Do you “wing it” when it comes to your marketing content plan? You aren’t the only one. Many brands post phone pics on the fly, or when it’s time for another blog, they go with whatever topic comes to mind first. Doing it this way puts content out there, but it’s missing the most important part: strategy. Strategy and planning are the key to effective content, whether it’s for social media, blogging or any other regularly occurring content. And the content calendar is the epitome of content planning.
Start with the past
Take a look at what you’ve been doing and get a feel for what types of content you typically include. Look at it as a whole; what do you do well, but also, what are you missing? If you exclusively post images, you could benefit from some video. Maybe your blog has a few too many articles about your product offerings, and could do with some variety.
Look at what other brands are doing, too. PlayStation is an excellent example of using strategy to plan effective content – they have seen their followers triple from 2014 to 2019, largely thanks to an engaging mix of content that includes video, product launches and live streaming events. National Geographic dominates Instagram by sharing thumb-stopping images paired with unique and authentic captions written by the photographers themselves. Ikea Ideas – the brand’s blog platform – aligns content messaging with product offerings to provide consumers with useful information they want to read. See what they do best, and figure out how you can apply that to your content plan.
Determine your content “buckets”
Now that you have a sense of your current content, and have an idea of what you do and don’t like about it, it’s time to build your strategy. Decide on your content “buckets” – these are essentially the types of content you want to include. Real estate brands will have buckets like inventory homes, community spotlights, model home openings and lifestyle. You can also include things like holidays and local business highlights, if that makes sense for your brand.
Next, decide how you want to fill those buckets. It’ll make sense to plan certain content types more often than others. Holidays are probably a small portion, whereas product offerings will take up a larger chunk. You could even go so far as to assign percentages to each bucket – the more in-depth you are with planning now, the easier it’ll be down the road.
Put it into action
Now to put it all together. You might want to plan on a traditional calendar, use a content calendar template or put all the information directly into your project management tool. Either way, always refer back to your strategy – and your buckets. Using these, you can easily fill out a monthly or quarterly calendar, since you’ll know exactly how many of each post type you need. And you’ll end up with a balanced feed that includes the engaging content your audience wants.
It doesn’t end there, though. You should constantly review your strategy and what’s performing best for you. You might need to add or remove buckets, or increase or decrease how often you utilize each one based on performance metrics like link clicks and engagement. It’s a process that’s always evolving, but also always improving.
Need help planning the right content for your brand? That’s our specialty! Reach out to Barbara at barbara@wickmarketing.com or (512) 479-9834.
