Content Calendar

What is a Content Calendar?

Companies post content to their websites, newsletters, and social media accounts based on social media metrics that indicate when posts receive the most engagement. This engagement varies by social media site, industry, content type (promotion, article, etc.), and the time of posting: post engagement varies by weekday and even time of day. A content calendar, then, is the scheduling of content publication to increase engagement and conversion.

Companies also schedule site maintenance on these calendars, to ensure they only occur during times of least engagement.

Other terms for content calendar include editorial calendar, social media posting schedule, and other variations of these. An editorial calendar, however, focuses on content planned for company-managed websites plus social media accounts. Social media content schedules, on the other hand, focus on social media posts, as the name indicates.

Why Is It Important to Have a Good Content Calendar?

Companies need engagement to grow their brand and increase conversions. They also cannot rely on only customer demographics to reach their audience: there is a limit to how many newsletters people will tolerate before unsubscribing. In addition, social media sites are prone to changing their algorithms, making outreach more difficult. For example, many sites don’t show their users a feed consisting of the most recent posts; rather, the algorithm shows posts in order of what it considers most relevant to users’ interest. In other words, you have to need to have engagement to get engagement.

An effective calendar also helps companies avoid blunders like posting a promotion during a major holiday in a target country.

What Internal Data Should I Have for a Good Content Calendar?

A good calendar starts with customer demographics and online behavior data. This information can point to customers’ preferred social media company the company should use. However, more than that, it will tell you detailed information about your individual customers. With this, you can publish content that is truly tailored to them.

In particular, be sure to use data about which posts have led to the most engagement and contact from your customers.

What External Data Is Essential for a Good Content Calendar?

Your calendar needs detailed information about engagement on the social media sites you will use. In particular, note that not only does peak engagement time vary by industry but the type of engagement varies as well: for example, Facebook users are more likely to comment on a post than share during some hours.

Analysis of your competitors’ posts also provides important information on what to do or to avoid.

Additionally, stay updated on general and industry news as these will affect what you post and when. Above all, content schedules must be flexible.

What External Data May Prove Useful for a Good Management Calendar?

Additional useful data includes data about your content contributors and partners (such as influencers). This will help you check in with them to ensure their posts will be published on time.

What Are the Main Challenges of this Use Case?

As mentioned earlier, social media algorithms often change to prioritize certain types of content or content creators over others, which can make it difficult to grow an audience or follow a set schedule.

Secondly, even if you get engagement, that doesn’t mean you get sales—particularly if the engagement is negative. They say all press is good press, but that’s less true for companies with an established audience whose good opinion they want to keep. This is especially true for companies with partners and stock-holders who may be particularly sensitive to negative press.

Interesting Case Studies and Blogs to Look Into

Sprout Social: How COVID-19 has changed social media engagement
Neil Patel: Is There a Generic Best Time to Post On Social Media Platforms?

Tangible Examples of Impact

An overall strategy was created to ensure that the engagement and reach are maximised as much as possible and that the proposed KPIs have been met. To ensure that the posts created are relevant to the target audience, content pillars are created and used as a guide when developing various posts. A monthly content calendar was also created to ensure that we are not posting too many contents per month, leading to content fatigue.

Marketing Interactive