How to Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar

You've hit that mid-year lull, haven't you? That time when, instead of creating social media posts with an objective, you're posting a lot of cat videos. Instead of planning goal-oriented posts that express your personality, appeal to your fans, and move you closer to your business goals, you're re-sharing the tired memes from your friend's feed.

It's all right. The annual social media calendar we created in January can get a little dusty midway through the year. Today, we'll clean that calendar off and give it new life in your monthly social media calendar. A monthly social media calendar allows you to know what you're going to post EVERY DAY!! It helps you balance promotional posts with fun and personal ones, it insures you're talking about themes and topics important to you and your audience, and it focuses you so that your social media posts are moving you toward your goals.

And the time investment for this ease and focus? Only about two hours at the end of each month. Here's how to build your own monthly social media calendar:

Step 1: Write down your list of topics from your annual social media calendar.

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If you created an annual social media calendar, then you already have a list of business goals, content topics, and personal events that you want to focus on in your blog writing, Facebook posts, Instagram photos, and other social media content this month. If you didn't create an annual social media calendar, then make a quick list now of those items.

Should writing this list give you ideas for specific posts, go ahead and write those down now, too. For example, I have "summer entertaining on deck" as one of my topics. I need new outdoor pillows, and I figured it would be a fun Facebook post to quiz my lifestyle-and-home-focused followers about what color scheme they prefer for the deck.

Step 2: List the dates of any business, personal, family, holiday, or fun events you having coming up.

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Use these events to inspire posts. I have a professional organizing client whose college-age son came home for summer break. We used his homecoming to inspire a Facebook post about how to help your almost adult get and stay organized over the summer.

Step 3: Determine the topics and dates of your blog posts for the month.

Your blog post can be the foundation of a week's worth of social media posts. By creating posts that direct traffic to your blog, you are directing eyes to your website, which is property that YOU control. It's great to get Facebook and Twitter love, but traffic that stops there is ultimately benefitting Facebook and Twitter most.

Step 4: For each weekday, decide which social media channel you're going to post to and the overall theme of your social media posts.

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I don't post to every social media channel every day, and I don't require it of my small business clients. Who has the time? Determine which social media channels you're going to post to on which days.

Also, you can insure your social media streams are both useful and entertaining by balancing your business-related and personal/fun posts. Choose now which days you will post "business" posts and which day you will post "entertaining" posts. You don't have rigidly hold to this, but it does help you to remember in case all of your posts are listing to one side.

Step 5: Now, begin to fill in your calendar.

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Fill in your blogs first. As I mentioned, your blog posts can be the inspiration for many of your social media posts that week. The days before you publish your blog, you can build interest by posting a photo or tip as a "teaser." After the blog is published, you can continue promoting it by listing a new fact, thanking the sources mentioned in the blog, or giving a shout out to sites where readers can get more info.

Step 6: Fill in date-specific events.

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Use those book signings, holidays, and special events in your life to create posts that give your audience greater insight into you or connect you with your audience on a larger scale. Post a picture of your Mom on Mother's Day, post a picture of a fan from a book signing, show off your spangly gala dress, and give a thank you to that organization that invited you to speak. Your followers love the peek into your life, and they also love it when you show appreciation!

Step 7: Fill in the rest of the calendar using unused ideas on your list.

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Now that you have the "must-haves" filled in, you can use the rest of your calendar to discuss the "like-to-haves," the topics that are important to you and help define your message. Promoting my wonderful clients, providing tips on social media best practices, and highlighting fun things to do in the D.C.-area are all topics that are important to me and that I'll make sure to include now. Other go-tos to fill in your monthly social media calendar include:

• Ask people to follow you on other social media channel
• Promote other people or services in your community
• Share an article that might appeal to your fans
• Use an easy app like Recite.com to create and post a quote you enjoy
• Post a pic of your pet
• Re-share older blog posts from your website
• Ask your audience a question

Happy calendar building! And feel free to contact me if you need any help!

What's one topic or theme that you're interested in that could make your social media stream distinctive this month? How could you use that topic or theme creatively in a post?

Resolve to Create An Annual Social Media Calendar in 2016

I was honored this week to guest blog at Writers in the Storm, a popular blog named one of the 101 Best Websites for Writers by Writer's Digest for the last two years. Since following through on New Year's resolutions seems to be my theme right now (see last week), I figured I would help these writers with their own social media resolutions. The result: A blog about how to develop an Annual Social Media Calendar. While the article is addressing writers, these steps can be used by anyone hoping to put their best social media foot forward in 2016:

For busy authors -- or anyone building a brand or a business -- one of the most daunting tasks we face every day can be sitting down to post to social media.

"What should I say?" we think. "Who's going to care?"

Wouldn't it be phenomenal to sit down every day knowing exactly what you're going to blog, post, and Tweet? And hitting "enter" with the confidence that what you post will reflect your personality and interests, appeal to your fans and move you toward your business goals?

If you're resolving to do better with your social media in 2016, an annual social media calendar is the key to making your New Year's resolution a reality.

Here's how to build one:

Step 1: Make a list of your business goals for 2016.

While writing is a creative endeavor in the search for truth and beauty, and social media is a wonderful forum for giving virtual hugs to your fans, writing is also a job. Social media is the advertisement. So instead of letting social media pull you away from your job, make it work for you. This list will insure that your business goals for that "creative endeavor" are front and center so that you can integrate them into your social media throughout the year.

Step 2: Make a list of your personal and professional events in 2016.

We can forget to post our special events on social media in the midst of a hectic writer's conference or anniversary vacation. And that's the fun stuff -- the stuff our fans love to hear about. Writing these professional and personal dates down now will allow you to remember them later. Sure, you probably won't forget to promote that new book, but seeing it coming up on your social media calendar will remind you to start building a plan for promotion months ahead of time.

