“He who fails to plan is planning to fail.”
— Winston Churchill
Branding yourself in the digital world is a lot like building a house. You wouldn’t want to wing it when engineering your trusses or mapping out your electrical. So, why do we adopt this failure-to-plan attitude with our social posts or online content and expect success? Skip the blueprint, and builders are lost. Skip the content calendar, and your posts are, too.
A content calendar is the backbone of a successful online marketing strategy. Let’s talk about how to build a solid content calendar for your social media, blog, Google Business Profile and other online marketing that will keep you on track, prevent last-minute scrambling, and help you consistently engage your audience.
Why Do I Need a Content Calendar?
As mentioned previously, building an online brand without a content calendar is like building a house without a house plan. Yeah, you might get a few walls up, but the walls you do have could be misaligned, none of your subs would have your vision, essential utilities wouldn’t fit properly, and forget about staying on schedule and budget! Just like a house needs a blueprint to guide construction, your post strategy needs a calendar to ensure every piece fits together, that essentials aren’t forgotten, and that you end up with content that truly reflects your brand identity.
Benefits of a content calendar include
- Consistency: This is probably the #1 problem most small business owners have when it comes to their posts, and yet it is the most critical in generating visibility, trust and growth. Not only do social media platforms reward accounts that post regularly with increased exposure, but consistency keeps your audience engaged and reinforces your brand as being reliable.
- Better Planning: A good plan will prevent last-minute scrambling or veering off-course with your goals. Just as a meal plan works best when you map it out and shop in advance for what you’ll need, your content calendar will alert you to upcoming post needs and give you time to pull it off.
- Improved Collaboration: Your team will work better when everyone knows the plan and expectations are clearly communicated. A content calendar allows every contributor to see what’s coming up and gives them an opportunity to help you accomplish your goals.
- Performance Tracking: Planning ahead allows you to align your posts with promotions you might want to run, upcoming events, or advertising campaigns. When you do this successfully, you’ll have metrics to measure what works and what doesn’t for future content.
Tools of the Trade
Back to our analogy of building a house, using the right tools when building a content calendar can save you a lot of time and headache. At the very least, your toolkit should include programs to help you with planning, creating and scheduling. Here are some suggestions based on what we here at Cup O Code have found to work effectively:
PLANNING
Google/Outlook Calendar – Use this to set deadline reminders for specific events, promotions or upcoming vacations where you’ll need to plan ahead.
Monday / Asana / Trello – These are excellent for creating checklists and workflows for personal or collaborative planning.
CREATING
Canva / Adobe Express / Photoshop – If you’re a beginner to content creation, Canva might be your new best friend. It’s full of helpful templates and free-to-use stock images and fonts. For more advanced design tools, consider a subscription to Adobe Express or Photoshop.
Capcut / Premiere Pro – Capcut provides super user-friendly video editing with templates and a stock collection of clips and audio, while Premiere Pro by Adobe offers leveled up editing tools.
AI – Various AI services can be super useful in helping you to brainstorm potential content ideas, research relevant hashtag performance or locate emojis on the fly. Just be sure not to rely on AI for your brand voice as it is notorious for returning incorrect, unverifiable info and canned language.
SCHEDULING
Meta Business Suite – If you’re only scheduling for Facebook and Instagram, the Meta Business Suite planner accomplishes everything you need to schedule, track and plan your calendar for free.
Buffer / Hootsuite / Later / Sprout Social – If you want a one-stop destination that will schedule posts across more than just Facebook and Instagram, check out one of these post management services.
Let’s Build Your Calendar
STEP 1: Define your goals and target audience.
A non-profit focused on raising support from corporate and private sponsorships might approach their content strategy differently than say a paving service provider looking to take on commercial and municipal projects.
STEP 2: Brainstorm content ideas based on audience needs and seasonal trends.
It’s helpful to categorize content into objectives such as “Event/Product/Service Promotion,” “Audience Engagement” or “Education” to ensure what you’re providing is varied, useful and cohesive with your goals from step 1.
STEP 3: Assign content types (blogs, videos, social posts) to specific dates.
Not all of your content should be static social posts. Some content will be best communicated in longer, more lasting format such as a blog post, which can be packed with powerful SEO and keywords. Other content such as interviews, day-of events or reviews might be better recorded in short video format and assigned as a reel or brief story interaction.
STEP 4: Incorporate key dates like holidays, product launches, or industry events.
It’s easy to overlook specific dates such as holidays or to misjudge how much time in advance you should promote an upcoming event. Think through these dates and deadlines critically and incorporate them in a way that sets you up for visibility at the appropriate times.
STEP 5: Review and adjust regularly.
While you might have some recurring objectives, your content calendar should never be cookie-cutter. One month might be busy with events or product launches while others may be more focused on engaging with your audience as activity slows down. It’s also important to review your insights through Meta Business Suite, Google Analytics or whatever scheduling platform you use to see what’s working in terms of reach and engagement and what isn’t. These insights will help you better plan your content as well as your timing of each post.
A Few More Pro Tips
We’ve gathered a few more pro tips as you plan based on our abundant experience in providing content management to our clients:
- When planning your calendar, always include some alternate post ideas should an event get canceled or content not be readily available.
- Don’t be afraid to repost or repurpose general content that isn’t date-specific! According to research and metrics, most non-paid “organic” Facebook posts reach only 9-30% of your actual followers. Repeat sharing of these posts with none or even slight changes can widen your audience reach within your own followers.
- Mix it up. I can’t stress this enough, but engaging your audience requires variety and personal connection. Blasting them with constant service or product ads without the occasional community involvement, poll/question, or helpful information post just makes you look like spam. Put a face behind the brand, either literally or through your company’s involvement in your audience’s day-to-day lives.
- Spend time joining groups that align with your audience and include group sharing in your content strategy.
- Utilize audio, but be careful not to overdo it! Audio has the potential to attract or repel certain people to your brand, so choose wisely about when and what to use, making sure it aligns with your brand’s vibe.
Build Your Content Blueprint with Cup O Code
Without a blueprint, a house is just a collection of materials with no direction, no structure, and no purpose. The same goes for your online marketing: without a content calendar, your efforts can feel scattered, uncoordinated, and fruitless. A content calendar brings order to the chaos, ensuring every post aligns with your goals and builds toward a cohesive, impactful brand presence.
At Cup O Code, we specialize in creating and managing content strategies that are as solid as a well-built home. If you’re ready to stop guessing and start building a marketing plan that works, let us help you lay the groundwork. Contact us today for help with tackling your content calendar blueprint, and take your online marketing to the next level.
