Creating unique and engaging content can be a tedious task to keep up with, especially with the pressure to generate fresh content on a somewhat regular basis. But creating valuable content for your website and social media accounts is an essential ingredient in the recipe of building a successful and recognizable brand, and it must be done. Your content helps create brand awareness, encourages engagement, and improves SEO, to name a few benefits.

Developing a content calendar is a great tool to help plan out all of your content on every platform. The beauty of content calendars is that you can plan out as far in advance or as little in advance as you’d like. This way, your more organized, consistent, and strategic in your digital marketing efforts.

What is a Content Calendar?

A content calendar is typically a document (Excel spreadsheet or Google doc) that is used to schedule what content you intend on sharing in the upcoming month across all platforms of social media. They can be as generic or as specific as you’d like, right down to the week, day and time you’d like your content to be shared.

Having your calendar on something like Google Sheets allows it to be accessible to all members of the team, enabling them to make changes together in real-time. Additionally, you can also use a Google Doc, along with the spreadsheet, to plan and manage your captions, hashtags, and images.

Content calendars are essential to a successful and organized content strategy.

Content calendars are meant to save you both time and stress so you can continue on using your time more effectively. Here’s how they can help you:

Visualization & Organization

One of the benefits of using a content calendar is the ability to visualize your social content strategy over a period of time and stay organized across all social channels. It helps you plan your social media marketing efforts around important opportunities in your industry or company. An effective social media calendar allows plenty of time to prepare relevant content that is valuable to your audience rather than posting on the fly.

Consistency

Using a content calendar allows you to develop a unified voice and create a consistent flow of content that continues to build towards your ultimate marketing goals. Planning out your social media content helps you develop a recognizable brand and makes your content a reliable source of information for members of your industry.

Reporting

In addition to planning, a content calendar aids in the efforts of reporting and following up. Did the whole social media plan go into action? Did we achieve our goals? What worked? What didn’t work? This information is key to receiving a return on your investment.

Peace of mind

A calendar will also make your life easier when creating posts by reducing the need to dig for content.  You’ll be able to look across all your marketing efforts and make informed decisions about the timing of your social posts. You will not go into panic mode trying to come up with posts last minute.

Bottom line, if you’re looking to fine-tune and amplify your content marketing strategy, content calendars are the ideal organizational tool for both short and long-term planning. At Virtual Image in Hamilton, we can help you develop a full content marketing strategy and calendar suited towards your business and industry. Contact us today to get started!