5 Tips To Set Up Next Month’s Social Media Ahead Of Time

How would you describe what it’s like to manage social media? Hectic? Stressful? If your posting routine consists of coming up with an idea for a post, creating that post, and publishing that post all in the same day, every day, that can definitely become overwhelming.

Good news! There are steps you can take to set your social media up for next month without having to rely on daily content creation and posting. By planning ahead and making use of some helpful apps, you can more easily prepare and share a month of social media content.

Benefits of Planning Ahead

First things first: why should you set up your social media ahead of time? Planning and creating your content before it’s needed help you post to social media on a regular basis since you always have content ready. You can still post at the moment, but planning ensures you have prepared content so you don’t go extended periods of time without posting because you couldn’t think of something to write. Planning ahead also ensures you have time to strategically plan and create content that will help you reach your marketing goals.

Here are five tips for getting your social media set up ahead of time. 

Review last month’s analytics

Before you start creating social media posts for next month, take a look at your analytics from last month. This will help you create a social media content calendar that’s based on data and more likely to be successful than if you simply made guesses. Which topics were your audience most interested in, and which ones didn’t seem to resonate? Did your followers engage most with videos, photos, or posts containing graphics such as infographics? Looking at the posts that performed the best can help you determine what your audience wants to see from your page. This in turn helps you create content that your audience will engage with and helps you build a relationship with your followers.

Make a plan

To set yourself up for success next month, consider your marketing goals when planning content. How will your social media efforts help you accomplish those goals? For example, if one of your goals is to drive more traffic to your website, think about what you could post to social media to encourage followers to visit your site. If there’s a specific product you want to increase awareness around, what can you post to achieve that? Write out a plan that includes the goals you want to reach and how you will reach them, including the post topics, types, and calls to action (CTAs) you’ll use. Be sure to consider the analytical data you reviewed in Step 1.

Planning your posts ahead of time is a great way to ensure you’re being intentional with your posts rather than posting just for the sake of having an online presence. When you create a plan, you can come up with a list of posts that provide value, entertain or inspire your followers, and occasionally promote your products or services. No one wants to be bombarded with sales pitches, so coming up with a plan is a great way to ensure you have a variety of content.

Create a content calendar

Now that you know what types of posts you want to share next month along with the topics you’ll cover and your CTAs, it’s time to create a content calendar. Decide which posts will go live on which dates and times. If you’re not sure what the best time to post is, you can look at your insights to see when your followers are online. The calendar can be in whatever form works best for you, whether that’s a paper calendar, an online calendar such as Google calendar, or through a scheduling app like Sprout Social or Hootsuite. (More on scheduling in just a minute!)

You’ll also want to identify what assets you’ll need, including pictures, videos, and custom graphics, as well as who will be providing them. If that’s someone else on your team, make sure to request these assets in a timely manner so that person has plenty of time to find or create what you need.

Batch your content

An important step in setting next month’s social media up ahead of time is to batch your content. Rather than creating a new post whenever you happen to need one, batching content consists of setting aside a chunk of time during which you create social media posts in bulk. This can help you be more productive because it allows you to spend time focusing on one task rather than having to constantly switch your focus from one task to another. It also ensures you’ve spent time creating high-quality posts that align with your plan and goals rather than scrambling to come up with something at the last minute. Batching content ensures you have your posts written and ready to publish ahead of time.

Schedule posts ahead of time

You have a lot on your plate; it’s not convenient to have to stop what you’re doing every day to post to social media. Luckily, that doesn’t have to be the case! Just as batching content takes away the need to create a new post every day, scheduling your content takes away the need to manually post something every day. There are a variety of free and paid scheduling apps available, such as Later, Planoly, Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and more.

Oftentimes, the free versions will let you load your content into the scheduler ahead of time, then they’ll send you a notification when it’s time to post your content. You still have to publish it yourself, but most of the work is done for you. Typically with paid plans, you can load and schedule your content ahead of time, and the app will automatically publish your posts for you at the specified time. Both are great ways to easily organize, schedule, and publish your social media content. It also helps answer the question “What should I post today?” – you’ll already know!

 Let Healthy Dash of Social Help

While planning ahead for next month’s social media posts can help you save time, it still requires a bit of work. If you just don’t have the capacity to prepare your content ahead of time (or even if you just don’t feel like doing it!), we can help.

At Healthy Dash of Social, our team of experts is here for all of your social media and marketing needs, from content creation to full social media management and more. Click here to check out our services and schedule your FREE 30-minute chat!