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Creating an Effective Content Calendar

Posted on June 30, 2020June 30, 2020 by Jared Lamoreaux

Creating an Effective Content Calendar

Your heart is beating, your palms are sweaty, and the clock on your desk seems to be ticking louder than normal. You need to produce an engaging social media post for your company today but your busload of ideas stalled during your lunch break.

Nothing is more stressful than not being ready for an approaching deadline. What can save you from the glaring eyes of your boss?

An effective content calendar will help alleviate this stress from your life. Having a plan long before the deadline is something that we all strive to do but have difficulty keeping up on.

Facebook recently came out with a new Facebook Blueprints course to help social media marketers create and manage a content calendar. So, just what should you do to create a content calendar that will allow you to avoid the piercing stare of your boss?

Know your audience

You should do some research to understand a few questions about the audience and intended audience of your social media accounts including:

Who your audience is and what they are interested in
When your audience is engaging with social media posts and on which platforms
How often your audience likes to see posts from businesses
What types of posts they tend to engage with

The answers to these questions vary depending on your business and the kind of people you want to target. Since no two businesses are the same, it is up to each business individually to research and experiment with these questions.

Your social media posts should focus on the intersection of the type of content your customers enjoy and the topics that are related and relevant to your business. Experiment with your posts to find that sweet spot.

Organize your ideas

When you understand your audience better, you can now start constructing a content calendar. You can use programs like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, or any other program that can create a table with rows and columns. Facebook offers a downloadable template that can help you get started.

Facebook suggests that there are 6 pieces of information that is needed in an effective content calendar. They are:

Date
Theme
Caption
Visual Description
Format
Platform

In deciding what content to use, it is recommended that you use a healthy mixture of content including curated, original and promotional content. Your audience will not like it if you talk about yourself all of the time. Put yourself in their shoes and be someone they can trust.

Remember that this is only a suggestion. Feel free to customize your content calendar by adding or taking away information so that your company can get exactly what it needs. The idea is to put down as much information as you need to make the creating and scheduling portion of your job easier.

Impress your boss

When you organize your ideas in a content calendar, you will have a great guide that you can lean on through the content creation process. It will give you enough time to efficiently create your engaging posts that will impress your superiors and your target audience.

You should have at least one month worth of content planned out the month before. That means that if it is June, you should have your content for July planned out on your content calendar. This does not mean that your ideas are complete and solid. Don’t be afraid to change your ideas if it doesn’t turn out to be what you want. Thinking a month ahead will give you enough time to get your best ideas out there.

An effective content calendar will ensure that your content goes out on time and will get rid of the stress of your boss breathing down your neck as the deadline approaches.

Don’t worry if you don’t have a whole month planned out right away. Start small and work little by little until you get to the point where you are able to regularly update your content calendar.

When you share engaging and interesting content consistently, people are more likely to have you in mind when they are in need of the services you provide. An effective, well-managed content calendar is one of the first steps in establishing these brand-to-consumer relationships that lead to business success.

Utilizing Social Media In 2020

Posted on June 22, 2020June 23, 2020 by Kate Smith

The year 2020 has proven itself to be a roller coaster ride for both individuals and businesses. All across the country, people are continuing to hunker down and prepare for an uncertain future. Finances are being funneled towards basic necessities. Many families are seeking out new ways to stay emotionally close to loved ones while staying physically distanced.

Even as businesses begin opening their doors again, traveling and social functions aren’t viewed with the same level of enchantment or allure as they have held in the past. Consumer spending has dropped in record numbers over the course of the year while time spent consuming social media has increased by 21% worldwide.

While the future remains uncertain, you can be sure that social media will have a key place when it comes to maintaining relationships with your consumers. But if the world is changing then so should your strategy. Here are a few things for you to keep in mind as you’re managing your social media during these turbulent times.

Take Time to Innovate and Adapt

Unexpected shifts in culture and economy mean that brands that don’t learn to adapt may be forced to close their doors. Some popular examples of this are Blockbuster and Tower Records. Both companies struggled to adapt to the digital boom that came with advances in internet use. Their sales waned until these once beloved brands were ultimately driven to extinction.

So what has shifted in today’s world? For starters, customer experience has taken on a whole new meaning as many organizations cannot interact with their audience in the same ways. This is why utilizing social media is key right now. Whatever the future holds, we know that providing customers with the opportunity to interact with your brand from the safety of their own home is ideal for the time being.

Ask yourself the following questions when considering whether or not your organization needs to do some pivoting:

What primary needs can you meet for your audience?
Can you pivot in a way that allows you to help people meet their needs?
What can your organization offer people right now that nobody else is offering?
What does your brand need to do to survive all the cultural shifts the year has brought us?