Step 3: List holidays/seasonal events that are important to you.

Scroll through the months. What are nationally recognized days that speak to you? Christmas, Hanukkah, spring break, first day of school, National Doughnut Day? Use these days to connect with your fans and to let them know you have the same excitement about Santa, the same relief about the kids going back to school, and the same interest in candied-bacon doughnuts as they do.

Step 4: Write down 4-5 themes that distinguish you.

Themes are the rocket fuel of your social media calendar. Your themes are what distinguish you, your writing and your philosophies from other authors, and they are what will set your social media posts apart from other posts in a fan's stream. Themes -- you're an animal-loving, travel-seeking rock climber who writes sexy small-town contemporaries and loves men in kilts -- give your fans something to hang onto. Staying consistent with your themes gives you a foundation from which you can grow an audience that loves you.

My themes in my annual social media calendar are:

• Social Media/Writing -- Of course.
• Being "In Between" -- Issues of being in my 40s: old enough to have a senior in high school and young enough to still like going to live music shows.
• Ways I Can Help -- How I'm a strategic thinker, storyteller, cheerleader and accountability partner for my clients.
• Fun in D.C. -- Tips on best restaurants, drinks, events and outdoor activities in the D.C. area.
• Community -- Applauding and promoting clients, friends, writers, advice givers and others I admire.

I have a vineyard-owner client whose themes are:

• Evolution of a Vineyard -- Discussing the evolution of this relatively new vineyard.
• The Growing Season -- Tracking the annual cycle of the Pinot Noir vines from pruning to harvest.
• Russian River Valley Winegrowers -- Supporting the winemakers and growers of their area.
• Around the Vineyard -- Celebrating the gophers, family visits, new barn doors and bocce ball games of living on a vineyard.
• To Dos in the Russian River Valley -- Promoting the people, wines, geography and events of Russian River Valley in Sonoma County.

Think big picture when you're developing your themes. Make sure your themes include a mix of professional and personal interests, and -- because social media is "social" -- make sure at least one of your themes focuses on promoting others.

Here are some questions to help you decide your themes:

• What are your books about?
• What do you like to do in your free time?
• What did you study in school?
• How would your friends describe you? 
• Is there a cause or charity that you're passionate about?
• Do you have any hobbies?
• What do you day dream about?
• Are there community or writer organizations that you want to support?

Step 5: Build your template.

This step is easy. Click here, fill in your email, and you'll receive the above template to build your annual social media calendar.

Step 6: Enter your business goals at the top of the template under "General."

Installing these goals at the top will insure that they are top of mind as you're developing your social media plan of attack for each month. Make sure your goals are accomplishable within a month (you are only human and you need to sleep), and break large goals, like "Finish a book", into manageable monthly bites, like "Write 20,000 words."

Step 7: Enter your themes on the side of the template.

I like to include details about the themes that will jog ideas when I'm filling it in later.

Step 8: Enter your "Events" at the bottom.

Step 9: Fill in the blanks.

Now you will use your themes as a guide for coming up with content ideas for the rest of the year. Wha...?! I know, sounds daunting. But it's easier than you think. And a little blood, sweat and tears now will prevent you from having to bleed, sweat and cry EVERY TIME you sit down to post for the REST OF THE YEAR.

1. Keep your ideas general. This is just your annual calendar. Your ideas can get more specific when you work on your monthly calendar (more on that later). For example, if you love to cook and one of your themes is "Eating Healthy," a February idea could be "Cooking with root vegetables." What will be in the pot? Who knows? But seeing it on your calendar will help focus you when the time comes.

2. Connect the holidays/seasonal events you listed with a theme that focuses on you personally. My "In Between" theme allows me to talk about my personal life. So in it I will talk about my New Year's resolutions in January, Mother's Day in May, the fact that this will be the first Father's Day without my Dad in June, and my son going off to college in August. Connecting my life events to the holidays and seasons gives "me" a platform to talk about "us."

3. Find a category and stick with it. A writer who writes stories about sexy ski bums could fill his social media feed with pictures of awesome ski resorts. He could highlight a different ski area -- Colorado, California, Switzerland, Chile -- every month. A writer who loves to objectify the male body -- I know I do -- can focus on a different body part every month. Like I said, this does not have to be difficult.

4. Don't re-invent the wheel. I have a professional organizing client who uses online tools like Dropbox and Evernote to help people eliminate the paper clutter in their lives. So guess what? In January, she spotlights tips on how to use Evernote. In February, she offers tips on Dropbox. In March, it's another tool, then another and another, until July comes around and we start with Evernote again. Offer information that you already have and don't be afraid to repeat yourself.

Step 10: Putting your annual social media calendar to work.

Your annual social media calendar will:

• Insure you're hitting all of your business goals by highlighting a goal every month 
• Provide you with blogging ideas that enrich the message of your website 
• Guarantee that your day-to-day social media posts communicate a consistent message of who you are as a writer 
• Remind you of important events to insure you're posting and promoting them 
• Provide an outline for your monthly social media calendar

Pantsers can take a look at their annual social media calendar whenever they're stuck and instantly have a social media idea to get them back on track. Plotters can use their annual social media calendar to fill out their monthly social media calendars, a day-by-day listing of what they're going to blog and post about so they'll never have to wonder. But THAT is for another blog post (or you can contact me for more info).

May your social media posts be easy and fruitful in 2016! 

Don't forget to sign up for your free annual social media calendar template.

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What is one social media challenge you'd like to conquer in 2016? Let me know in the comments section.