The ways of communicating with different audiences have multiplied with the advent of social media. This allows companies to reach their audiences almost anywhere on the Web and several times a day. It’s a real gold mine for companies. Brands have quickly asserted their identities on social media, understanding the importance of being present where their audience is.
It is indisputable that a brand’s presence on social media is essential. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are an integral part of an optimal communication and marketing strategy. However, is “existing online” really the only variable to take into consideration?
More Than Just Online Presence
Here, the term “presence” should be replaced by “relevance” in many cases. You might as well not have an online identity if you are irrelevant to your audience. However, delivering relevant content to your audiences isn’t easy. It’s an approach that requires preparation. Understand that “preparation” is the key word here, since being unprepared is often equivalent to planning for failure.
How Can Editorial Planning Be Relevant?
Above all, you have to understand that publishing last-minute content often pushes you to comply, preventing you from opening up the conversation and interacting in a relevant way with your target audience.
High-quality content often involves multiple members of a team: copywriters, graphic designers, video designers, etc. This requires many resources: you have to be prepared and plan ahead of time.
Are You Familiar With the Editorial Calendar Concept?
A rigorous calendar will quickly become an essential tool in your work and will ensure a common thread between your posts. However, it should be kept in mind that an editorial calendar is flexible, and that there are as many models as there are brands! Nevertheless, here are our must-haves!
The Essentials to Add to Your Editorial Calendar
Quick Audit of Your Social Media Usage
Before you begin planning, take the time to assess your current use of social media. A good review of your habits will allow you to build your calendar on solid foundations. Here are 6 questions you must answer first:
- What platforms does the company use?
- Which ones show the best results?
- Should the company delete their account from certain platforms?
- How many times per day should we post to each network?
- What are the business goals for each network?
- Questioning the relevance of each platform will allow you to assess the medium on which your company wishes to be present. It is important to remember that it is NOT necessary to be active on all social networks. However, it is important to know which platforms allow you to meet your marketing goals.
Your Important Dates
Of course, you should note the important dates in your planning: Christmas, Halloween, Valentine’s Day, etc. You can also consult a list of all International days, some can have an interesting “fit” with your brand. You can easily find a list of these days online. For example, if you are a sports centre that offers a variety of group classes, it will be very relevant to know that June 21 is International Day of Yoga. This content could be used as a post to test the enthusiasm for this type of course.
Be careful, you must not fall into the trap of impertinence; choose dates that stick to your brand.
Your Contents
Many businesses fall for abusive self-promotion.
Social networks are, in most cases, a space for socialization and entertainment. If your communication strategy is all about self-promotion, you will quickly annoy your subscribers. It is important to understand the nature of each platform, in order to create relevant content for each of them. This is true, even if it means adapting your content or your tone. In fact, not to do so would be practically abnormal! You should be more serious and professional on Linkedin and more familiar and intimate on Facebook.
Your content Guideline
To ensure a guideline between your content, start by determining the major themes that relate to your product or service. For example, an air conditioning company may address seasonal themes that affect temperature, home comfort, etc. Make sure that each topic is linked to a specific objective: to engage subscribers, redirect to the website, subscribe to a newsletter, etc. The nature of the goals is unique to your business and changes over time.
To categorize your content there is no magic recipe. It all depends on your business and your goals. However, you can still stick to the rule of thirds when testing content. You just have to remember that:
- One third of your content should be used to promote your business and generate leads;
- One third of your content must come from other sources related to your business;
- One third of your content should be used to interact directly with subscribers.
Once the main content axes have been chosen, make an inventory of the type of posts you can do:
- Links;
- Blog posts;
- Gif;
- Photo montage;
- Live video;
- Survey;
- True or false?;
- Did you know?;
- User-generated content.
This will allow you to vary the form of your posts as well.
Your Social Media Posting Frequency
Remember that a regular calendar shows potential subscribers that you have a relevant amount of content to offer, and a sustained frequency reassures your current subscribers and encourages them to engage with your posts. Determining your frequency will allow you to estimate the number of posts to prepare.
However, let’s not be fooled. In an ideal world, everyone would post multiple times a day, every day. However, the reality and the daily obligations are quite different. This is why, when estimating frequency, be honest about your limits. Quality takes precedence over quantity and this is even truer on social media. Before choosing the frequency you will adopt, ask yourself these following questions:
- How much content does the company already have?
- How many hours can you spend creating and managing content?
- How will my audience react to my posting frequency?
- Do we have the budget to do content creation externally?
A Flexible and Scalable Tool
Finally, it is essential to keep in mind that an editorial calendar has two main advantages: it is scalable and flexible. The must-haves presented above are a foundation that you can adapt to your business. You must question yourself, even before creating the editorial calendar, about the needs and the level of detail it should contain. These two variables will be closely related to the organizational chart of your business. Above all, remember … relevance takes precedence over presence!
Let’s Do It!
Obviously, if we’re talking about social media planning and content writing, it’s because we offer this service! Contact us to discuss your needs!
