Are you tired of winging it when publishing on social media? Do you feel like you’re always scrambling for fresh content?

You’re not alone. One-third of SMBs say a lack of resources is their #1 marketing challenge, while one-quarter say the same about creating a strategy or plan:

Image via Constant Contact

Creating a social media content calendar makes it easier to post consistently and on time, eliminating the stress of coming up with content ideas on the fly.

And the more consistently you post, the simpler it becomes to build and maintain an engaged audience and generate quality leads.

So, how can you create a social media content calendar that’s effective for your business?

Let’s find out.

1. Align Your Content Calendar With Your Business Needs

Social media content calendars look different for every business. A small business, for instance, will have a much simpler content calendar than a major brand with multiple customer personas and target markets.

Being realistic about your available time and resources will allow you to create a functional calendar that will deliver on all your marketing ideas.

Such details may include:

• Platform content format
• Team members and their roles
• Date
• Copy
• Visuals
• Linking strategies
• Geo-targeting
• Posting times

👉 Pro tip: Struggling to visualize how your content calendar should look? Not sure what information to include? Get some inspiration in our article: 29 of the Best Free Content Calendar Templates!

2. Understand Your Audience and Their Content Preferences

An effective social media calendar should help you create impactful, relatable content for your audience.

That’s why it’s critical to first understand your target audience and their interests—and how they might vary from one social platform to the next.

For example, Instagram’s audience skews younger, with over three-fifths of users aged 18 – 34.

Image via Statista

With Facebook, almost half of users are aged 35+.

So it probably doesn’t make sense to post exactly the same content on both platforms.

Do you want to learn more about your audience?

A little research will go a long way. Analytics tools like Semrush and Google Analytics can provide incredible insights to help you understand your audience’s demographics.

Tracking your competitors is another excellent strategy for resourcing content insights. Check their recent content successes and flops for a better idea of what kind of content your audience is currently consuming.

You can also understand your audience further by leveraging social media listening tools. These platforms can help you identify relevant audience conversations, providing insight into their challenges, needs, and interests related to your brand.

This audience research and competitive insight should feed into creating your content calendar.

3. Audit Your Social Media Accounts and Content

A thorough audit of your existing social media accounts is crucial in creating an effective content calendar. You may have to enhance or restructure your content strategy through the insights you gather here.

It’s totally possible to run a manual social media audit. But if you want to cut down on the leg work, you can round up the data using a social media management tool with built-in auditing features, like Hootsuite or Sprout Social.

Whatever your preferred approach, you should be looking to collate the following information:

• The most successful content and tactics on each platform so far
• The number of posts published on each platform every week
• The current posting time and its impact on audience engagement and conversion
• Platforms with positive growth and the platforms showing little or no engagement
• Gaps and areas that require improvement
• The platform with the biggest active audiences

Your social media audit should help you understand what resonates best with your audience — and where your current strategy is falling short.

Again, you can incorporate this information into your social media content calendar.

4. Involve Your Team in the Creation Process

Do you want to create a social media content calendar that inspires the entire team to work with you?

Involve them in the creation process! Source content ideas from the team members accountable for various tasks.

Create a simple system where all team members can access the best tools to contribute to your efforts. Copywriters and graphic designers, for instance, should have access to the right parts of the calendar to make collaboration easier.

Provide avenues for continuous feedback from all the stakeholders to help identify the areas where you may need to pull back or add extra flare.

Again, give your team access to customer feedback from the various platforms for faster and easier calendar adjustments. Including your team members in the content calendar development and execution process ensures their ongoing support.

5. Choose Your Content Mix

Selecting the right types of content for your business is only one part of the puzzle.

You also need a smart mix of content to target audiences at different stages of the buying cycle effectively. For instance, you might share:

• Topical content to target people at the top of the funnel
• Blog posts to drive traffic to your website
• Case studies and testimonials to drive conversions

Because if you spend all your time pushing promotional messaging, you risk scaring people away (or simply boring them).

The secret here is to “sell without selling” to entertain your audience and generate leads.

So, what, exactly, is the “ideal” social media content mix?

The fact is, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, you should simply seek to share a mix of content that matches your audience’s interests on different platforms. However, there are a few tried-and-trusted approaches to help develop your content mix:

The 4-1-1 Approach

The rule states that for every six posts you publish on your social accounts, four should be relevant content that entertains and educates, one should be a “soft” sell, and the other a “hard” sell.

For instance, you could make engaging videos that are relevant and entertaining to your audience. Videos tend to be far more engaging than other forms of content, with videos on Instagram generating more comments on average than image and carousel posts combined:

Image via Mention

That makes video content a valuable way to drive your engagement and grow your reach.

But what about the more sales-focused elements of your content strategy?

A “soft” sell post creates a bond with your audience by showcasing your products and services. For instance, you could post how one of your products has helped your customers.

On the other hand, a “hard” sell is about persuading potential customers to buy right now. For example, you could promote a limited-time free trial or a flash sale.

The Rule of the Third

Simply put, this strategy states that:

• One-third of your posts should focus on your brand and conversions
• One-third should promote educational content, like thought leadership
• One-third should aim to drive personal interactions with your customers

Image via Wyoming SBDC Network

The 5-3-2 Approach

This strategy works well for Facebook and X/Twitter.

