- I love that you said, "The Facebook."
- I still do that, it's true.
I'm vintage.
And they'll know if you're just posting
for the sake of posting,
they'll smell it, they'll sense it.
- Welcome to "The Journey."
I'm Nealey.
- And I'm Emma.
And today we're getting organized
with a social media content calendar.
All right, so, let's dive in here.
Tell us a little bit about
what a content calendar is,
and why it's important.
- Great question.
So a content calendar-- - It's all I have.
- Is important,
you have a lot of great questions.
Grillin' me.
So a content calendar is really great
and you can do this in a digital form,
you can do old-fashioned like the one on your fridge,
but actually,
the idea is to look at that calendar
and plan ahead of time your post,
because there's things like holidays,
Father's Day, to Valentine's Day, to you name it,
4th of July, that's a fun one.
- There's a holiday for everything.
There's a Hot Dog Day.
- And then there's the unofficial holidays.
- Pizza Day.
National Barbecue Day.
So by planning ahead, with a content calendar,
where you're writing the dates of the posts
and when you want 'em to go out,
you'll then have content
that's varied, and fresh, and not rushed.
- Absolutely.
So, do you have some tips
to help us create that content calendar?
- Definitely.
So first and foremost, tip number one,
set goals,
which is really important.
I know you talk about this a lot,
with like branding your business.
- Yes.
Goals are huge, they're everything.
It helps you understand like, cool,
if I'm going in the right direction,
am I successful, am I on track?
All these things.
- Exactly.
'Cause otherwise,
how are you gonna measure what you're doing?
So set goals.
So with social media,
do you wanna get more new followers?
Are you looking to get outside of your neighborhood?
Maybe you're gonna expand your reach with your services.
Or maybe that mobile tinting business
that you own is now gonna branch into other cities.
Be more intentional about what you're posting.
And that's gonna help because it's going to inform
what you decide to post that day,
and then help you to resonate with your audience,
'cause that's really important
that you're resonating with your audience, your customers.
Also, think ahead for your event.
Set goals, put it in the calendar,
and it'll help you to get more people excited
and informed about your events
before the events are actually happening.
- I love it.
And it's like you said,
don't just shoot from the hip.
Like I've consulted a few just small businesses,
and when they haven't planned out
or there aren't any posts,
they're just throwing something together,
'cause, "Oh gosh, I haven't posted in four days,
"I need something there,"
and it's just not what they originally would have wanted.
- Exactly.
- All right.
So you've set your goals, now what?
- Next up,
make a monthly calendar.
Think of it in a monthly way.
Commit to maybe a theme that month,
recognize the holidays that are happening
so your posts are timely,
and embrace it.
So what month are you in now?
Embrace it, and get on top of anything that's happening,
events, the timeliness, the holidays,
official and unofficial.
- Can you give us an example
of where you saw a small business
really like take on a theme super well?
- Yes.
Well naturally, I think about pizza,
so the National Pizza Holiday,
which I believe is like,
I dunno, it's in February?
Is it February? - You know the date.
- February 9th.
Okay, February 9th. - Go on and tell 'em.
- I do know.
And a lot of businesses embrace this holiday
by basically saying like, "Come in on this day
"and you get your first slice for free."
And people get so stoked about free stuff,
you don't need to give 'em--
- Especially free pizza.
- Yeah, no need to give 'em a free whole pizza,
just give 'em a slice
and then they'll bring you their friends
and they'll eat more, and spend money,
and they'll feel excited about doing it
because people get really excited about unofficial holidays.
- Oh yeah, definitely, posting all over Instagram.
- Yeah.
What's your favorite?
- Probably pizza.
- No you can't take mine.
- That or cookies.
- Okay, there's probably a holiday for that as well.
- There's a holiday for napping, I'm sure.
- And so you might be thinking, well, I'm not a pizza place,
so how is this relevant to me?
And that's good, you're on the right track.
