How To Easily Create Your Yearly Social Media Content Calendar

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Are you a small business owner trying to grow your brand without a Social Media content calendar?

Do you feel frustrated by the amount of effort Social Media requires only to see little to no payoff? If your answer is “YES,” then this blog post is for you.

You’ll learn how to get the most out of Social Media for much less time and effort. How does that sound? Great? Ok, let’s begin.

FREE Mini-Course: The Secret To Creating Social Media Content Fast While Working Full-Time

You’ll learn about:

• The top 5 mistakes that cost me over 20+ hours each week on content creation
• And what I did to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend now (only 2 hours per week!)

YES, I WANT THIS!

This post includes affiliate links to products I love and recommend, meaning I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Please read full disclosure for more information.

How the content calendar helped me

Social Media content calendars made my life and business easier. Before I created the content calendar, my life was chaotic and stressful (can you feel me?). Each day I wasn’t sure about what to post, so I tried to wing it, and that’s the worst thing I ever did!

I’ll tell you right now, you can’t wing it with Social Media. Because I didn’t have a plan, I wasn’t posting consistently, which was a suicide for my business.

That’s why I had horrible results. My audience wasn’t engaging with me, and I didn’t make almost any money. I felt exhausted, stressed out, and overwhelmed. Can you relate?

So one day, I had enough and started doing my research about Social Media content. I found a couple of great articles that said the same thing, and that was…

PLAN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT AHEAD!

That’s what I did right away because I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. So long story short, planning my content ahead drastically changed my business and life. My stress level went down, and my income went up.

Social Media Challenges

Doing Social Media for your business is like a walk in the park…Jurassic Park! It’s a ton of work, and it never stops. You have to be consistent, or you’ll lose your audience’s attention.

Each and every day, you need to come up with new post ideas that are creative and different. You spend hours upon hours trying to get different ideas, and at the end of the day, you are mentally exhausted.

Spending hours on content means spending less time on other important parts of your business. But you’re only one person, right?

So how can you manage to post something new every day and still have time for other parts of your business? We are going to cover that in this post.

How Social Media content calendar will benefit you and your business

As I said before, my stress level went down when I started planning. I knew what to post each day, so I quickly scheduled all my Social Media content.

Another benefit that I noticed was CONSISTENCY. I never missed a day of posting! And you know that consistency is one of the keys to success with Social Media content marketing.

So you will not only be prepared and consistent, but you will also make great, unique content that your audience will love and engage with. And not to mention, your income will definitely increase if you’ll do it right.

How to easily create your yearly Social Media content calendar

I’ll be honest with you; it took me weeks before I finished my yearly content calendar. I would rather invest all that time in other business activities, but I knew how important the calendar is.

I just wanted to let you know up-front that it’s going to take you some time to make your own content calendar, but it will be worth it. Now that you know, we can begin with the first step.

1.) Choose your tool

Ok, so let’s go over this with an easy step-by-step guide. The first thing you will need to do is to choose the tool where you will create your content calendar. This can be just a pen and paper if you are old-fashioned like me.

You can also choose a tool like Canva, Trello, or Google Sheets. You can also mix it up, which is what I do. First, I write everything on paper, and then I use Trello.

2.) Do your content research

In the second step, I took a couple of hours each week to research and plan. You should do the same to have a huge list of Social Media content ideas ready.

You should first search for the holidays you want to celebrate with your followers. Check out my blog post, which has The Ultimate List Of Social Media Holidays. But make sure you find holidays in countries where most of your audience is from. For example, if you are from Europe and most of your audience is from the USA, then you have to find their holidays.

Write them down, and then start searching for fun and wacky holidays that you can connect to your business.

3.) Write down your business anniversaries or milestones

Then think about if there are any anniversaries or milestones you can celebrate. Maybe 1 year anniversary of your business or any other achievement that you had.

Also, check out your planner if you have any product launches, special offers, or maybe a big freebie or giveaway coming up. Knowing that is important so you can prepare and promote it properly.

