7 Simple Steps to Plan Out Your 2018 Social Media Content Calendar

Do you often stress about what to post on social media? Yup, we’ve been there! So we’ve mapped out these 7 simple steps to plan out your 2018 social media content calendar to make it easy peasy for you to get ahead of the game. You got this!

And because we like you so much, we’ve even created an awesome 2018 social media content calendar with all the national holidays, international days, and social media days – so you never miss another National Donut Day again.

But first, here are the steps to get you planning!

Step 1. Pick Your Platforms
The first thing you’ll need to do is determine which social media platforms you’re going to post on.

Our tip is to focus on building and growing only two to three platforms.

It’s hard to be everywhere all at once!

Take a look at your current analytics to see where your audience is and where your audience is most engaged.

For most of you, you already know where you should be and what platforms you need to pay more attention to.

It’s mostly about focusing on those and being consistent. Eek, that’s the real hard part!

Step 2. Determine Your Frequency
Figure out how many times you’ll be posting on each platform. For social media, it’s best practice to at post on each platform at least once daily.

For Instagram, we recommend posting at least once on your feed and several times in your Stories. If you’re really trying to grow your account, make it twice a day. But keep in mind that this needs to be every, single day.

For Facebook, we recommending posting on your business page at least once per day and also posting and keeping engagement in your Facebook group day. Keep in mind that only 2-5% on average of the people who like your Facebook business page see it, so it’s not a platform that we would focus on unless you’re doing a LOT of live video and you have an advertising budget.

For Facebook groups, only 30-40% of your group members see your posts – so don’t put all your eggs in that basket either.

For Twitter, we recommend several tweets per day. Depending on your niche, you may want to really build this platform. For us, we don’t really focus on Twitter anymore.

Think of it this way, if you’re posting once a day, let’s just say for Instagram, then you’ll need around 30 posts per month.

If you plan out your shoots accordingly and do a few per month, you should be able to get 30 pieces of content.

Now we do recommend not posting the same content on all your platforms because why would your followers follow you on each platform if you’re spewing out the same content?

Make sure each platform has different types of content so your followers have a reason to be there.

Step 3. Categorize Your Content
Choose at least 7-9 content categories based on your niche. Break those down into smaller sub-categories. This will help you come up with content ideas.

For example, if your niche is fitness, you can break these down into categories such as food, workouts, active wear, etc. You can then break “food” down into sub categories such as breakfasts, lunch, snacks, dinners, etc.

Another example is if your niche is travel, your categories can be budget trips, hotels, where to eat, countries, etc. Sub-categories can include money-saving hacks, cheap/luxury places to stay, cheap/fancy places to eat, cities, etc.

Try to come up with as many content categories as you can. This will make it much easier to come up with actual post ideas later.

Step 4. Choose Your Themes
It’s easier to create and plan your 2018 social media content when you have themes. This can be per quarter, per month, based on holidays and events that are relevant to your niche.

For example, if you’re a lifestyle influencer, January can be “Fitness” month. February can be “Beauty” and so on. It makes it easier to plan your content if you have themes.

You can also have a theme for each day of the week based on trending hashtags such as:

Monday –  #motivationmonday

Tuesday – #tuesdaytip or #traveltuesday

Wednesday – #wcw (woman crush Wednesday)

Thursday – #tbt (throwback Thursday)

Friday – #fbf (flashback Friday)

Sticking to a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly theme will help your produce and plan your content more efficiently.

Step 5. Brainstorm
Write down all your post ideas based on your categories and themes. Schedule a few hours at the minimum to do this and get your creativity juices going.

Start with the first category and break it down into sub-categories. Then break those sub-categories down to actual post ideas.

For example, if you are a food influencer you can look at your schedule based on what restaurants you’re going to go to. While you’re at the restaurant, you’ll take several photos that you can use for more than one day’s worth of content.

Perhaps you’ll repurpose photos from that one restaurant for a #tbt or if you have a pasta-themed month.

By getting organized ahead of time, you can look at opportunities to repurpose content and use them on more than one occasion.

Step 6. Choose Your Format
Once you’ve listed down your content ideas, decide which format their going to be in.

Will you be posting photos or video?

Will you be creating your own shareable quote images?

Depending on what you choose to create, you’ll need to schedule out time to create that content.

What we’ve found to be super helpful in creating content consistently is the batching technique. Batching is a method where you group similar tasks together.

For example, if you are going to do a photoshoot you can do one with 10 different looks. That way you can stock up on photos that you will post in the following weeks.

This same method of batching can be applied to creating shareable quote images, filming videos, writing blog posts, scheduling social media posts, etc.

Step 7. Plan & Plot
Next, decide when you’re content is going to go up.

Go back to your themes and organize your content.

Once you know when things are going to be published, work backwards to give yourself enough time to produce the content.

It’s best to be a month ahead or more if you can.

You will feel so much better once you’re ahead and you’re not playing “catch-up.”

Imagine what it would be like if your content was planned for the next 30 days and all you have to do is spend time on posting it and engaging?

Wouldn’t that be awesome!

Well here’s my gift to you! I’ve created a 2018 Social Media Calendar with all the holidays, international and national days, and events. This includes pop-culture events such as Fashion Week, awards shows and more! 

Click here to download your free 2018 Social Media Calendar now!