Developing social media content can be challenging and quite frankly a pain in the ass(!) Picture this… Your mind goes blank, content feels forced and un-genuine and you question whether it’s worth it as for the most part of what you broadcast out there, it seems like nobody is actually reading let alone generating leads for your hard working business. Am I right?

But the job doesn’t have to be that hard, as once you’ve got content, and looked at what you are going to post, that’s when; “you find the fun, and – SNAP – the job’s a game” in the words of Mary Poppins. Thus in turn great content generation should help your online marketing efforts and the best thing is that you can use content from one year to the next as a base line (though you didn’t hear that from me!).

But firstly we need to create our social media content calendar so that we have something to work from…

Know Your Social Media Calendar Business’ Audience

Before you start jumping into creating and developing the content, you need to think about your audience and who buys what from you and how you can appeal to them.

Have a think about your typical customer… Where do they hang out? What other brands do they like? Do they shop locally? Draw a picture if need be.

Identify the Goal of Your Social Media Calendar Content

Not all content you will promote in social media should have sales goals attached to it (and it shouldn’t) I train with customers to only do a salesy social media update for every 10 other nice organic and chatty updates that they put out there e.g. you want a maximum of 2 links back to your websites inside every 10 social media updates. Not a lot is it?

Therefore most other organic posts will be to build brand awareness and to keep you in people’s attentions.

The perfect mix of education, entertainment, along with sharing your product offerings / blog posts, will make for great calendar content! I’ve spoken on here about types of social media content before. Map these out.

Consider Seasonality for your Social Media Calendar 2022

I love a seasonal trend! Whether it’s sipping on Pumpkin Lattes in Starbucks or wrapping Christmas Presents, it all has a place on your social media.

This can help you greatly and it’s a no brainer really as we are always experiencing some kind of seasonal trend / hashtag day / hashtag week. Tap into these.

Build a 5 Star Reputation for Your Business

Monitor all your reviews, respond to feedback, Ask for more reviews through Google My Business and Facebook. This works on a rolling reputation basis so keep on this.

Add these reminders to your social media calendar and add these to your content therefore.

Use Others Viral Content for Engagement

While creating your own unique content for your social media calendar should be a top priority, it is fine once in a while sprinkle in posts from popular pages, as long as it’s content that is likely to appeal to your demographic.

Make sure that you are sharing local business posts, especially on Facebook. This is great for the local community. Obviously, it helps if you know the team behind the social accounts.

This seems like a lot of work but once you get plotting and scheming your way through the year the ideas will flow. Fill in at least a box a day for your calendar and decide if you will post on the weekends also.