{"id":83632,"date":"2015-10-29T11:19:59","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T15:19:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.constantcontact.com\/blog\/?p=83632"},"modified":"2024-06-04T14:08:21","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T18:08:21","slug":"create-a-social-media-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.constantcontact.com\/blog\/create-a-social-media-schedule\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Create and Manage a Social Media Schedule in 3 Easy Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’ve found your social media strategy creeping lower and lower on your priority list, know that you aren’t alone.<\/p>\n

Many small business owners are challenged to find the time for any marketing at all, social included.<\/p>\n

The good news? A few simple practices can eliminate the fear of keeping up with the overwhelming world of Twitter, Facebook, and other popular platforms.<\/p>\n

This simple process for finding, creating, and scheduling good social media content will help you stay on track and create an engaging brand for your business online.<\/p>\n

1. Curate & create content<\/h3>\n

First, it’s important to understand the difference between<\/a> content curation<\/em> and content creation<\/em>. Content curation is information that is not original to you or your business, for example an external media article. Content creation is something you own and have created yourself, for example a business blog post or a photo of your store — it’s unique to you.<\/p>\n

It’s best to stay as close to the ‘80\/20’ rule as possible.<\/p>\n

80 percent of what you share on social should be non-promotional content. This can be either curated or content you create that isn’t specifically focused on driving sales, such as motivational quotes, pictures from your business, or employee profiles.<\/p>\n

The other 20 percent should directly lead followers back to your website or blog through created content. These promotions should be lead generation or subscriber driven. It’s important to not focus too much on your own product or service, because then it becomes like a sales pitch. A one-way conversation does not engage or excite an audience, but rather makes them feel like they are being spammed.<\/p>\n

Example of curated content: <\/strong>Share content that is related to your industry, and that you think your audience will enjoy. Clover Hill Winery recently shared an article about local wine for their followers. If you want to do something similar, just remember to give the publication credit by tagging the handle and the handle of the author, if available.<\/p>\n

\"curated<\/p>\n

Example of created content:<\/strong> For a floral shop, photos of collections and arrangements are sure to excite online community members. Ask any recent brides to send you a photo of them with their bouquets on their big day — post it and congratulate the happy couple! Maybe you have a certain selection of flowers that you’d like to sell more of — post a photo of them in your store and encourage your followers to come in and purchase some through a discount promotion. Visuals do best on Facebook, where you can also create a photo album for them to be housed.<\/p>\n

To account for the 20 percent of promotional content, see how Santa Fe Properties did it for an upcoming home tour. Consider adding a compelling image as well to really spark engagement.<\/p>\n

\"created<\/p>\n

2. Select a platform & time of day to post<\/h3>\n

Your strategy will vary based on what your business provides, the type of industry you are in, and the size of your existing social network. You may find that your presence on one platform engages your audience better than another does — and that’s ok! Focus on the best performing channels and maximize your presence accordingly.<\/p>\n

It’s important not to over-extend efforts if you aren’t seeing the return on your time investment on a particular channel. It likely just means that your target audience isn’t active on that channel.<\/p>\n

At first, you may want to focus on your most important network. Once you see how it works with one network, you can start to incorporate all of your activity into your social media schedule. Generally, the following rules for the types of content that perform best on each channel are as follows:<\/p>\n