What Can a Social Media Calendar Do for You?

Have you ever wondered how those magazines you read get put together?
Especially if you also know that generally content for the average magazine is put together literally months in advance. While we might be celebrating Christmas, our favourite magazine is putting the final touches on their Labour Day issue.
The answer is that magazines use an Editorial Calendar.
What other applications could such a calendar apply to? Why not a Social Media Content Calendar?

A Social Media Content Calendar Makes Sense
An editorial calendar helps keep a consistent message. For instance, with a magazine, there are likely several staff or team members working on various aspects of the content at the same time. Everyone on the team shares the calendar and updates. This in turn provides direction to the team. There's no question what each person needs to be doing and when it needs to be done.

A Great Way to Keep You on Time & on Track
Similarly, a Social Media calendar can be a huge asset to a business. It breaks down your marketing strategy into monthly, weekly and daily tasks. As you populate your calendar with tasks, you will be developing a consistent message for your business, just like the magazine staff does. And that's not all. Similar to the magazine, you'll always know what you need to do and when you need to get it done by.

Keep the Calendar Fluid
But wait - something outside the plan just happened. How can you attend to the new information without disrupting your calendar?

You need to remember that, just like the marketing strategy you put into place at the beginning of the year, things can impact that strategy. Your calendar, much as your strategy, must be fluid enough to handle the occasional hiccup or allow you to jump on an unexpected opportunity.

Similarly to how you revisit your marketing strategy throughout the year, you need to revisit your Social Media Calendar as well. Changes to your marketing strategy need to be reflected in your calendar.

Without a calendar, you might not have noticed that there are times throughout the year where you are not doing as much social media activity. This might be just fine if your business tends to relate more to seasonal highs and lows. Perhaps that's the best strategy for you - come on strong when your product or service is in high demand and quiet down a bit during off times.
After all, that's better than simply throwing a pile of confetti out there in the hope that something sticks. Quality will always make a better impact.

Your calendar is also a go-to place for ideas that occur to you. And a way better repository than scraps of paper or post-it notes stuck to your screen.
If your marketing strategy includes outsourcing your social media work and/or content writing, imagine what a benefit the calendar will have not only for your business but for those you have outsourced to.

Let's Recap the Benefits of a Social Media Calendar
Breaks down your monthly, weekly and daily tasks into manageable bites.
Allows flexibility so you can take advantage of an occurrence or opportunity.
Provides an easy way to review and revisit what's working and what's not.
Makes obvious the times during the year when your content might be a little light.
Makes sure the people you outsource to are on the same page.
Acts as a repository for great ideas.

There's One More Reason
We've all done it. Spent more time on the enjoyable tasks and left the not-so-much-fun stuff behind. And we also know the stress that adds to our lives.
Perhaps we're just not comfortable writing content or we envy the way some people seem to have complete mastery over social media but we feel hopelessly muddled every time we log onto Facebook.
Having a Social Media Calendar in your arsenal takes a huge amount of pressure off yourself. Now you know what to do and when to do it.


By Orzala Quddusi 

If you need help developing a Marketing Strategy or developing a Social Media Calendar, we can assist you. We'll also implement those strategies if you need that help too! 

Orzala Quddusi is the founder & CEO of Make it Happen Services, a company dedicated to help small business owners increase their market reach through Social media and email marketing. Download a free copy of Social Media Calendar by visiting http://www.mihservices.ca

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Orzala_Quddusi

 

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10 Ways To Build an Effective Social Media Strategy

If you've decided that you want to get serious about using social media to market your business, it's important to take the time to develop a social media strategy. Creating and executing a strategy will ensure you're getting the best return out of the time and resources you invest into social. So if you want to craft a strategy that's going to help you succeed, here's what you need to do:

Understand Who You're Targeting
Just because there are over a billion people on Facebook doesn't mean you should try to connect with all of them. The best way to use social media is to narrow your scope and only focus on users who are actually in your target demographic.

Put Time Into Creating Great Content
When it comes to social marketing, content plays a key role. However, simply pumping out lots of content isn't going to cut it. Instead, you need to make it a priority to create awesome content that people will find interesting and engaging.

Utilize Multiple Platforms
There's a lot of value in creating a presence on multiple social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn all have proven track records of helping businesses grow. While it's easy to understand that different platforms allow you to connect with different audiences, plenty of businesses get overwhelmed by the thought of managing multiple social media accounts. Fortunately, a social media dashboard can make it much easier to track and manage more than one account.

Use the Same Branding Elements
Although you may share different content through your various social platforms, it's a good idea to keep elements like profile pictures and tag lines consistent. This will make it easy for people to identify your brand regardless of where they encounter you online.

Get Creative
While there are plenty of best practices, don't be afraid to experiment with different approaches to sharing to see how well they perform.

Focus on Engagement
Make it a priority to actually connect with your followers on a regular basis. This will remind them that there is a real person behind your business.

Stick with 70-30
A big part of an effective social media strategy is to find the right balance between keeping people interested and promoting your business. The best way to strike this balance is with the 70-30 rule. By limiting your self-promotion to 30% of your updates and using the rest to share things that are genuinely fun or interesting, you'll get far better results than if all you did was promote your business.

Review Your Social Media Analytics
Looking at your social media analytics data on a regular basis will do a lot for helping you to guide all of your marketing efforts.

Stay on Top of Your Industry
There are a lot of social media monitoring tools that can help you keep an eye out for trends within your industry. By staying on top of those things, you'll be able to position yourself as an authority figure within your industry.

Don't Be Afraid to Change
If something in your strategy isn't working as well as you would like, don't be afraid to try a new approach. Consistently reviewing and revising will allow you to keep your efforts moving in the right direction.
If you put everything we covered above into action, you'll be very happy with the social media strategy you're able to develop and the positive impact that it has on your business.

This is the syndicated copy of an original article posted at SendSocialMedia.com. Interested in learning more? Visit SendSocialMedia.com/blog

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Nigel_S_Miller

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