During the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, the outdoor gear brand known as Cotopaxi realized they would have to adapt quickly in order to make it through the remainder of the year. Sales began to dwindle as individuals ceased spending money on anything that wasn’t essential, including outdoor recreational gear.

To survive the rapidly changing climate of retail, Cotopaxi partnered with Uncharted Supply, a brand that specializes in the sale of emergency kits and supplies. Cotopaxi was able to provide Uncharted Supply with the staff and space they needed to meet the increasing demand for emergency preparedness supplies.

Cotopaxi took advantage of an opportunity to help a fellow business and provide the community with an on-brand product they were seeking. Meanwhile, they were providing work opportunities for their employees in a time when employment was growing scarce.

Revisit Your Social Media Calendar

Hopefully, you have already taken some time to look through your social media calendar and make appropriate edits. But it’s clear now that minor changes to your strategy will not be enough with the final quarter of the year approaching swiftly.

There is a good chance you will need to adjust the goals you have set for your organization in order for them to still be attainable. One way to get started with the readjustment process is to ask yourself a series of questions that will point you towards appropriate goals. Some of the questions may include:

What would you like to achieve during the final quarter of the year?
How do you see your brand engaging with the public in 2021?
Does your once relevant and carefully planned out content seem tone-deaf?
Should you shelf a few of your content pieces for the rest of the month or possibly the rest of the year?
How can you demonstrate empathy and awareness?

Make an effort to create content that is more about people than your logo and focuses on helping others. You’ve probably heard the phrase “we’re all in this together” around a thousand times over the last few months and that’s because it’s true.

You most likely won’t need to change all of your creative and headlines to be about current events. But you will want to take some time to review and revise your content before publishing it to ensure that it’s sensitive to the world today and what people are going through.

Because many consumers are understandably directing their funds towards ensuring their basic needs are met, now may be a good time to focus on brand awareness campaigns despite the temptation to push out a lot of sale-heavy content.

Don’t forget to dig deep and post with purpose. Make sure your bios on your social channels are appropriately updated and your imagery matches any adjustments you have made to your copy.

Find Positive Ways to Connect

The world has experienced a collective traumatic experience that has affected the livelihood, mental health, and overall wellness of many people. By mid-April, 64% of individuals surveyed reported that they were feeling anxious, depressed, or both. During times like these, individuals are not interested in being pandered to and even less interested in dealing with “salesy” posts on social media. This is an important time for strengthening relationships with your online community.

After making drastic changes to the way they live and work, many individuals are facing a chasm between their daily life and things that once brought them a sense of certainty and levity. There are ways for you to provide this for your audience while remaining in tune with current events.

Adidas provided their followers with uplifting content through their #HomeTeam campaign. The campaign included images and videos of athletes and the Adidas team finding positive ways to adapt to spending more time in their homes.

This was a multitiered way for Adidas to share uplifting, behind-the-scenes content, while reminding their followers that we are in fact, all in this together.

Remember that people want to interact with other people, not bots or even brands. Brands that attempt to join in on trending conversations inauthentically come off as opportunistic. Make sure that your communication with your followers is honest and lines up with your brand values

For this reason, it may also benefit your brand to seek out influencers that mirror your values and can help you connect with new audiences. With more people scrolling through social media apps than ever before, this is an important time to widen the scope of your target audience.

However, you choose to adapt your brand to these unprecedented times, remember to stay active, and communicate with your audience. This is not the time to go dark on your social accounts. Be sure to stay connected and stay safe.

3 Holiday Campaigns You Can Learn From

Posted on December 4, 2019December 5, 2019 by Kate Smith

The holidays are truly a magical time of year! Each holiday season we see countless brands create marketing campaigns in hopes of lifting holiday spirit as well as sales. There seem to be one or two campaigns every year that outshine the rest through their creativity. Here are a few of our favorite holiday campaigns and a few things you can learn from them.

Home Alone (Again)

In 2018, Google hit us all right in the nostalgic sweet spot with it’s Home Alone (Again) Christmas campaign advertising Google Assistant. In the commercial, viewers see the beloved Kevin, 28 years after the premiere of the original holiday favorite film, Home Alone. We quickly see that after all this time Kevin seems to be up to use usual antics, except this time, he has a little help from Google Assistant.

The ad quickly went viral earning over 7 million views in the first 24 hours and over 70 million views in 2018 alone, making it the most-viewed holiday ad of the year.

What you can learn from it:

So what helped this ad perform so well? First off, Google chose to work with a classic Christmas movie that even after almost 30 years, still has a loyal audience of individuals who watch it every Christmas. This means the ad immediately captured the attention of many viewers who were hooked the moment they saw actor Macaulay Culkin portraying Kevin in what appeared to be Kevin’s old home. It is not unusual for people to seek out the nostalgia of Christmases past, so this was an excellent tactic for Google.

