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Close your eyes and picture this: It’s the end of the day and all the designer have gone home and suddenly it hits you: tomorrow you are running a promotion—a huge marketing opportunity and you’ve got nothing.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

CONTENT CALENDER’S are exactly what they sound like: a way to plan and organize upcoming content. There are, of course, different types. An editorial calendar is specifically for planning content assets such as blog posts and videos, while a social media content calendar—the primary focus of this post—is for planning content for social.

HOW TO CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CALENDAR:

1) THINK ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE: It’s important to map out your existing audience members and think about what content they want to see, you can also explore who you want to have viewing your content. This information can be captured in aspiration personas that reflect your target audience.

2) RESEARCH WHAT CONTENT RESONATES: In order to plan and create successful content, you need to know what success looks like. Start by looking at content you’ve produced in the past and examine what worked.
• What content got the most likes?
• What content got the most comments?
• What content got the most shares?
• What content got the most views?
• What content got the highest engagement rate?

3) AUDIT EXISTING CONTENT: Go through your existing library and identify types and categories.
• What’s still useable?
• What can be updated?
• What can be repurposed?
• What can’t be reused?

4) CREATE AN OVERVIEW OF MAJOR EVENTS: If your business is affected by seasonality, be sure to include this in your calendar. For example, if you’re a Business to Business (B2B) company and there tends to be a lull at the end of December, mark this on your calendar so that you can plan accordingly by reducing the amount of content published or saving top content for a higher traffic time.

5) FIGURE OUT CALENDAR PROCESSES: Now it’s time to figure out the nitty gritty of your schedule.
• Decide how often you’re going to publish
• Determine your content mix
• Share 80 percent helpful and interesting  content for every 20 percent of content where you’re trying to sell your product
• Determine how you’ll generate new content ideas and the process by which they’ll be made a reality
• Figure out a process for identifying and sharing quality curated content

When it comes to long-term editorial planning, few organizations are more in tune. Because of their regular cadence, publishing restrictions, and reliance on annual features or seasonal topics, most major magazines plan themes—and even specific content—for an entire YEAR IN ADVANCE!