Creating a Social Media Calendar: Four Factors to Consider

Do you have a social media calendar for your business? If not, you should consider creating one.

This useful marketing tool is the perfect way to organize shareable content, communicate timely events with your audience, and align your social media posts with other business initiatives.

Perhaps most importantly, social media offers an opportunity to create and nurture a relationship with your audience. It can even be a channel for providing customer service. Creating a social media calendar helps you produce consistent, well-timed, quality posts that serve both your audience and your business.

Here are four factors to consider when creating a social media calendar, including the benefits it can provide and how to get started with scheduling.

1. Your content mix

Not every post needs to be a sales pitch. Consider sharing a variety of content to help connect your business to your audience. Common types of shareable content include:

• Relevant news
• Quotes and inspiration
• Blog posts
• Promotions
• Events or announcements

When planning your calendar, aim for a content mix suited to your audience. For an example of diverse content, check out the WordPress.com Twitter feed.

2. Time and day of the week

When scheduling your social media, don’t forget to factor in the day of the week and the time of day. For instance, 4:30 p.m. on a Friday afternoon may not be the best time to publish promotional content. People are most likely thinking about their weekend, not shopping online.

Also, consider that not everyone who follows your business on social media will see every post you publish, so don’t be shy about reposting quality content.

Research the best times to publish on social media (start with this article from Sprout Social) and plan your calendar accordingly.

3. Social channels

Different social channels attract different demographics. An effective social media publishing strategy involves targeting your audience on the right channel. But before you can effectively target your audience, you need to define your ideal customer. This customer is sometimes referred to as a business avatar.

For instance, if you own an online clothing store, your business avatar might be a fashionable 20-something woman who is active on social media and has the disposable income of an advancing young professional.

Once you know who your audience is, use social media research such as Pew Research‘s Social Media Fact Sheet to discover which social channels are most likely to reach your demographic.

Don’t forget you can integrate your social media channels with your WordPress.com website too:

4. Overall alignment

Planning and scheduling your social media is just one aspect of your overall marketing strategy, which should ultimately reflect your larger business goals. Just as you define your audience, be sure you have clear S.M.A.R.T. goals for your business (as explained by Smartsheet).

Every social channel includes some built-in analytics, and third-party analytics tools are available, as well. Over time, you can use these to measure how your social media efforts are working to help you reach business goals.

Lastly, to align your social calendar with your business and goals, don’t forget to take into account things like holidays and promotional events. These occasions can be opportunities for themed or seasonal social sharing.

Start planning today

If your website follows a content calendar, you can design your social media calendar around it.

There are a number of services and tools available to help you plan and schedule social content. If you have a WordPress.com website, the quickest way to get started is with Publicize, a tool that lets you connect your website to various social platforms and easily schedule social posts.

Want to learn more about digital marketing for your WordPress.com site? Check out the Go by WordPress.com blog.