The excitement also encouraged many social media users to share the video with family and friends. This is an important metric of a successful campaign. The viral ad increased Christmas cheer and product awareness with each share.

Wishes Delivered

Coming up with marketing campaigns may seem challenging when your company is a delivery service. But UPS knows that they play an important role in delivering joy each holiday season! Starting 5 years ago, UPS launched its annual “#WishesDelivered” campaign. UPS has previously used this campaign to hand-deliver joy to individuals as well as raise donations for various nonprofit organizations.

Each wish is documented with photos or videos and posted on the UPS social media pages. Some of the documented wishes include stocking a warehouse for a community in Puerto Rico affected by Hurricane Maria and allowing an enthusiastic 6-year-old to be an honorary UPS driver for a day.

What you can learn from it:

You can create campaigns that feel genuine and heartwarming to your audience while increasing brand awareness. In recent years, we found that companies that give back to their communities also receive a lot in return. In addition to this, younger generations are turning towards socially responsible companies. UPS was able to create a campaign that highlighted their values of spreading kindness while strengthening their connection with consumers and earning their trust.

Visit, Don’t Stay

A mobile app by the name of HotelTonight that specializes in booking hotel rooms went viral with their campaign “Visit, don’t stay.” This campaign received attention for being both relatable and humorous. HotelTonight reminds us that it’s okay to have limits on family time during the holidays. Their solution? Booking a hotel nearby instead of staying with family.

What you can learn from it:

HotelTonight is offering a solution to a common holiday problem. While there is no place like home for the holidays, it can sometimes be overwhelming. This campaign also pointed out a need that many people did not realize they had. For some, opting for a hotel room rather than the guest room had never crossed their mind. The campaign sparked a train of thought that actually created new customers. Finally, the relatable humor makes the content captivating without distracting from their message: use our services to book a hotel room.

The most important thing to learn from these campaigns is that there is no single best way to create a holiday campaign. It is important however to utilize emotions, in order to connect with your audience during this wonderful time of year. You can do through the use of nostalgia, heartwarming stories, quirky humor or similar tactics that suit your brand!

4 Shopping Holidays to Remember

Posted on September 27, 2019September 27, 2019 by Kate Smith

It’s that time of year again. The holidays will be upon us faster than you can say “Pumpkin Spice.” We all know that with the changing of the leaves comes a plethora of holidays to prepare for; Halloween, Thanksgiving, and of course, National Cookie Day on December 4th.

While focusing on prominent holidays is both important and fun, (we can’t resist a jolly Christmas campaign) there are a few popular shopping days tucked into Thanksgiving weekend that you won’t want to ignore while planning this years holiday social media campaigns.

Black Friday

This is the most well known of the shopping holidays. Black Friday is known for being the busiest shopping day of the year and generating record-breaking sales traffic for many businesses. However, some companies choose to use Black Friday as a day to build connections with customers, rather than selling.REI is possibly the most popular example of an organization closing shop on Black Friday. For over 4 years now they have been closing their locations to promote what they call “#OptOutside.” REI encourages both employees and outdoor enthusiasts to post pictures of their outdoor Black Friday adventures with the hashtag “#OptOutside.” Their website even provides a link that helps direct consumers towards local recreational events they can choose to participate in.

If you choose to close shop on Black Friday to encourage family time, you can still find a creative way to brighten the day of your online followers.

Small Business Saturday

If you’re a small or local business this is a great day to reach out to your followers with special messages and deals! Smaller businesses can’t always afford to slash their prices Black-Friday style like Wal-Mart does. Discounting product by such high percentages is not always a wise decision but you don’t have to dramatically slash prices to draw in consumers!

Often on this day, individuals in the community will go out of their way to support smaller businesses so this is a great day to offer small sales or customer appreciation services! Share a post that describes how your business came into existence. What inspires it? Who owns it? Offer a small incentive such as an online code that customers can use for free shipping.

You may want to consider teaming up with a local influencer or blogger to promote your business to local consumers. It is not uncommon for influencers to do a roundup post highlighting a few of their favorite local businesses. Finally, it could benefit you to center some of your ads and online posts around the benefits of supporting small businesses. Some of these benefits often include personalized service, unique products, or fresh meal options.

Sofa Sunday

After the rush of Thanksgiving, many consumers enjoy spending their Sunday doing a little online window shopping in preparation for Cyber Monday the following day. Past studies have shown us that 45 percent of shoppers spend at least two hours of Sofa Sunday researching Cyber Monday deals. Thirty-six percent of these shoppers plan to do all of that research from their phone.

