I’ve been teaching the same class, MKTG 1550, Social Media Marketing for Business, over at BCIT for the last 6 or so years now.
The end goal of every class is the same; my students create a social media marketing plan for a business. They look at things like demographics, time, and which social networks are appropriate for their business. They finish by recommending what kind of content they would create for that business were they running their social feeds.
I make them hand in a rough draft of their social media marketing plans so I can give them feedback on them before they hand in their final assignments, and about 90% of the assignments go back to them with this note: “needs more details in your content section.”
You know that old adage, “failing to plan is planning to fail”? This is never more true than for something like social media.
You see, when you first start a new Facebook page for a business, your brain is brimming with ideas of content to post on there. But in order for any account to be successful, consistency is the key. The vast majority of businesses that I work with are not successful simply because they stop showing up every day. And the main reason people stop showing up every day? They run out of ideas for content.
Let’s take Facebook as an example. If you’re running a Facebook page for a business, best practices say that you should be posting daily to that page. That means coming up with 30 pieces of content per month. If you’re running a twitter account, you should be posting 1-3 times per day. That’s 90 pieces of content per month.
If you don’t have a solid plan for where all that content is going to come from, month-in, month-out, you will soon run out of gas and stop posting.
This is where The Content Planner comes in. Written my colleague (and, full disclosure: friend), Angela Crocker, The Content Planner is a 9-step process to get organized and generate enough content to last a lifetime for your social feeds.
It starts by looking at the big picture: what are your goals? Who are you trying to reach? And then moves on to looking at specific platforms, and identifying which ones you should be generating content on. There is then a whole valuable section on how to brainstorm content, and lots and lots of worksheets and calendars to help you plan it out. Finally, Angela walks you through the invaluable evaluation process: what worked, and what didn’t. This kind of evaluation is so important as you move forward in successive months, as it helps to hone your content to the stuff that really works.
What I love about this method is how well it’s broken down, and how simple it is to follow. After all, if it’s easy for you to do, there’s a better chance you’ll actually do it, right?
Also, because The Content Planner is published by Self Counsel Press, it’s packed with goodies: worksheets out the wazoo!
The Content Planner is a really great book for anyone who’s wanting to be in the “content is king” (and it is!) game. It’ll help you get clear, get focused, and come up with a solid plan that will carry you through.
I have a new crop of students starting tomorrow, and I’m going to suggest that they purchase it. I’m recommending it to you, as well. 🙂
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