For every ten posts you publish, five should be curated posts relevant to your audience, three should be your branded content, and two should be personalized, non-promotional content that feels human.

Image via Gregory Kiep

The 80 – 20 Rule

The rule says that 80% of your content should be informative, entertaining, and educational, while 20% should be self-promotional.

6. Create a Consistent Posting Schedule

Consistency is key to maintaining a robust social media presence and driving your engagement and growth. And this consistent posting schedule must be reflected in your social media content calendar.

You don’t want to leave room for your audience to forget your brand. But you also don’t want them to feel overwhelmed with the number of posts they see from your brand. The key is to strike a balance.

This level of consistency also allows you to build your brand’s community faster, provide room for customer feedback and engagement, and lead to better conversion rates.

For instance, if you’ve scheduled Mondays for fun videos, respect this schedule and apply it to all the Mondays of the month. That way, your audience knows what to expect — so there’s a better chance they’ll keep returning for more.

7. Note Awareness Days, Events and Holidays

Remember: your brand doesn’t exist in isolation.

Sure, you want to spend plenty of time posting about your product or service. However, you should also seek opportunities to boost engagement by tapping into broader conversations beyond your organization.

One of the most effective approaches is to create content around pre-planned awareness days, holidays, and other relevant events for your audience.

Every calendar month contains dozens of these dates — from massive national or global occasions like Pride and Black Friday to more niche examples, such as National Hot Dog Day and Eat a Red Apple Day.

Take the time to seek out events likely to resonate with your audience and add them to your content calendar in advance. This will save you a lot of time on content planning down the line.

👉 Learn more: 4 Ways to Run a Great Holiday Campaign Using Social Media

8. Leave Room for Breaking News

Of course, not all your posts will be pre-planned or evergreen content.

You should always leave a few slots on your content calendar free for unexpected developments — like breaking industry news or internal announcements.

And if a major crisis or some other kind of last-minute event occurs, don’t be afraid to push back other posts to prioritize more timely content.

👉 Learn more: How Brands Can Be Nimble and Authentic with Every-Day Crises

9. Choose the Right Tools

To make an effective social media content calendar, you need the right tools to breathe life into it. The amount of detail you’d like on your calendar and other additional social media management features should help you choose the best tool for the job.

Consider picking a tool that will allow you to share your ideas with your team on the go and make quick content decisions.

Some of the tools you can use to create an effective social media content calendar include:

These are just a few social media tools in the market today. Screen their features thoroughly to ensure that you can create the best content for your social media accounts.

10. Set Goals and KPIs

Did you know that 92% of social media pros are at least somewhat concerned about the ROI the social media ROI they’re generating?

Image via Hootsuite

Sure, proving that your content is achieving the desired results can be hard. However, it gets much easier if you set big-picture goals and short-term key performance indicators (KPIs) against which to measure success.

Most brands’ long-term goal from social media marketing will be to boost leads, sales, and revenue.

But it’s hard to assess the impact of an individual post against such broad objectives.

That’s why you should also set short-term KPIs, such as achieving a minimum number of weekly comments, likes, shares, or website visits from your social posts.

Using them empowers you to see if your content calendar needs to be modified to reach your goals or if you’re on track.

👉 Learn more: 13 Metrics to Track for Social Media Success

11. Build a Review Process

Unless your business is a one-person operation, you’ll almost certainly need some sort of review process to ensure everything you share is on-brand, aligned with your goals, suitable for your audience, and generally unproblematic.

When defining your review process, you need to consider:

• Who should review each post
• When reviews should take place
• How long the relevant people need to review a post
• How to notify those people when a review is required
• How they should communicate issues or sign off on a post

You’ll need to account for all of this in your content calendar. You don’t want to miss a vital event or holiday because you didn’t leave enough time for all the relevant stakeholders to review your planned post.

Your content calendar is also the best place to keep track of reviews. That way, everyone who has access knows whether or not a post has received the green light — leaving less room for publishing errors.

12. Try Out New Ideas and Re-Strategize Where Necessary

It’s normal to hit a creative rut when searching for new and engaging ideas for your audience, especially when you’re responsible for posting on multiple social media platforms.

That’s why it’s essential to keep trying out new ideas to bring uniqueness to the calendar while continually improving your content’s performance.

It’s also important to remember that creating a content calendar isn’t a one-and-done activity. Instead, you need to revisit and revise it regularly to ensure that it includes only the best content types on an optimized posting schedule.

The key is to remember that while your posts may not hit all the time, you still have your audience’s attention, and you can test new ideas at any time.

For instance, a post that flopped a few months ago may prove an instant hit with your audience once it is recycled and published on another platform.

But how do you find out what’s working and what isn’t?

You can utilize data analytics tools to give you real-time insight into what works for your audience, helping you identify your best posts and even run ads to boost their reach and engagement further.

Ready to Utilize These Strategies to Create An Effective Social Media Content Calendar?

If you’re leveraging social media marketing, a content calendar is essential.

To start, you should understand your audience and business. You must also identify current gaps in your content and involve your team in creating the calendar.

It’s a good idea to incorporate a content mix in the calendar and use tools to publish content consistently and at the correct times.

Are you interested in learning more about social media content creation? Join us at one of our upcoming social media strategy conferences.