Since you know your customers will be browsing for deals on their phones, why not reach out to them with early deals that they can act on immediately? A simple solution for this might be to extend your black Friday sale throughout the weekend. Sofa Sunday is an important shopping holiday to set yourself apart from your competition. Consumers on sofa Sunday are less likely to make an immediate purchase because they’re on the hunt for the best deals. Offer up a small gift or coupon with each purchase to help your product stand out from your competition.

If you choose to hold true to Cyber Monday tradition and wait to start your sale on Monday, this could provide you with a great opportunity to build up your email list. Offer priority access to customers who create shopping accounts rather than use guest mode.

Cyber Monday

We all know that online shopping is continuously on the rise but did you know that in 2019 mobile sales are expected to make up 34% of all ecommerce sales in the United States? While older generations of Baby Boomers and Gen X still lean heavily towards making online purchases on the web, 62% of Millenials and Gen Zrs prefer making their ecommerce purchases through apps. Here are a few of our favorite tips for creating a comfortable shopping experience for your customers on Cyber Monday:

Ensure that both your cover photo and bio clearly display your Cyber Monday deal
Announce Cyber Monday promotions in a series of posts leading up to the big day
Insert a link in your bio that directs customers directly to the sale
If possible, pin a post to the top of your feed outlining your deals for the day
Have a clear end date and time for the sale to create a sense of urgency

Whether you choose to run a weekend-long sale, focus on one shopping holiday, or simply connect with your customers, you’ll want to take advantage of this exciting holiday weekend!

Instagram TV and You

Posted on July 25, 2019September 27, 2019 by Kate Smith

The landscape of social media is constantly evolving. With new social channels, platforms, and features popping up left and right, how do you know which ones are worth investing your money and effort into? There are a lot of factors to take into consideration before jumping on the bandwagon for a new social feature but if you’re already utilizing Instagram as part of your social strategy, it might be worth it to utilize Instagram TV as well. Here are just a few ways that IGTV could benefit your business.

Increased Visibility

You have a lot of competition when it comes to capturing the attention of your online audience. Having content on multiple platforms will increase your organizations reach and make it easier for you to be seen by your desired audience. The great thing about IGTV is that if you already have an Instagram account with followers, then you already have a base audience for your IGTV content.

Instagram recently launched a feature that allows you to post a clip of your IGTV video to your Instagram feed. If a viewer likes what they see, they can watch the rest of your video on IGTV. This is important because just like any social platform you’re working with the platform’s algorithm. If your followers are interacting with your video, then it’s more likely to show up in the discover section of other Instagram users. You’ll also want to utilize keywords and relevant hashtags in your description.

Candid Communication

While brands such as Redbull set a high bar for content, IGTV viewers do not share the same expectations IGTV as they do for YouTube. It has proven itself to be a much more casual platform for connecting with your audience. Most of us have become accustomed to Youtubers creating videos in well-lit rooms with strategically organized backgrounds. Creating videos for Instagram TV is as easy as hitting the record button on your phone camera. No extra lighting or studio space necessary.

Some argue that the lower expectations for IGTV give off the feel of a second-hand youtube. However, brands can use the more causal platform to their advantage. Recent scandals involving social media slips ups and data breaches have left people hesitant to trust large corporations and online marketing. This means transparency within an organization is more important than ever. IGTV gives you the opportunity to create casual content that helps your audience feel more connected with your brand.

Because IGTV has a more casual feel to it than Youtube or Facebook, this is a great place for content that you wouldn’t traditionally post on your other social media channels. It’s an avenue for brands to explore themes that they wouldn’t traditionally focus on. Some examples of this could include a behind the scenes video, office events, or contests. These kinds of videos are often too long to fit well into a 15 second Instagram story or 60-second story.

Early Adopters See Higher High ROI

Early adopters of a new platform are often the ones who benefit the most from it. We all witnessed Instagram’s rapid growth from March 2014 to June 2018 in which monthly active users grew from 200 million to one billion. IGTV may not be the primary platform for video viewing at the moment but don’t underestimate it. IGTV was announced in June 2018 so it’s only a year old at this time. IGTV is in a way a hybrid of Instagram and Youtube, which are two incredibly successful platforms, so we can expect it’s population of viewers to skyrocket in the upcoming years.

The fact that IGTV already has over a billion potential viewers on Instagram means that it will grow even more rapidly than its parent platform. The amount of content for people to sift through on the internet is increasing by the day. Using a brand new feature or app can benefit you because there will not be as much similar content competing for the attention of your target audience.

Will IGTV become a major tool in your social strategy? That’s up to you and the needs of your business. But we do know that when utilized correctly, IGTV will increase your brand’s visibility and leave you more connected with your online audience than ever before.

Tag: Blog

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