Social Media Calendar is an essential tool in setting up an effective digital marketing strategy. It’s important to put in place a structured approach to ensure that your content is published strategically, with frequency and consistency, on the platforms that are critical to your UAE based business whether you’re collaborating with digital agency in Dubai or creating your calendar for in house marketing purposes.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 92% of content marketing specialists use social media to boost their communications. Despite this data , many companies still don’t take the time to plan their messages today.
In today’s article, the leading digital agency in Dubai and Abu Dhabi , O2 will guide you step by step in creating a well-structured social media calendar 2024 in only 8 steps!
1 – Set Goals For Yourself
Before diving head first into setting up your calendar, you must first start with the fundamentals. What are the objectives you have for your communication on social media platforms? Do you want to retain your current customers? Attract new prospects? Prove your expertise ? There can be many. But it is important to have them in mind (or in writing in one of your documents) because they will allow you to put yourself on the right path to content creation .
2 – Determine The Posts Frequency
Once you have set your goals, you need to determine the posts frequency on all your social media platforms. 3 posts per week on each platform? Do I adapt my content to each platform on which I am present or do I simply duplicate my content.
Be careful, when you start creating content, you want to do everything: 1 post per day on Facebook and Instagram, 5 stories per day, 2 blog articles per week, 3 videos … But it is essential to measure the time you want to devote to your communication. It must not become a burden .
3 – List Content Ideas
This is the stage to empty your brain . Take a notebook , a word processing document or the Notes of your phone and list all post ideas that come to mind. The idea is to note all the themes that will be relevant to your prospects, customers and that meet your objectives. If you are stuck for ideas, you can take a look at what your competitors are doing but also brands that inspire you.
An editorial calendar should contain:
● Post Type (link, video, image, story, reel, blog post, poll, etc.)
● Post Timing (date, day, time)
● On which social network will your posts be published?
● The subject and themes of your posts
● The texts and visuals that accompany your posts
4 – Set “Posting Date”
Once you have listed all of your ideas, some will surely be grouped under common pillars. For example: Daily Employee Posts (business updates, your workday experience, Celebrating promotions), your products (new products, products in progress) … So, you can set “Daily Employee Posts” posting date on the 1st day of the month for example. This allows you to have “ready” posts but also to accustom and build loyalty in your community.
5 – Distribute Your Posting Date, Ideas, News in an Editorial Schedule
You then have several options for editing your editorial schedule . First, a digital version with software like ClickUp , Notion or Trello which require some familiarization. Second option, a simple spreadsheet like Excel will also do the job very well. You will find templates on the internet or you can create your own. Finally, if you prefer paper, you can take a diary .
All you have to do is fill your content ideas into your calendar according to the frequency you have defined .
6 – Write Your Content
Now that you have found your post ideas and set their dates, all you have to do is create the content : a visual (photo, carousel, infographic, short video, etc.) and the text that accompanies it ( copy on visual). Remember to work on your content carefully. A post must contain:
● a hook sentence to make you want to read more
● a text with high added value
● CTA ( Call To Action) at the end
● Hashtags
7 – Schedule Your Posts
There you are! All you have to do is schedule your posts ! To post on Facebook and Instagram you can use the completely free Meta Business Suite tool . Otherwise, for other additional platforms, you can use different online software like Buffer, Hootsuite or Loomly.
8 – Analyze Your Posts Statistics
Once your posts are published, be sure to analyze the statistics of your posts to see what worked or not, what you can improve, etc. Please note that it is also very important to respond to all the comments under your posts!
In A Nutshell
The editorial content creation calendar allows you to generate the desired content according to an action plan for the company, in the same way that an editor shapes his post over time. Without having to be in “promotional” mode at all costs, the fact of distributing publications, posts, newsletters and others on a subject that directly or indirectly affects the essence of the brand, generates discussions with fans and customers, ensuring that the message still gets across, adding value to it in the process.
The O2 team with expertise in social media content creation will be best placed to provide you with winning social media strategies. we are ready to place our +15 years of experience at your service whether you seek a digital company in Dubai or a Digital company in Abu Dhabi.