Why you need to pre plan your social media posts

Why you need a content calendar?

This is extremely important because it allows you to plan and make sure that you‘re sending the right message, to the right audience, at the right time. A well-maintained social media content calendar keeps all your marketing efforts focused on the same goal. Let’s face it, if you want results from your social media marketing then you can’t afford to just wing it, you need a clear, concise plan to capture the attention of the right audience.

Now you’ll hear me say this over and over, but Social media is about being social, just like its title states so you can’t just go around selling EVERY time you post. You have to build a community, build credibility and offer you community something of value to keep their attention and interaction. This is why each month we give you a beautiful calendar full of prompts to give you ideas but there is also space for you to jot your own plan down if you prefer.

Your next tip once you have a planned your post topics is to make sure you have some pretty eye catching images to grab your potential customers attention in the first. Nobody will stop scrolling long enough to read you post if the image doesn’t grab them first.

This is where your planning can get tricky. Each image you post needs to work with the previous images so that you create a visually appealing photo gallery. Now I do this using an App called Plann https://www.plannthat.com. I load it up with my images and move them around to ensure they all work together with colours and composition. You don’t want to put 3 flatlays next to one another and then two quotes side by side. To make things visually appealing you’re better to break things up. Perhaps have a quote, then a flatlay, then a front on view of a product, perhaps a portrait or lifestyle shot of yourself or a team member, then a landscape style image and maybe a little behind the scenes shot.

 A mix of styled stock images and professional branded images ensures you have a good library to match the content calendar you’ve planned out. We have a great collection of quotes and add to it every month, but you can also make you own using the FREE version of Canva.

Posting video or a carousel of images as they keep viewers on you page that little bit longer is a great way to boost your visibility. You don’t need to be a professional to create a video, a smart phone does the trick, or you can use apps like Animoto to make short videos from still images.

Video is definitely something I plan to master next and because I use an iPhone my first step will be to go to my local apple store and take advantage of the free classes, they offer on how to get the most out of their products.

All of these tips work well for you stories as well. Some people watch stories more than they scroll so it’s a great way to get in front of people and you can post as many as you like and you content doesn’t need to be as perfect as it only lasts 24hrs. The perfect spot to post BTS if your workplace is to messy to put in your feed.

Now while we’ve focused heavily on images, don’t forget about you captions. They don’t have to long, there’s no real rules around the length of them, you just need to make them relatable, use a conversational tone, pop in a few emojis if you like to add personality and have a call to action. Ask a question or tell people how they can buy from you or the best way to contact you eg, link in bio

Cheers

Trish and the team x