5 Tips for Building Social Media Calendars
Initially, it seemed like a time-consuming task to me, but I quickly realized how comfortable it makes my life. We are lost without our Google calendars every day. The same logic applies when it comes to planning social media marketing. With so many tools available for creating a calendar, planning social media for an SMB entrepreneur or marketer has become much easier. Tools like timeline calendar helps in planning Facebook postings, tools like HootSuite, TweetDeck and SocialOomph come with many auto alerts. They help to pre-program your social media activities and also post on your behalf on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social sites. This feature makes it very convenient for weekends or other times when you are away from work. Social media can also be planned using a simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and shared on Google Docs, where all team members can see it and make suggestions.
Here are some tips for making your social media calendar:
1. Focus on small periods of time initially
Do not attempt to create a whole year's calendar for two reasons: first, it is going to be such a huge task that it might put you off, and second, we are dealing with media in real-time here. The stories, discussions and trends change every day and we need to respond. That's why planning for a week or two to start allows you to be ahead of things while also having enough time to plan for new developments.