~ How to Create a Social Media Calendar in 2021 | Free Social Media Calendar Templates
Creating a Social Media Calendar can be easy and fun if you can think through few aspects.
Points to note before creating your Social Media Content Calendar?
- What kind of content you are going to provide on your Social Media Platform?
- Which Social Media Platform you are using to penetrate content?
- What kind of information do you want to drive through your Social Media Content Creation Journey?
- What is your niche?
- What is your audience type?
- What kind of diversity do you want in your Social Media content Journey?
- How much content do you want to post per day/week/month on your different Social Media Platforms?
The above ones are the very basic questions you would have to ask yourself before understand How to Create a Social Media Calendar in 2021. But that’s not all, there is more to it.
~ How to Create a Social Media Calendar in 2021 | Free Social Media Calendar Templates
What is a Social Media Calendar?
Social media editorial calendars are spreadsheets or apps used to schedule social posts in advance.
A Social Media Calendar acts like a planner of your contents. It is also used to plan when and which content will be shared, manage campaigns, and track deadlines.
A Social Media Calendar is built using one of three different formats: printed paper, spreadsheets, or software services. Once the calendar is created, then you can automate and schedule the entire calendar.
~ How to Create a Social Media Calendar in 2021 | Free Social Media Calendar Templates
The Process of Creating a Social Media Content
Creating a Social Media Calendar is a manual process. It is an approach of your social media strategy on which you emphasize in the long run.
Such a calendar can include –
- Paper Calendars: The old-school approach for those who prefer hand-written organization.
- Spreadsheets: A cost-effective route for planning posts ahead of time.
- Software Services: The professional option with powerful automation and time-saving capabilities.
The best practice of creating the same, is through a Microsoft Excel file or a Google Spreadsheet. Most of us are convenient with these tools. Excel or a Google Spreadsheet is easy to use and fast.
Being a Digital Marketing Freelancer, Trainer and Consultant, I can help you with resource files of the same. You can make use of these attached documents which talks about the different content ideas on your social media, best timings to post, and the format of structuring the calendar.
Social Media Calendar Elements
- What types of Contents you want to post in your Social Network?
- What are the Social Networks you are using for your personal brand or company pages?
- What are the days in the week you should be posting?
- What are the dates of the months you should be posting?
- What is the time of posting?
- What are the types of Content you should be posting?
- What are the Content Sources?
- What are the hashtags you should mention?
- What is the type of post on the specific Social Network?
- What are the image links to post?
- What are the video links to post?
- What are the other visual links to post?
- What are notes you want to convey to the Social Media Executive?
~ How to Create a Social Media Calendar in 2021 | Free Social Media Calendar Templates
Social Media Calendar Reflects the Approach of Your Social Media Strategy
A Social Media Calendar is a very long term approach.
It boils down to the strategy you are preparing for your online presence on Social Networks.
What is a Social Media Strategy?
A social media strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do on social media. It strategy is all about the goals or objectives you want to achieve by social networking. It guides your actions and gives you the analysis of expected results and final outcomes.
The more specific your plan is, the more effective is your strategy. You have to keep it concise.
Your Social Media Calendar Template is also a reflection of your social media strategy. Your actions are defined by how you fill up your Social Media Calendar Template.
A good Social Media Strategist is important in this process. You need a consultant who understands your business/service or products and accordingly educate, aware and entertain people to build your brand recognition.
~ How to Create a Social Media Calendar in 2021 | Free Social Media Calendar Templates
Free Social Media Calendar Template
Find the free Social Media Calendar Templates below given.
You can download these templates as PDF and on Excel.
These Social Media Calendar Templates can be used exactly the same way its put there.
This one is used to take ideas about contents and types of posts. It includes content ideas for every Social Network like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram etc.
Calendar Credit – Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends (smallbiztrends.com)
Calendar Credit – w2smarketing.com
Download the complete excel file here.
You can prepare your calendar like the below format, and further automate or also send it to your team to post manually.
You can keep as many repeated dates you want and as many shuffle dates you want. Usually, a calendar is prepared for 1 to 3 months. Your team can just filter according to dates, and check what are the posts need to be made each day.
What are the best Timings to Post on every Social Media?
What are the different types of Posts you can do on Social Media?
- Humor Posts
- Witty Posts
- Festival Celebration Posts
- Occasion Posts
- Festivals of different Religions Post
- Best Date Posts like New Year, Good Friday etc.
- Posts about “Special Days” like Mother’s Day, Labor Day, Teacher’s Day etc.
- Competition Posts on various events
- Polls and Surveys
- Infographics
- Interesting Videos
- Live-streams
- Product and Service Posts (About your Product and Service Info.)
- Industrial News
- Trending Posts and Hashtags
- Promotion of Blog Posts
- Screenshot Posts
- “Tag-a-friend” Post
- “Comment or Like to Win” Posts
- “Post your photo While” Posts
- Trivia questionnaire
- Workplace Behind-the-Scenes Posts
- Polls Post
- Questions Post
- Quotes Posts
- Memes Posts
- User-Generated Content Posts
- Stories Posts
What are the posts you should not do on Social Media?
- Profanity
- Abusive Content
- “Adult” Content
- Illegal Content
- Violence
- Animal Abuse
- Offensive Content
- Negative opinions
- Drug related content
- Poor grammar
- Threats
- Alcohol Promotion
- Smoking Promotion
- Offensive Comments
- Mocking Famous Personalities
- Bullying Personalities/People/Companies
- Personal Complaints and Rants
- Self-Incriminating Evidence
- Personal Advice
- Scammy Giveaways and Contests
- Not Being Up-to-Date with Current Trends
- Posting Insensitive Content
- Confusing Your Business Account with Your Personal Account
- Getting Angry When You Get Negative Comments
- Skipping the Editing Process
- Failing to Address Mistakes
- Posting Only When Inspiration Strikes
- Anything You Don’t Want to Make Public
Thanks reading this blog.
Also read,
“How to create Social Media Content? | Top 8 Tips & Tools to Use“.
“How to Automate Social Media Posts?“
I am Soumendra, an Online Marketing professional and Content Pro, helping businesses to grow online with digital marketing.
To let you know, I train people on Online Marketing, Digital Advertising, Content Creation, Digital Marketing Analytics Course, SEO and the entire arena of Digital Marketing.
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