#PlanAhead – How to Select the Holidays for Your Editorial Calendar that Reflects Your Brand Culture

You’ve probably seen people, and companies, post holiday graphics on their social media pages. Often, it’s their way of wishing you a Happy New Year or getting excited about fireworks on the 4th of July with you. Sometimes, it’s a silly holiday involving food, or animals, or something completely nonsensical.

Why do businesses post holiday graphics on their social media pages?

Easy. People love them.

Your audience is inclined to engage with a holiday post because

  1. It’s fun.
  2. You aren’t selling them anything.

You are simply sharing a moment with someone else and you aren’t requiring your audience to take action. Not only will they be happy to like or comment on your post, if it’s done well, they’ll also share it with their audience.

This is good news for businesses trying to get around algorithm challenges. Why? Well, each time a follower engages with one of your posts, it’s telling the algorithm that they like that sort of content (and your page) and it should send them more of your content. That’s a win/win/win. You’re happy, the follower is happy, and the algorithm is being trained to deliver more content tailored to your audience’s interests.

Where can you go to find some options so you can make a plan for the new year to create posts around holidays that mean something to you?

There are lots of places to go, but we recommend DaysOfTheYear.com. This site is not only beautiful, it is also easy to navigate. You can see holidays based on today or a specific month. We like to go month to month and hand pick holidays that we think our audience will enjoy. It’s loaded with tons of good options and, if you set aside a couple of hours this month, you could have a list of holidays for next year ready to go!

Keep in mind that some holidays change so just because it’s on a specific day this year, it could be different next year. For example, if the holiday you chose is always on the 2nd Saturday of the month, you’ll have to come back and check each day next year in order to be accurate.

Don’t go crazy with the holidays either. One to five a month is more than enough. Your content needs to be about more than silly occasions. Also, keep your brand in mind when choosing holidays. Does it resonate with the business you are trying to build?

Happy hunting! We can’t wait to engage with your holiday content this year.

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+YouTubePinterestInstagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media TrainingSpeaking and Strategy Consultations.

#PlanAhead – How Monthly Themes Will Keep Your Content Fresh & Current

Our advice for 2020? Don’t wing your social media marketing!

There aren’t enough words to adequately describe how beneficial it is to start the new year with a social media marketing plan. One of the best ways to do that is to sit down and figure out a content theme for each month of the year.

Monthly Themes

For example, if you are a carpet cleaning business, your themes could look like this:

  1. Clean Carpets in Winter
  2. Babies Need a Clean Carpet
  3. Clean Carpets & Family Health
  4. Should You Invest in a Carpet Protector?
  5. How Often Should You Clean Your Carpets?
  6. Carpet Cleaning Tips for Pet Owners
  7. What’s Lingering in Your Carpet?
  8. What to Look for When Investing in New Carpet
  9. Carpet Cleaning Myths
  10. Getting Your Home Ready for the Holidays
  11. Putting Together a Household Cleaning Schedule
  12. The Benefits of Regular Carpet Cleaning

This simple list gives you a whole year’s worth of content to talk about on your social media platforms. We’d also encourage you to create original content with these themes such as videos, blog posts, or podcasts. Original content can then be repurposed into social media content (such as quotes and tips) and email newsletters.

If coming up with twelve topics is intimidating or hard, spend some time researching your industry online. Seek out publications, blogs, or other websites to get inspired and see what others in your industry are talking about. Check out last week’s blog on how to not run out of things to say in social media for more tips.

Weekly Themes

If you are ambitious, we’d recommend breaking this down even further. You can take your monthly theme and break that down into weekly topics.

For example, if you are a Reiki practitioner, you could have a month of content that looks like this:

Monthly Theme: Reiki Energy for Busy People

Week 1: Reiki for Stress Relief

Week 2: Reiki for Better Sleep

Week 3: Reiki for Focus & Clarity

Week 4: Reiki for Energy Boosts

Setting aside a couple of days a year to focus on being strategic about your content will ensure that you always have something to post for your social media marketing efforts. It will also keep you from repeating yourself too frequently or having stale content.

If you’d like help creating themes, or becoming more consistent with your social media marketing in 2020, let’s chat!

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+YouTubePinterestInstagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media TrainingSpeaking and Strategy Consultations.

#BePrepared – How to Repurpose Your Content in Social Media

How long does it take you to write a really compelling blog post? Three hours? Four? More than that?

And what happens once you’ve posted it? Does it just sit there and languish, all of that effort wasted?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could take that content and repurpose it in other ways? Maybe get it in front of a different audience?

Well . . . why can’t you?

When you write a stellar blog post and you KNOW that it’s useful to your audience, why not share it across the board?

Keep reading for our favorite ways to take those old blog posts and repurpose them for social media, so you can get the most bang for your online marketing buck!

  1. Create graphics. Take short snippets of useful information from blog posts and turn them into quote graphics or take a list and turn it into an infographic. It’s a fun new way to display the same content and (as an added bonus) visual content often drives higher engagement than text alone.
  2. Build a social campaign. If you have a blog that includes a TON of useful information, you can easily break it down into parts and share each one as a separate social media post. Let your audience know that there is more to come and share a new tip or snippet each day. It will get them hooked and keep them coming back for more.
  3. Utilize your newsletter. It would be nice if everyone in your audience always logged on to read your new blogs, but that’s just not the case. Use your newsletter to get in front of fresh eyes by including links to your blog, writing up summaries of new content, or even sending out a “Top 10” curated list of your favorite posts.
  4. Get ‘em hooked on Twitter. Love a good one-liner? Consider Twitter. There, you can take the most impactful quotes, statistics, and facts from your blog posts and share them as punchy little snippets. Phrase them in a way that leaves your audience dying for more and, of course, link back to the original content.

You put a lot of time and effort into your blog posts. It seems silly to just slap them up on your website and then ignore them. By repurposing your content for social media and other outlets, you can gain a new audience and improve your ROI.

If you need help with brand engagement or building a presence on social media, consider our Social Power Program. We’ll give you all the strategies you need to get your business started on the road to online success.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+YouTubePinterestInstagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media TrainingSpeaking and Strategy Consultations.


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