Content Calendars and Content Seeding

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

What is a content calendar? 

A content calendar is an essential piece of kit for any content marketer. You can measure and effectively plan your social content strategy using one of these template documents. A content calendar helps you align your content to a business objective, a day of the week, the channel in which you’re publishing, and your content personas. It acts as a road map to make sure that your content is focused. 

You can think of a content calendar as a central document used to control the process of creating content across multiple stakeholders. A content calendar should be easy to use, always up to date, and accessible by all those who may find it useful. 

For this reason, many marketers use online spreadsheet and database systems such as Google Sheets, Airtable, or Notion, for which content calendar templates are widely available online. The high level of flexibility with these systems allows you to plan content but also collaborate, store assets, log performance metrics, and connect to other services via automation tools or APIs.

Social media management platforms

You might consider using a social media management platform such as Hootsuite, Later, Buffer, or Sprout Social. These platforms are designed specifically for the job but can be more rigid in meeting your needs. Also be aware that these are inherently harder to share with colleagues and clients, when compared with more universally adopted systems. 

People can be intimidated by unfamiliar or advanced software or put off by tools that aren’t in their specific domain of expertise.

Creating a content calendar

When creating a content calendar, the overarching consideration is whether you need to plan your content by the week, by the month, or by business quarter. Being able to effectively plan by week, month, or quarter will help you create a road map for that particular time period. 

To create your own content calendar, create a spreadsheet that contains the following column headings: 
Platform

• Time of day
• Intended audience
• An overview of the content itself 
• The copy to go with the content
• Any creative in terms of images or video, and
• Any call to action that is included with that content

Make sure to populate your content calendar with as much detail as possible. Best practice is to embed any creative, for example, images or stills from videos into these spreadsheets. Sample copy should also be included. 

Another useful tip is to keep a rolling spreadsheet and create a new template for each week or month. This will help keep content in the same place for easy reference. Also, consider inserting results. This will help you analyze, amend, and optimize content going forward, and also provides a history of how previous content has performed in one easy-to-use place. 

Which strategy is best for you?

When considering the seeding of your social media content, it’s important to put some thought into what strategy will work best for you in terms of an Always On or a Pulsed approach. 

Always On approach

• An Always On approach involves 24/7 manning of social channels and posting social content 7 days a week.
• An Always On approach is very heavy on customer service. Because content is going out consistently, you will have to engage with your audience consistently as well. 
• The budgets required are obviously higher because the content is ongoing. 
• More investment is needed in teams and in resources to manage an Always On content approach. 
• Be aware that evenings and weekends may not be as free as before. With an Always On content approach, audiences are more inclined to engage with you around the clock. 
• Always On content is consistent throughout the year. So key times like Christmas, school vacations or any business closures will need to be factored in. 
• Always On content, by its very definition, is non-seasonal. It runs through the 12 months of the year. So you need to factor this in. 

Pulsed approach

A Pulsed approach involves using social platforms at key times of each day or week. 

• A Pulsed approach to content seeding should definitely yield lower inquiry levels 
• This approach is lower on budget and resource allocation 
• Ultimately, it’s better leveraged for daytime activity
• It still allows for key campaign moments to have high volumes of activity, and 
• With the Pulsed approach, seasonality works best 

That said, a combination of both of these approaches can work quite well: big Pulsed moments for your ongoing campaigns that happen at key times of the year, with an Always On approach to customer service might be exactly what your brand or business needs. 

Liaising with multiple stakeholders

When multiple stakeholders are involved, you need to consider a number of other issues when organizing your content calendar. These include:

• Time of year
• Current and new business priorities
• New product launches
• Sponsorships
• Traditional TV, radio, or print campaigns
• In-store promotions 
• Influencer collaboration or Public Relations (PR) 
• B2B events
• Changes to legal situations in your industry or country