colleague, you save even more time.
For the summer holidays, it is worth planning and scheduling together in advance as a one-time contract, so you know that things will work even during the holidays and that you don’t need to brief colleagues on how to manage social media channels. It is also worth making room for spontaneous posts. If the office dog comes to visit, a picture of a furry coworker can be a cheery day and the most popular post of the week.
You can get more tips and guidance about maintaining the calendar and a free social media calendar template to support planning. of the template at: Näin rakennat helppokäyttöisen sosiaalisen median julkaisukalenterin.
