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Wondering how we plan social media content each month? Content planning can feel overwhelming but it doesn’t have to be!
Since we started Duo Collective, we’ve refined our process and have a pretty good system now. This new process brings the strategy piece to social media instead of posting just to post.
That’s not to say that it’s perfect! We don’t always post consistently, and sometimes our posts flop. That’s just how it goes being moms, wives, and business owners!
So grab your coffee, and let’s dive in to learn how to plan social media content.
Scheduling A Monthly Content CEO Day—AKA the best way to plan content
We love a good CEO day! In-person meetings work best for us. We typically meet at one of our houses or a coffee shop to work for the day. We make it fun! Our CEO days are scheduled on our calendars months in advance. Of course, sometimes life happens, and we have to move them, but we can plan for them more effectively by having them on our calendars.
Dedicated time to work on our business, more specifically our social media content, keeps us accountable. Friend, you know how easy it is to push off working on your own business! Scheduled time forces us to sit down and knock out our content! It’s also the easiest way to get everything mapped out, created, and scheduled.
Where We Find Content Ideas (Hint: We’re Always Collecting!)
Thinking of content ideas can be the hardest part! We are always collecting content ideas. If we see something we love, we put it in Notion to revisit on our CEO day or save it in folders on Instagram. So, by the time we actually meet to create content, we have a ton of ideas to work through. That’s so much easier than trying to start from scratch!
Here are some places we find social media content ideas:
- Podcasts
- Webinars
- Repurposing old content
- Client or product features
Mapping Out the Month—What’s Happening and What’s Hot?
Next, we start to map out what’s happening in our business in the coming month. It saves us from the “What should we post today?” panic because we’ve got it all planned out.
In our annual planning meeting, we planned out our marketing strategy for the entire year. So this gives us a big-picture idea of what’s coming up in our business that we want to promote on Instagram.
When we’re creating content for the month, we ask ourselves:
- What’s happening in our business this month?
- Are any launches, promos, or collaborations coming up?
- Are there any fun holidays we can be playful with?
Mapping out when important things in our business come up ensures we promote them effectively. Whether we’re launching SEO on Tap, a new freebie, affiliate partnerships, or a speaking engagement, we have space for them in our content calendar.
This step helps you be consistent on whatever platform you are on. We all know consistency is key, and we talk about that in Episode #54, where we break down strategies to stay motivated on Instagram—because, let’s be real, we’ve all been ready to quit social media at some point during our business!
Brain-Dumping Like a Boss
We came to the meeting with some topics in mind, but we also brainstormed some high-level topic ideas together. Our team is shooting off ideas, and one of us is putting everything into Notion. Our Notion board is FULL of our ideas, good and bad! We purchased a Notion content planning template from our client, Kat, and it’s been amazing!
We eventually have a ton of ideas in Notion. Next, we start to organize our ideas into categories:
- Topic – What are we talking about?
- Content Pillar – Where does this fit in our strategy?
- Post Type – Reel, carousel, static post, story, etc.
- Status – Is this an idea, in progress, or ready to post?
- Notes – Any details to remember?
We focus on the strategy, and our team helps us execute it. Sometimes, they’ll help us write captions, create graphics, or schedule posts in Tailwind. Hiring a team is something we should have done years ago!
Turning Ideas into an Actual Content Plan
Now, it’s finally time to turn brainstormed ideas into a structured content calendar. We know when and where the content will go live, which really reduces our stress about social media. There have been so many times when we’ve spent a ton of time on a reel, and it flops, and it’s so frustrating. A strategy and plan have made us more excited to show up on Instagram.
Pro Tip: Your content calendar doesn’t have to be fancy—it just has to work for you!
The Secret to Never Forgetting a Step
Notion has a tagging system that helps us keep track of the status of our posts. Does it still need a caption, media, or graphic? Is it ready to be scheduled? We can also tag each other when we need something from them.
This format allows us to work ahead so we aren’t scrambling at the last minute to post something. That’s what a plan for social media content is all about. You aren’t stressing about posting something, and everything you post has a purpose behind it.
The Fun Part—Batching Reels Like a Pro
Part of the reason we meet in person for these content planning meetings is so we can batch Reels. We record multiple Reels in one go, add the media file right into Notion, and we’re done. It saves SO much time. We come to the meeting with outfits ready, set-ups prepped, and ideas locked in.
And it doesn’t have to be anything fancy! Showing up as your authentic self can sometimes resonate more with your audience than any strategic post you could create. We’re over the overly staged, perfectly edited, and embarrassing dancing reels. It happened, it’s overdone, and we just want to show up as ourselves.
We talk about this on Episode #26 too, but gone are the days of competing with everyone else for attention. Your ideal audience wants the real you, not a fake Instagram version of yourself.
We hope this episode helps you create a plan for social media content that works well for you! It’s taken us a long time to get this system in place, and it’s working well for us right now. It might change in the future, but adapting and being flexible is part of being an entrepreneur!
If you liked today’s episode on The Duo On Air Marketing Podcast, don’t forget to leave us a review & subscribe!
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
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