Creating a content plan for your business can seem stressful at times. Content on social media, blogs, and on your website is so important for your business strategy. If you want people to buy your products and services, you want to catch their attention! Creating a content plan will help you to do this easily and efficiently. This article will give you tips to help you create a content plan for your business.
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What Should Be In a Content Plan?
When creating an online presence, you always want to start out with your content plan. Before you lay out what you are going to do in small steps, make some overarching goals. What are you trying to accomplish with your website? What do you want to accomplish with your social media profiles? You will want to set some goals. Some simple goals are things like: how many followers you would like to have by a certain date or how many posts you’d like to put out each week. These should be achievable, measurable goals that will influence your team to create good content.
Once you have the main goals, you can also put into practice smaller, even simpler goals that will help accomplish those. Assigning people to do certain things within the company can help make these things easy to complete. As you complete goals, keep track of them and see what things get done and which ones do not. Keeping track will help you to see your progress as well!
Website Content Plan
When creating a content plan for your website, you will want to focus on a few different parts of it. Consider what kind of design you are looking for, and how new content will be placed on the site. If you just have a standard home page, look for ways to change it over time. What kinds of rotating information will you place on the site? Schedule times of year to change the website and when you want to make use of certain promotions. Adding news to your website for product updates, exciting news, and community outreach are great ways to keep it fresh.
If you have a blog, make a plan for how often you will post content. Using a blog is an amazing way to keep your website relevant. When you make a blog a part of your content plan, decide what your next posts will be about. Decide things for each month of the year as well, for example: creating a Mother’s Day post for May. Plan ahead so that you never run out of ideas, and you will never get behind!
Facebook Content Plan
When creating content for social media, the strategy is a little different. First of all, you will need much more visual posts. You need professionally styled and high-quality photographs if you want people to notice your content. You also need to make sure that whatever you are posting is not too long or boring. Facebook is a place where people scroll, and you need to keep that in mind. Make sure to keep your captions concise! As you cater to people’s short attention span on social media, you will find more interest. While you make your Facebook content plan, keep that in mind.
YouTube Content Plan
Obviously, YouTube is a unique place when it comes to creating content. You need professionally done videos if you want to place content here. Luckily, this is becoming easier as technology progresses. Making a content plan for YouTube is not for beginners! You will want to have some experience before creating this. It helps to have a social media content plan first, so you can use the YouTube videos you create in social media posts as well.
Creating a content plan for YouTube needs to be specific so that you know exactly what kinds of videos you are going to make and post. You also need a schedule of when you will be posting them. Make videos about your products, services, customer reviews, and even discounts or promotions you are doing. There are lots of options, and making the right kind of videos will help you get the right kind of customers coming in.
Content Marketing Plan
Using your content to market is the point of making a content plan! You want people to see your company and buy your products. Your marketing team can and should be involved in your content planning. You want your content to point towards your product and your business. You also need your development team to be a part of making these plans, as they will be producing the actual content. As you create content, you will need to have marketing discussions on evaluating and making modifications to your plans. This will help you to analyze and make decisions on what is working best for your business. If something isn’t working, make a change! Focus on your goals you made when you first created your content plans, and make those your highest priority when making changes.
Content Calendar Plans
The most important part of content planning is deciding the “how,” but it is useless without the “when”. Making your content calendar is so key to developing an online presence. If you aren’t making plans of exactly when you will be posting your content, you might forget or deadlines will be pushed back. Leaving things stagnant in the online world is never a good strategy. You need to keep things moving to stay in people’s feeds on social media and in their minds when they search the web. Staying on track in your calendar will help you to complete that.
How to Create a Content Calendar
There are several online sites that can create a content calendar for you. There are some sites, like Later, specifically made for social media. When choosing a content calendar site, look for one that will give you reminders or even post for you. If you already have a calendar system that works well for your company, incorporate the content calendar into the one you already use. This can help you boost efficiency, as you have already become accustomed to that style of calendar. You won’t forget to check it or keep track of what you’re supposed to be posting or creating.
Organizing yourself is the best way to stay ahead of what you are trying to accomplish in your content goals. Decide what you will be posting and when you will be posting it, and update your schedule as you go. You will see your online presence grow!
Keep Things Consistent
One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is creating a content plan and then being inconsistent. You need to make your goals and stick to them. Things like times that you post can change over time, but you need to decide how committed you want to be very early on. You also need to keep your tone the same, and make sure you are keeping your company’s standards and statements in line.
There are a few ways you can mess up your social media marketing. For example, you don’t want to post saying “Check out our new fitness equipment”, when it isn’t new at all, and you posted about it a few years prior. People notice things like that, and they won’t trust your company. You also need to ensure your statements don’t conflict with each other, like posting “our products are eco-friendly” and then saying “our products are wrapped in plastic bags”. Keep it consistent, and always check for typos!
Content Plans and You
Just remember, you don’t need to take all of this on yourself. There are companies out there, like SEO Design Chicago, who can manage content creation and posting for you. You can even try doing it yourself, and if it gets overwhelming, hire someone to do it for you. Many business owners are already trying to run their business and don’t have time to manage their online presence on their own. If you have a team handling it, great! If not, make sure you don’t spread yourself too thin. And if you find yourself falling behind in your content calendar, make some adjustments.
You could also manage one part of your content plan, and create content just for your website or one social media site, then delegate other responsibilities to other members of your team. You could also hire someone just for social media management and do the rest yourself. The possibilities are endless! That is part of the reason why content plans are so important: they can be so flexible and fit your style.
How Do I Get Started With a Content Plan?
Creating a content plan can be easy once you set your goals. Follow the tips in this article, and be genuine. Focus on your strengths as a company and show them off online! As you create an online presence, you will be surprised how quickly your sales can improve and your company will grow. Planning is always a good thing when it is done right, so get started! Making a content plan will be the perfect first step for your company.
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