Can you believe we’re already starting a brand-new year?! January for us at Get Community means getting back into the swing of things and implementing new strategies for the year – ideas of which are born from coming together as a team, drinking a lot of coffee, and figuring out how we can boost our content game in 2019.
You’re probably thinking, “Who has time to plan out content for an ENTIRE year?” Trust us when we say that sitting down and creating outlines for everything you want to accomplish will only help you be more effective, thoughtful, and super productive in the future.
Here are six planning tips to help you get started:
What are your goals?
First things first, you should ALWAYS start by figuring out what you want your overall goals to be for the coming year. Is it to boost engagement? Create more campaigns? Start a blog? Create more video content? Whatever your aspirations may be, lay them all on the table and go from there.
Since we market via social media, two of our biggest goals/burning questions every year are: 1.) What are some creative ways we can boost engagement for each of our clients? 2.) How can we strengthen the brand voice for each client?
Once you solidify your goals, then your team can stay on track and your meeting will have direction. ?
What totally ROCKED and what majorly flopped?
You’ve got your goals written out on your vision board, now it’s time to figure out how to accomplish them. To help you figure out what kind of content you should be creating, we suggest looking at what’s going on behind the scenes, (a.k.a checking the stats!).
When it comes to tracking posts, we turn to our very own analytics guru to give us the 4-1-1 on what type of posts got a lot of traffic in the previous year, and which ones didn’t get any love. Is the audience responding well to videos? What kind of pictures are getting the most likes? Which blog topics do people love reading about?
When you have these questions answered, then you can start cranking out your brilliant ideas!
What exactly are you trying to say?
Whether you’re marketing for clients or for your own business, it’s important to know the overall message that you’re trying to get out there, and how to make that message clear to your audience.
Our clients have very specific target audiences and brand messaging, so it’s essential for our team to convey them in the right way and on the right platforms. For example, a strategy we like doing every year is coming up with specific themes for each client, and implementing their message in fun and creative ways. Themes can help keep your posts fresh and original, rather than beating your readers over the head with the same verbiage.
Let’s say you’re trying to sell ice cream and your overall message is “The perfect treat for every season.” When you’re planning out your themes for the year, they could look something like this:
January: this month we’ll post about ice cream flavors with less calories.
February: this month we’ll post about ice cream flavors we LOVE!
March: this month we’ll post about favorite ice cream flavors that are the color green.
You get the gist. ?
We love using this method for our clients, and maybe it could work for you too!
Who’s the best person for the job?
Part of successful content planning is also figuring out who should be focusing on what task. If you want to launch a blog in 2019, who’s the best person to write it? Ready to start shooting videos for your YouTube channel? Who’s going to be in them? This is a great opportunity for everyone to take a stab at trying something new, or getting to do something that they are excited about!
Create an editorial calendar
Once you have your goals, themes, and tasks distributed, it’s time to wrap it all up in a pretty little package to present to your clients or decision makers. Here are some cool examples to check out: http://prsecrets.com/free/Fisher_EditorialCalendars_2014.pdf
It’s also good to lay it out all out in a template and print a copy for everyone on the team, that way they can refer to it all year long and stay on track!
JUST DO IT
If there’s one thing to take away from reading this, is that you should JUST DO IT. It may take some time, but it’s 100 percent worth it. Have everyone look at their calendars and set the date to hash it all out.
Not feeling inspired in the office? Go to your favorite coffee shop or restaurant and brainstorm over some great food. Make a fun day out of it and order in! You can’t go wrong with donuts and bagels. ?
Happy Planning!
