9 Steps to Your Social Strategy: Step 9 - Create Your Calendar!

Creating and Managing your Social Media Calendar

To complete your Social Strategy, you will need a marketing calendar. In this post, I'll focus on Social Media Calendar tactics. I recommend to my clients' that they merge their traditional and online marketing calendars.  

Your Social Media Calendar is most effective when it highlights both the efforts and measures to be tracked. This becomes your both your Online Marketing Plan and Schedule. Initially, it can be developed for one test department or event and then rolled out through your appropriate departments. 

The approach is unique for each company. Modified depending on the level of social engagement and content sources. A social media Coordinator oversees the implementation and measures for the entire organization.  Many companies now have mini Social Media Coordinators or Contributors in appropriate departments. Contributors have other job responsibilities, however, looking for Social Media content simply becomes a part of their specific job responsibilities in a Social Company.

In a Social Company, looking for Social Media content becomes a part of specific identified people's job responsibilities.  These people are called Social Contributors. The Contributors might also post directly to social media or just send their materials to the Social Coordinator.  Either way photos and videos must be captured and posted in an authentic and timely fashion. 

Ideally, social plans and goals should to be automated, such that alerts and reminders are sent to the Contributors and Coordinators. We suggest using your existing organizational calendar system, versus a separate one if possible. It is easier to sustain when you are not introducing new systems or processes for people to follow. 

Of course, for the posting tactics and measurement reports, you'll want to use one of the Social Media management tools we reviewed in earlier blogs. There are many different tools to choose from. Each aimed at different organizational teams structures and sizes. These tools produce a calendar of future posts aimed at helping the Coordinator to see where their gaps are. The Coordinator can, right from some of these tools, send out material requests to the Contributors.

The schedule should capture, at the minimum

(i)            What the goal  & measure of success will be..

(ii)           What topic they will post or gather materials on and where they will get their material.

(iii)          How often they will post or gather materials.
(iv)       Who the Contributor is who own's gathering this content. 

Here is a great example of a social media schedule to get you started in the right direction.

Who	Topic	Frequency	When	Goal/Measure
Chef	Food	Twice a week	Thurs & Fridays at 10am	Goal: "Butts" in seats. Measures: Engagement of the food photos. & Reservations
Sports Director	Team Group Fitness Activities	Twice a week	Tues &Weds at 10AM	Goal: Awareness & Increased Bookings. Measures: Sharing of the Activity Photos & Request for group activities
Spa Manager	Spa Treatments	Daily	Monday to Fridays at 2pm	Goal: Awareness & Increased Bookings. Measures: Sharing of the Spa Photos. & Reservations for Spa Treatments
Wedding Coordinator	Wedding Excellence	Twice a week	Twice on Weekends	Goal: Awareness & Increased Bookings. Measures: Sharing of the Wedding Photos. & An increase in Wedding Packages Enquirers
Social Media  Coordinator	Specials	Once a week	Thursdays  at 2:30pm	Goal: Boost weekend reservations: Measures: Reservations Clicks

Always remember the posting tips we spoke of in earlier posts.  Each target market and Social Media platform has it's own set of thresholds and approaches. They are each different.   Apply the appropriate posting best practices to each of your specific social platforms! Spread your posts out appropriately. Be entertaining and educational! Be real.