{"id":499,"date":"2011-03-30T06:45:41","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T10:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meetcontent.com\/?p=499"},"modified":"2017-04-20T00:32:39","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T04:32:39","slug":"social-media-content-calendar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meetcontent.com\/blog\/social-media-content-calendar\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating a Social Media Content Calendar"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Calendar\"
Taking it day by day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With social media, it’s easy to rely on one of my favorite “anti-strategies” \u2013 serendipity. Why not, right? People tweet awesome things every day about my school that I can just retweet. There’s always a new article or an interesting video to post on Facebook. The hits just keep on coming. We’ll be fine. You can\u2019t plan social media!<\/p>\n

Until you have an episode of what I call Blank Page Panic. The symptoms of Blank Page Panic are clammy hands, dry mouth and partial paralysis when asked “What’s on your mind?” or “What’s happening?” In other words, some days, you’re not going to have a good idea of what to tweet or post on Facebook. The retweet gods are not shining down on you, yet you feel the urge, nay, pressure to say something. Anything!<\/p>\n

(Please, don’t just say anything.)<\/p>\n

That pressure is the tacit realization that, holy crap, you’re a publisher, and you’ve built up an expectation of publication, and by gum, you better stick to it.<\/p>\n

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The real problem is probably that you are tweeting or Facebooking without keeping your organizational goals or audience needs in mind.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

But Blank Page Panic, believe it or not, is just a symptom. The real problem is probably that you are tweeting or Facebooking without keeping your organizational goals or audience needs in mind. Without a proper framework in place, you risk posting content that is redundant, inconsistent and\/or irrelevant. That\u2019s no good.<\/p>\n

So, how do we fix it? Well, we just realized that we\u2019re social media publishers, right? So let\u2019s look at other publications. Chances are (hopefully), your alumni magazine or news office or other more traditional publication group on campus has some sort of editorial calendar. But while the gist of an editorial calendar is to know what you’re posting on Wednesday and what you’re posting on Thursday, there’s more to it than that. And the same principles apply to establishing a content calendar for your social media channels.<\/p>\n

Making It Happen<\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s what I do. In a spreadsheet, I have separate tabs for Twitter and Facebook. At the top of each tab, I have four sets of reminders to keep my posting on track:<\/p>\n