How to Optimize Your Social Media Calendar

Why set marketing goals?

A social media calendar is a schedule that displays all of your upcoming social media posts. Your calendar may display social media posts for a week, a month, quarter or even longer. Mapping out your posts like this helps you make sure you have a consistent feed of content on your social media accounts, which helps keep your audience engaged. Keeping a social media calendar is one of the keys to effective social media management.

What are the benefits of having a social content calendar?

A good social media marketing strategy can help you reach a larger audience and keep them engaged, especially if you’re having trouble coming up with unique content on the fly for your social media accounts. A social media calendar makes it easier to keep up with content creation because you always have something scheduled. This helps keep your audience engaged, but it also helps you save time when it comes to creating content.

You can also monitor the performance of your social media posts through your social media content calendar and make any necessary adjustments. If certain types of posts seem to get the most engagement, you can tailor future content to your audience based on what you’ve seen succeed.

Your social media calendar template can also help with other parts of marketing on social media. You can use your calendar to make sure you’re posting across all of your socials, and to prevent accidentally posting the same thing twice.

Elements of a social media calendar template

Creating a social media content calendar can benefit your business in several ways, but that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily easy. There are certain elements you should include in your social media calendar, and there are best practices you should follow if you want to optimize your content as well as your content schedule.

Getting your social media calendar right is important because you don’t want to follow a poorly written calendar. Ideally, your social media calendar should be a simple schedule that tells you when you’re going to post, what you’re going to post, and which account(s) you’re going to post it to. If you’re scheduling poorly written content or scheduling ineffectively, it can defeat the entire purpose of a social media calendar.

Fortunately, following best practices and making sure you include the right elements of a social media calendar template can help simplify the content creation process. It’s important to include all the information you need to know about upcoming social media posts, so we'll walk you through some of the essential elements of a social media calendar.

Date and time

Every social media post you schedule on your calendar should include the date and time that the post is scheduled to go live. This is an essential detail because it allows you to schedule your posts in a way that keeps them consistent. You can post every few days, once a week, or however often you want.

Make sure your social media calendar template has a space for the date and time of each post. It may take a few months to find a schedule that you can keep up with in terms of content creation and posting across all of your social media accounts.

Social media account(s)

In addition to the date and time that content is scheduled to be posted, you’ll also need to include the social media account(s) you’re posting that content to. Some posts are better for Instagram while others may be a better fit for Twitter or Facebook.

If you want to run a successful social media marketing campaign, you should schedule social media posts for all of your accounts. You can have an Instagram calendar template, a Twitter calendar template, and more.

Copy and other content

The entire purpose of your social media calendar is to make sure you’re posting the right content at the right time, so make sure you include the actual content of the post. This could be a short tweet or a longer Facebook or LinkedIn post with images and other media incorporated.

Taking time to craft and curate your social media posts ahead of time can keep you on schedule and help keep your audience engaged.

Links and tags

In the world of social media, links and hashtags are essential. Your social media calendar template should also include a section for links and tags that you want to include with your posts. This could include hashtags for Twitter and Instagram, tagging other accounts that are relevant to your post, and more.

The more detailed you can be with your social media calendar, the easier it will be to post your content on a schedule.

How to create a social media content calendar template

Understanding how to create a social media content calendar template can help you get more out of social media marketing, especially if your posts aren’t getting a lot of engagement currently. Here are some tips for creating a social media calendar for some of the most popular social media websites.

Instagram

Instagram is an image and video-based social media website that people use for several purposes. Some people use Instagram to keep up with friends and family while others use it to browse the “Explore” page and find new content. With Instagram, you should prioritize short videos and easy-to-read images that catch readers’ attention without demanding too much of their time. GIFs, images, and short videos are all effective on Instagram; just make sure you’re posting from about 10-11 am on weekdays.

Facebook

Facebook offers several different post formats and is a popular way for people to follow their favorite brands and celebrities. The key to creating good Facebook content is to make use of the larger space you’ve got. You can include a few short paragraphs with your posts, or you can keep it simple with an image or video. It’s typically best to post on Facebook between the hours of 9 am and 2 pm.

Twitter

Twitter is a bit different from other social media in that it’s mainly centered around short text posts called tweets. Each tweet can contain a maximum of 280 characters, which makes Twitter great for brief information and attention-grabbing posts. Alternatively, you can upload images, GIFs, and videos to Twitter. The best time to post on Twitter is about 8 am on Mondays and Thursdays.

TikTok

TikTok is a newer social media website that uses short videos as its main form of content. TikTok videos can be just a few short seconds in some cases, so they’re a good way to grab attention without demanding too much time from your audience. You can use TikTok for quick educational videos or to show off your products. The best time to post on TikTok is between 10 am and 2 pm.

Don’t just set it and forget it

One of the biggest content tips we can give you is to keep an eye on your social media accounts and the performance of your posts. Your social media calendar gives you a basic guideline for when to post, but it’s important to monitor the performance of your posts and make necessary changes based on how your audience responds.

The importance of hashtags

Hashtags play an important role in social media marketing, but that role is different on each platform. On Twitter, hashtags are a central part of the content experience, and people use them to find the content they’re looking for. Hashtags on Instagram and Facebook are more often used to increase exposure.

TikTok users, on the other hand, frequently use hashtags to find videos they’re looking for, so it’s important to include relevant hashtags on Twitter and TikTok.

The key to social media management is a good calendar

There are a lot of things to learn when it comes to writing for social, but a social media content calendar can help you stay on top of things. With a good calendar, you can make sure you’re posting regularly and keeping your audience engaged with your socials.

Mailchimp has social media management tools that make it easier to create content and keep your social media accounts active. If your social media marketing could use a helping hand, try Mailchimp today.