Besides that, you have to come up with other content ideas. And to be honest, I got stuck at this point many times *insert eye-roll here*. Because I’m a problem solver, I found a solution.

I put together a whole blog post about how and where to research Social Media Topic Ideas, so you will quickly find inspiration for the best content to share with your audience.

4.) Mix up the content types

You need to mix your content up. This was another one of my mistakes. I had been posting a lot of quotes before I started using a Social Media content calendar. My audience was probably bored of seeing the flood of those quotes.

So don’t repeat my mistake and create different content types. Here are some of the ideas you can use:

• Text post (without graphics)
• Post with graphics
• Ask questions
• Selfies with your short story
• Live video (sharing your story)
• Valuable posts
• Giveaways or freebies
• Share your blog post

Time-saving Solution For You

I was really happy with my results after planning and creating the content for one year ahead. But the only thing I wanted to improve was how much time I spent doing it. I’m sure you are a busy business owner too, so I have been thinking, “How can I help us both?”

If you are going to plan your first Social Media content calendar, be prepared to take a couple of hours each week just to focus on that. But let’s face it, you’re busy, and doing all that work can be stealing your time from more important things – like family time and money-making activities.

So is there a solution? Oh, YES! I created 7+ Years Of Social Media Content Ideas that will help you save time, money, and sanity!

Yes, you will get 7+ years of Social Media post ideas and so much more:

• 3x Social Media Content Calendars
• 1600+ Extra Content Ideas
• 796 Graphic Canva Templates
• How to Create High Converting Content (video training)
• 90-Day Social Media Challenge
• Content Marketing & Storytelling Strategies
• Content Templates, headlines, and hashtags
• 150+ Powerful Caption/Reel Hooks
• 35 Ideas Where To Promote Your Business
• List Of Holidays (for 2022)
• And Bonuses

Just imagine what you could do with this content bundle:

• STOP wasting time finding outstanding content ideas,
• ELIMINATE the stress around what to talk about on Social Media,
• No more SECOND-GUESSING yourself & your content,
• Getting HIGHER reach and engagement day in and day out,
• Attracting IDEAL CUSTOMERS and getting more SALES,
• Having FUN with your family instead of creating new graphics.

Here’s what others are saying about the content calendar:

“I’m a busy mom of 3 and a small business owner. It’s been a struggle to find time to come up with content ideas. But since I started using 7+ years of content ideas, I have more time to focus on what really matters: growing my business and being with my family.”
– Andrea R.

Choose a Social Media scheduling tool

There are many different tools out there. Some are free, and for others, you will need to invest in them. I use the free Facebook built-in scheduling tool. You can find it on your group or page, but it doesn’t exist on your personal profile.

There are also tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, SmartQueue, etc. Choose the one you love most.

Create images for your content

You will have to find or create images to make it more interesting for your audience. Make sure you are only sharing the images you have rights for.

For me, it’s super fun to create images. I love to play with Canva and sometimes Photoshop. But if you’re struggling to make beautiful and engaging images that will attract your audience, then I suggest you get these 100 Viral Content Templates.

Schedule your content

I always schedule one week ahead because it gives me the freedom to change my monthly plan if I have to. On Mondays, I sit down and schedule all the posts.

Of course, when I make live videos, I can’t schedule them ahead, but at least I know when I have to create them. That’s why I check my content calendar daily, even if I have already scheduled everything.

So if you choose to schedule for one week ahead, then set some time aside each week (any day you prefer), and open your calendar, photos, and tool for scheduling. Then just follow your content calendar, create your content, and schedule it. Easy isn’t it?

If you decide to plan for a whole month ahead, you will need to set more time aside. I recommend you do that at the end of each month.

Ok, that’s all, folks. Before you go, grab your copy of the 7+ Years of Social Media Content Ideas and save your time!

Please share this article to help other digital marketers 💜

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Petra Šranc (CEO of Big Income Paradise) is passionate about teaching female entrepreneurs how to do Social Media Marketing to grow their business online. She also focuses on teaching Social Media content tactics to skyrocket traffic, leads, and sales.