3 Things to do BEFORE Planning Social Media Content for Your Business

Before you start creating social media content for your business you need to actually have a plan! 😱 If you’ve been treading water when it comes to posting content and are stuck in a cycle of only posting in the moment, here’s your sign to take a step back and start planning content for your business the right way. When you don’t take the time to plan your core content ahead of time it’s easy to lose sight of your big picture goals and keep chugging along without a track. Creating social media content with a plan and a purpose allows you to create content that supports the overall goals of your business. Yes, social media content can do that (and more) when you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. 😉

Here are three things to do before creating social media content for your business…

Analyze your insights from the previous month. There is A LOT of data to learn from in your Instagram Insights. You can find it all by going to your Instagram profile and clicking “Insights”. This will open up a whole new world for you if you’ve never seen this before. Set your date range to “30 days” to compare the current month with the last one. You can dive into data like how many people followed you from a post, how many followers vs unfollowers your content reached, & more for feed posts, Reels, and even stories! Having this data will help you learn what content is working and what isn’t so that you can plan content for the future based on your own measure of success.

Set your marketing priorities for the month ahead. Write down everything you have going on in your business for the next month or two. This will help you figure out when you need to post in order to raise awareness for priorities like specials, promotions, launches, and even holiday hours. Once your priorities are set in stone, you can begin building content around them to make sure you stay consistent in moving toward your goals.

Create a calendar of when posts should go out. Now that you know what kind of content is working and have established your marketing priorities, it’s time to start mapping things out on a calendar. I like to use Asana to organize content calendars but a paper calendar works just as well. Whatever tools you actually use to help you get the job done are the best tools for you in this case. Just get it done! I recommend putting your non-negotiable posts on the calendar first and then branching out from there. Take from your content pillars to build out the rest your calendar. Make sure you’re creating a schedule you can consistently stick to. Start small and build from there. You can do it!