Free Social Media Calendar Download

Why a Social Media Plan is Essential for All Small Businesses

In its simplest terms, a social media plan, is a comprehensive content strategy for your social media marketing. A basic plan at best should include:

A clear list of goals and objectives
A content strategy outline
Create a social media calendar
Establish methods for measurements and analysis

Building an effective social media content plan takes time, but it’s time well spent! An effective plan helps:

Maintain consistent posting schedules across channels
Avoid rushing to find content to share
Stop missing out on topics that consistently engage your followers due to poor planning.

In a nutshell, an effective plan helps you connect to your audience more effectively, helps you work more efficiently… with less stress.

PLANNING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CALENDAR

We all appreciate just how important it is to share valuable and varied content social media content across all platforms. However, when your a small outfit, you might find yourself lacking the energy to create one from scratch.

If this sounds like you, you can download our ready made Social Media Content Idea Calendar every month, giving you a fresh dose of ideas and inspiration. Alternatively, if you are busting with your own ideas, you can simply browse Google and find an easy to use social media calendar where you can add your own content - or use this ready made template.

FOLLOW THE 5:3:2 RULE

When planning your own calendar, remember the 5:3:2 rule for social media content. It's fairly simple strategy - out of 10 Facebook posts or Tweets:

Five should be content from others, relevant to your audience
Three should be content from you, relevant to your audience (and not directly selling your products)
Two should be personal, something non-work related to help humanize yourself and/or your brand

Even if you don’t follow this rule exactly remember: