What are social media plans and why is it important?
What on earth is a social media content plan? That was my first thought when I started my internship. I had no idea what they were or what their use was – until I started working on them. In the beginning, they looked confusing and I didn’t understand how they worked. Now, I’m in charge of all of MANGO-OMC’s social media content planning.
A social media content plan outlines a variety of content for different social media platforms. These plans should include the date, channel, content for each post, as well as the image or link for every post. It is basically a calendar that plans out content to be published on social media platforms for each day of the year.
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I’ve found that using a content plan is highly effective as it allows me to schedule social media posts ahead of time. It also allows for the team to know what content is being shared, and whether this is in line with the business strategy.
Below is the layout that we use for our Instagram content plan, however the format can differ:
As it can be difficult to think of content months in advance, it’s important that you spend sufficient time planning and thinking creatively when putting together a content plan. For our social media, we like to plan posts around certain themes – this is important to make sure that your social media is reflective of the overall brand message. Although social media is one of my main focuses for content planning, it is not the only type of content plan that I generate. I have also created a content plan for my Incredible Journey as a PR intern blog. I update the content plan for my blog at the end of each month for the month ahead and I have found this to be incredibly time effective and productive.
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Once I have prepared my content plans, they are checked by a colleague for grammatical errors and post relevance. Once this is done and the posts are approved, I can publish or schedule the social media and blog posts for publishing.
Although I am no expert, I have definitely developed my skills in content planning with the help of my colleagues. If you have any questions or advice on content planning, please leave them in the comments section below!