You don't wanna just celebrate a holiday
just because it's a date on the calendar,
you wanna make sure it's relevant to your business,
but you can also think outside of the box.
You know what else I was thinking about too,
with having that monthly approach, and looking ahead?
- What's that?
- What about if you know you're gonna be closed,
your business?
- Like, just off days, or like, I'm out on vacation?
- Closed for repairs, or closed for vacation,
or closed for, you know, whatever,
you deserve a break once in a while.
Point is, though, you don't want your customers showing up,
like (clicking) knocking on your door
and wondering where are they,
they're usually open at this time
every Friday that I come here?
So planning ahead with that,
so you let your customers know,
give 'em a heads-up over on the Facebook,
or the Instagram, or Twitter, or all three.
- All right.
So we've almost reached the end of our journey,
we've got our last tip for you,
lay it on us, Emma.
- So now the moment you've been all waiting for,
(both cheer)
share compelling content.
That's--
- What does that actually mean?
What's share compelling content?
- So, you know, the kind that gets your audience excited,
because you're adding value to their life.
And they'll know if you're just posting
for the sake of posting,
they'll smell it, they'll sense it.
So don't rush it, 'cause now you have a calendar, you won't,
and you'll think about,
does this actually add value to my audience?
Otherwise, it's not worth posting.
- Right.
So, adding that value is super important,
but what if we hit a roadblock?
Like what are some content that we can create?
- Yeah, think about it this way,
and you probably wanna just jot this down at home
and keep it handy,
'cause we all hit writer's block, even us.
And so maybe break it down in a couple of different ways
to keep the content fresh.
Educational posts,
entertaining posts,
user-generated content,
reviews from your customers,
also maybe you have an update,
a new product that you're selling,
or a new item on your menu,
or maybe you're offering
a whole 'nother type of whitening style
at your dentist.
These are updates that's good to put on there as well,
but you wanna mix it in with those other types of posts,
and that's gonna be again, meaningful,
and add value to your audience,
so they're gonna be eager for your next post,
not dreading. - I love it, right.
And sometimes, even after all of that,
we still hit that writer's block.
What I want you to do, when you've hit that wall,
is start documenting kind of your day-to-day,
like the behind-the-scenes, right?
Start telling your story.
People follow a story.
Like when you go to a movie,
you go to not only to see the ending,
you go for the plot, you go for the story,
go for the character development,
you go for the entire thing.
You can ultimately do that with your business,
and basically let people into the story,
not just the final product.
- I love that.
And I was thinking about,
reminds me of this bakery that I came across and,
you know a lot of us, we just go to the bakery,
we're ready for that pastry,
get your coffee and you're out,
but they did on their Instagram Stories
a behind-the-scenes
of one of their most popular pastries being made,
and it was awesome.
It was behind-the-scenes,
you saw that familiar face,
your favorite staff members at the bakery,
and you got to see a little bit,
without giving away the secrets, of course,
we got to see the process of it.
Another good one,
we were talking about donuts earlier,
but seeing donuts being made,
it's just so fun.
- It's just so fun. (laughs)
Just really anything delicious being made
just makes you hungry and you wanna go in.
Same thing with you,
if you have a cool behind-the-scenes,
show that,
and make people really want
to see that final product for themselves,
and you start adding that to your content calendar,
so on Tuesdays you'll post educational content,
and then Thursdays you post entertaining content.
Maybe Sundays are behind-the-scenes,
however you want to do it,
your content is yours.
- Yeah, and get catchy with it, like "Fun Fact Friday."
- Get catchy with it.
- "Trivia Tuesday."
So big takeaway tip that I want to leave you all with,
while it's important to set goals
and have that content calendar,
and of course post compelling content,
big reminder out there, have fun with it.
All right, that's a wrap.
You've tuned in and you've learned
and you're now motivated to start a calendar
to get your social media ready, organized, and compelling.
Thanks for tuning in.
- Make sure you Like this video,
comment on just your favorite tip.
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This has been "The Journey,"
thanks for watching.