How to Build a Social Media Planner and Automate?
Are you struggling to keep up with your social media posting schedule? Do the demands of managing multiple platforms and engaging your audience leave you feeling overwhelmed? If so, you’re not alone. Many individuals and businesses grapple with the challenges of social media management. The good news is, you’ve come to the right place.
In this blog, we’ll walk you through the process of building an effective social media planner and show you how to automate it using RecurPost – a user-friendly social media management tools designed to simplify your social media journey. Say goodbye to the hassles of manual posting, content organization, and tracking performance.
We’ll guide you step by step, using straightforward language and practical examples, to tackle your social media pain points head-on. Let’s dive in and transform your social media strategy!
Getting Started with Social Media Planning
When it comes to effective social media planning, the initial steps are critical. By setting the right foundation, you’ll pave the way for a successful social media strategy.
A. Define Your Social Media Goals and Objectives
Your social media journey should always begin with clear, well-defined goals and objectives. Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve with your social media presence? Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, boost sales, or enhance customer engagement? Defining your goals helps you stay focused and measure your success accurately.
Example:
Let’s say you run a small bakery and your goal is to increase online orders. Your social media objective could be to double your monthly online sales within the next six months.
B. Identify Your Target Audience and Platforms
Understanding your audience is paramount for creating a social media planner. Who are your ideal customers? What are their interests, demographics, and online behaviour? Identifying your target audience allows you to tailor your content and choose the right social media platforms where your audience is most active.
Example:
If you’re a fashion brand targeting young adults interested in sustainable fashion, platforms like Instagram and TikTok might be more effective than LinkedIn.
C. Conduct a Social Media Audit
Before diving into planning, it’s essential to assess your current social media presence. Conduct a social media audit to evaluate your existing profiles, content, and engagement levels. This audit will help you identify what’s working, what needs improvement, and where you might be missing opportunities.
Example:
During your audit, you discover that your Instagram posts receive higher social media engagement when you feature behind-the-scenes content. This insight can inform your future content strategy.
D. Develop a Content Strategy
A well-crafted content strategy is the backbone of your social media marketing. It outlines the types of content you’ll create, the topics you’ll cover, and how often you’ll post. Your content strategy should align with your goals, target audience, and the platforms you’ve chosen.
Example:
If your bakery’s goal is to increase online orders, your content strategy might include sharing high-quality images of your baked goods, customer testimonials, and special promotions on your chosen platforms.
By taking these foundational steps, you’ll be well on your way to building a robust social media content planner.
These elements work together to ensure that your efforts are focused, your content is relevant, and your audience is engaged. In the following sections, we’ll delve deeper into the practical aspects of executing your social media strategy using RecurPost.
Introduction to RecurPost
RecurPost is a versatile social media scheduling tool that offers a range of features designed to streamline your social media posting. Here’s an overview of its key capabilities:
- Content Library Organization: RecurPost allows you to categorize and organize your content systematically. This feature ensures that your posts are well-structured and adhere to your content strategy, making it easier to maintain consistency.
- Content Recycling: Evergreen content can be scheduled to be reposted at specified intervals. This feature extends the life of your best-performing posts, keeping your audience engaged over time.
- Custom Scheduling: You have complete control over your posting schedule. RecurPost lets you set up a customized posting schedule based on your audience’s peak activity times, optimizing your reach and engagement.
- Bulk Content Upload: Save valuable time by uploading multiple posts in a single batch. RecurPost’s bulk upload feature simplifies the process of scheduling content in advance, especially useful for planning campaigns or themed content weeks.
- RSS Feeds Integration: Keep your social media profiles fresh with industry news and trends by seamlessly integrating RSS feeds into RecurPost. This feature automates content sharing from trusted sources, positioning you as a reliable source of information.
- Analytics and Reporting: Gain insights into post performance through detailed analytics. RecurPost’s analytics tools provide data on engagement metrics, helping you make informed decisions and fine-tune your strategy.
- Social Inbox: Manage all your social media messages and comments from different platforms within the RecurPost dashboard. Streamlining communication saves time and ensures you never miss an important interaction with your audience.
- AI-Powered Post Ideas: RecurPost offers a GPT-powered assistant to generate post ideas. This AI-driven feature helps you brainstorm content ideas when you’re running low on inspiration, ensuring your content remains fresh and engaging.
- AI Best Time Schedules: Let RecurPost’s AI determine the optimal times to post for maximum engagement. This feature takes the guesswork out of scheduling and ensures your content reaches your audience when they are most active.
- Canva Integration: Create visually appealing posts directly within the RecurPost dashboard using Canva integration. This seamless connection simplifies the design process and allows you to schedule your creations with ease.
Why RecurPost is a valuable tool for social media management
- Efficiency Redefined: RecurPost’s automation features significantly reduce the time and effort required for social media management. It simplifies posting and content creation, allowing you to focus on strategic planning.
- Consistency Matters: Maintaining a consistent posting schedule is a hallmark of successful social media strategies. RecurPost ensures your content is delivered regularly, even during your off-hours.
- Maximized Content Value: Content recycling means your evergreen posts continue to engage both new and existing followers. This can lead to increased reach, engagement, and conversions over time.
- Data-Driven Insights: RecurPost’s analytics provide actionable data, helping you understand what resonates with your audience. This empowers you to make data-driven decisions to refine your strategy.
- User-Friendly Interface: RecurPost’s intuitive dashboard makes it accessible for users of all levels. You don’t need to be a social media expert to harness its power effectively.
Setting Up Your RecurPost Account
A. Signing up for RecurPost
RecurPost offers a free trial using which you can connect and manage all your social profiles. No doubt, the first step will be to sign up for a RecurPost account. You just need to go to recurpost.com and create your account for free. You’ll only be required to enter your email address, name, and choose a plan to get started with your scheduling journey.
B. Connecting your social media accounts
After creating your account, you will be taken to the dashboard. From here, you will be able to manage your social accounts as well as content libraries. On the dashboard, you will see the button saying ‘Add social accounts’.
Click on the ‘Add social accounts’ button and a pop-up window will appear. You can add any account by clicking on the respective button and following the steps. RecurPost might ask you to give certain permissions in order to post on your account. Don’t worry, no personal information or login credentials will be saved or used by RecurPost. Click on ‘Allow’ and your social accounts will be connected. This seamless connection process allows you to easily manage multiple social media accounts.
Creating a Social Media Content Library
Your social media content library serves as the repository for all your posts, making it easier to manage, schedule, and recycle content efficiently. In this section, we’ll explore how to create and organize your content library using the RecurPost social media planner tool.
A. Organizing your content into libraries
RecurPost creates 3 libraries by default when you sign up. You can use them or delete them and create new ones. To create a new library, go to the ‘Recurring Posts’ tab and click on the ‘Add new library’ button in the bottom left corner.
While creating a library, you need to set three things:
- Name of the library: Give your library a meaningful name so as to make it easier to identify it and quickly grasp the type of content that’s stored in it.
- