Plan Ahead to Get Ahead: Strategy Matters
To non-marketers, posting on social media may seem like a trivial task – but we know better. From the copy in the caption, to the design, to the community engagement aspect, social media marketing is a time-consuming effort that takes intention, planning, and organization to be successful. Growth often takes time, and building up a loyal online community takes persistent effort to engage with an audience. It also means holding yourself accountable to a consistent posting schedule that doesn’t ghost your followers for days at a time.
With the many other tasks that come with running a business, it can be difficult to keep consistently showing up on media and creating high-quality content on the fly – but you don’t have to. Planning ahead on your social media strategy doesn’t just save you potentially a LOT of time down the road. It can also help solidify your brand’s identity and digital reputation, grow authentic relationships with your followers, and ultimately boost your business’s growth as more users find you and discover your product. Here, we’ll go over how to plan ahead on your social media marketing, get into the details of bulk content creation, and finish with a few things you should still be doing every day to grow your social media accounts. Let’s dive in.
Preparing a quarterly social media calendar
It may sound daunting, but planning a social media calendar quarterly, or even monthly, is a great way to make sure your digital footprint doesn’t get lost in the midst of running your business. With the amount of noise online, there is constant pressure to post daily. Waiting until the last minute to do so often can lead to content that is reactive instead of proactive, lower quality, and less intentional.
When you create a quarterly or monthly calendar, you force yourself to think about what you want to accomplish with your social media strategy, what kinds of content you want your audience to see, and how you can best represent your brand to digital consumers. In addition to saving you the time it would take to create and post every day, planning your social media content ahead of time also lets you dig into big-picture goals for your business and how social media platforms can help you reach those goals. You’re also able to better focus on any themed campaigns or strategy shifts you want to see in your materials throughout the year.
There are many tools that can help with planning, organizing, and scheduling content across your social media pages. From Later, to Planoly, to Buffer, to Sendible, to even in-app tools like the Facebook and Instagram Scheduler, there are tons of resources available to help you master the art of social media planning. Before we can get into scheduling and automating posts, however, we first need to talk about something that sounds more stressful than it is – bulk content creation.
Creating content in bulk
While it may seem like an overwhelming task, creating content in bulk is actually easier than you think – once you get into the swing of things. Taking a few days at the beginning of each quarter to write, design, and film all of your content for the coming weeks has many advantages.
First, we all know that great content stems from being creative, and switching gears into this creative mode every day to post on social media can be difficult and unsustainable. When you’re in the creation zone, magic happens, ideas build, and it becomes easier to produce high-quality content.
Not only is bulk content creation a great way to fully immerse yourself in the creative parts of your brand, it’s also extremely time-effective. Rather than getting ready to film reels multiple times a week, you can get ready just once and capture footage that can then be edited, used, and repurposed throughout your quarterly content.
Last, but definitely not least, bulk content creation lets you be more organized and intentional with your social media strategy. Seeing a full calendar of posts lets you be more selective, holds your brand to higher standards, and gives you more control over your feed, which plays a huge part in the overall identity and feel of your brand. Once you see what kind of content performs well, you can create templates that will make content creation an even quicker and more effective process.
Although content creation and scheduling in bulk are great ways to free up time in your schedule, there are still a few things you should be doing daily to optimize your social media strategy and approach.
Plan ahead, but engage in real-time
Planning and scheduling your social media content ahead of time has many benefits – but the one thing you can’t plan for is how people will react to and engage with this content. This is why you can’t completely go on autopilot for your social media strategy, but rather use your time wisely to engage with your followers in real-time and build a meaningful online community with your audience.
As a rule of thumb, you should be setting aside anywhere from 15-20 minutes every day to check in on your accounts and interact with your followers. While this can be anything from browsing trending posts to following similar accounts, it’s best to prioritize high-impact engagement, such as responding to direct messages, answering questions, or replying to comments. Showing up daily for your followers is an act of commitment in itself, and when paired with an intentional plan and some automated processes, can help set your brand up for social media success that will lead to real results for your business.
