The Importance of a Social Media Calendar

 

The Importance of a Social Media Calendar

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Successful social media marketing doesn’t just include staying active on your preferred networks. It’s crucial to have a plan in place to help guide you along the way and hold yourself accountable, otherwise it can be easy to lose your momentum to post or fall off the wagon altogether.

Your social media calendar is going to be your new best friend. 

A social media calendar is a working document used to schedule out all of your social media content by network for the week/month in advance. Creating a calendar will save you time and help make your life easier because you won’t have to scramble to find content to post on the fly. You’ll be able to visualize your social content strategy in advance and stay organized across all networks. 

A social media calendar allows you to create a consistent flow of content (even when you get super busy) that will help you reach your overall marketing goals. When you’re consistent with your posting strategy, your online audience will start to expect and look forward to your content. 

You’ll also be able to easily track and analyze data across all networks to gauge what’s working and what’s not working, so you can shift your approach if needed. Flexibility is a key component of your social media marketing strategy. 

We put together a few tips to help you create your own personalized social media calendar.

Decide Where to Post

The first step to take is to prioritize the networks you want to focus your marketing efforts on so you’re not wasting time on those that won’t drive the results you need. In this article, we discuss the importance of prioritization and which networks you should engage on the most as an agent.

Keep it simple and focus on the accounts you’re already active on. You can always add more to the mix later, but you don’t want to overwhelm yourself right out of the gate. 

Most agents use Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, so start with one or two of these.

Decide When to Post

There are countless articles written on the optimal posting frequency on social media. We’ve put together one you can refer to online here. Even though we provide you with the best times to post on each network, our word of advice is to focus on the frequency and consistency of your posts, rather than the exact times to post.

The reason for that is, there’s no magic formula. What works for one agent isn’t going to work for the other. Instead, commit to sharing a certain number of posts to your networks each day.

Aim to post on the same days of the week, at the same time. Whatever you choose to do, make your schedule and stick to it. The algorithms across all networks favor consistency and once you get into a solid rhythm, your posts will be shown in your followers feeds more frequently.

Decide What to Post

When you create your content bank, begin with the days of the week and keep those themes the same each week, just add in fresh, new content.

We put together a monthly sample calendar you can download to help get you started. We used January 2020 as an example so you can see ways to incorporate holidays into your social media marketing.  It’s important that you find your ideal content mix, so this calendar combines KCM content with your personal content in various formats. Make it your own and change it up as needed, you do not need to follow our exact schedule.

Below are examples and explanations of what type of content to post each day.

Monday

Facebook: start the week off by sharing your KCM Blog. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the one you receive that day, you have the option to pick and choose which blog post you want to share. You can go as far back as you’d like, so you already have a content bank built up just by using your blog.

You can also search your blog by categories if you want to target a specific audience.

Pro-Tip

Never share a post without a caption. If you have trouble coming up with your own for the blog, copy and paste the bottom line, located at the end of each blog post.

You can also steal the captions we post daily to our Facebook Group. We typically include  emojis to give it a more personal feel.

Instagram Feed: we all love a good theme, so why not go with motivation Monday? These can relate to housing or home life, or can be purely personal. There are tons of quotes online to choose from, we went ahead and put together some to get you started. Click here to access 20 pre-made quote visuals.

Instagram Stories: highlight what you were up to over the weekend using video or multiple pictures in your stories. This could be anything from you hanging out with family/friends, clips from an open house walk through, events you attended, etc.

Tuesday

Instagram Feed: post a photo of a house you just listed or sold. You can even take a picture of your clients who just closed on their home and tag them if you feel comfortable doing so.

Instagram Stories: post a couple of stories of yourself highlighting the KCM blog. This can be scary for most people, but if you’re not currently using video on Instagram, you have to start now! This is a great place to begin because you can take the script directly from the blog or summarize in your own words and record a short video.

Wednesday

Facebook: post a real estate article or share one you’ve seen on someone else’s page. Facebook is a great place to share more text-heavy posts. Include a question in the comments section to start a conversation and engage your online audience.

Instagram Feed: again, use your KCM blog for this day to create your own video highlighting some of the main points.

Instagram Stories: use the same video you highlighted in your feed and share to your stories. You don’t want to post the same content to every network every day, but repurpose when you can to create less work on your end!

LinkedIn: post the same real estate article you did on Facebook. LinkedIn is another great network to share more text-heavy posts.

Thursday

Instagram Feed: today’s theme is throwback Thursday. This could be any picture that was taken in the past, personal or business related. Don’t forget your hashtag – #TBT!

Instagram Stories: post a couple of stories of you behind the scenes with your team and/or clients. This will give people the inside scoop into what it’s like to work with you. To add some more variety to your stories, post some helpful tips for buyers/sellers. This could range anywhere from-  “why buy versus rent” to “tips to sell my home faster.”

Friday

Facebook: now that you’re getting into a rhythm of posting video to your Instagram stories, why not try it for your Facebook stories by highlighting your blog post for the day?

Instagram Feed: KCM Infographics are released every Friday and make great visuals for Instagram. They are also holiday/seasonally themed.

Instagram Stories: post the same video you did to Facebook stories – repurpose!

LinkedIn: post the same infographic you did to your Instagram feed.

Saturday

Instagram Feed: let people know what you’re up to over the weekend. This can either be a personal post or photos of an open house. If it’s an open house, don’t forget to post the address in case people are interested in stopping by.

Instagram Stories: same with the feed, post some video or pictures of what you’re up to over the weekend. Have fun with this and give them a taste of what you do outside of the office.

Sunday

Instagram Feed: post a thumb stopper photo. What is this you ask? Any photo that’s going to capture the attention of your online audience and force them to click on your photo. This can be a must-have, pristine kitchen, a man-cave worthy of a Superbowl party, or a walk-in closet that’s every woman’s dream.

Instagram Stories: highlight some happenings from your open houses over the weekend.

You don’t need to follow this exact schedule, this is meant to give you a starting point and some guidance as to what type of content you should be sharing to social media throughout the week.

As mentioned above, if you’re only active on Facebook and/or Instagram, focus on those networks first and incorporate LinkedIn into the schedule once you feel comfortable doing so.

KCM Member Tip

We spoke with KCM Member, Keri White with The Agency in Los Angeles who has a whopping 16.5k followers on Instagram. She does admit that this did not happen overnight and took years of practice and patience. The most important piece that helped build up her following was creating her own social media calendar and sticking to it.

Keri shared a few of her tips/tricks to help us create our calendar to follow for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Keri follows the 80/20 rule where 80% of her posts are personal and 20% are focused on her business. That might come as a surprise to most, but Keri’s words of wisdom are:

 “Remember, people work with you when they like and trust you. The only way they can do that is if they get to know you. Build your brand through social media, this is not about showcasing house photos.”

Yes, quality content is key, but if you mix that in with pictures and videos of insights to your life, that’s where you will really build that trust and connect with your online audience.

If I were you, I would listen to what she says because she’s crushing the social media game. Be sure to check her out @keriannkeriann. Thanks Keri!

Bottom Line

Creating a social media calendar is an important step when mapping out your social media marketing strategy. It will hold you accountable and ensure you’re posting fresh content across all networks as often as you can.

It’s a little work on the front end, but it will ultimately save you a ton of time so you can focus on other priorities or even better, the fun things in life you can share in your stories!

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We’re happy to answer any specific questions you have about creating a social media calendar. We can’t claim to be experts, but our team is happy to help as much as we can.

Just reach out to us at support@keepingcurrentmatters.com if we can help!