Creating a content plan is about more than knowing your content in advance. Plans help you build campaigns around key dates, keep you focused on objectives and give you a feel for how your accounts will look. Forget about scrambling for ideas each day; instead, focus on creating thought-out content that supports your social media goals!
Whichever way you plan, you need to make sure all the essential information is in one, easily-accessible place. Your content plan should answer all the questions you need to ask about each post, to you’re fully prepared to get creative. We’ve included the 10 most important questions to include when crafting your content plan, taken from our free social media academy!
What Will Your Content Achieve?
Every post needs a purpose; otherwise, it won’t be supporting your social media strategy. No one likes to waste time, right?
Choose content objectives that align with your social media goals. Setting individual post goals will also help you craft your content as you have a final vision for it.
What is Your Content About?
While you don’t need a prominent headline for each post, having a headline in your plan helps to keep you focused.
Choose a concise headline that tells you what your content will be about. Knowing the purpose of your post when you create it ensures the reader will stay interested enough to read it through.
Who is Your Audience?
You should already have an idea of your target audience from your social media strategy, but it’s always good to remind yourself before you start creating a post.
Have your audience in mind for every post you write. Speak directly to the target person to make the content irresistible to them; otherwise, it will be boring for everyone.
What Type of Content are You Using?
Content comes in so many shapes and sizes, it’s essential to try a range of different formats to find what works for your audience. From GIFs to live videos and polls; your only limit is creativity.
Use this part of your content plan to see what types of content you need to create, and periodically look back to see whether the produced content is balanced and made up of the right things.
Do You Need Supporting Content?
Planning each element of your social media content will show how the finished post will look. Posts must be visually appealing, so users want to stop scrolling and read it.
If your main piece of content is a video, writing a sentence to describe what the video is about will help give some context. Always think about what your audience is looking for!
What is the Call to Action?
Always have a clear call to action! You can have the best content in the world, but if you don’t show people what to do after consuming your content, they won’t do anything.
Record what your CTA is, whether it’s to tell them to tag friends, share the post, visit the website or download a guide. Make sure they have somewhere to go after your content.
Do You Need Hashtags or Tagged Accounts?
Hashtags put your content in spaces where other similar conversations are happening, and you can add value. Tagging relevant people is also a great way to foster meaningful engagement.
Research hashtags beforehand, and note the relevant people for each piece of content. Don’t just tag random people and expect meaningful conversations!
Where Will You Post Your Content?
You can’t be everywhere. Or, you can try and be everywhere, but end up spread thin, burned out and unable to keep up with the various channels.
You need to make sure your content is tailored to the channel. You can’t post the same content on Twitter that you usually would on LinkedIn; their audiences are totally different.
Does Your Content Need Approval?
In some organisations, your content may need approval by different team members. Getting sign-off can be time-consuming and put tasks behind schedule, so it’s essential to have a process in place.
Noting who needs to approve each post in your content is good practice to stay on top of validation and meet deadlines.
When is This Content Being Published?
Having publishing dates in your content plan gives you a deadline to work towards, keeping you accountable and on top of your workload.
Recording dates also means you can see what’s coming up and plan accordingly. There’s nothing worse than rushed social media content!
Your content plan is personal to your organisation and may need more or less information in it. As long as you have all the information you need in one place, you’ll stand the best chance of keeping content creation procrastination at bay.
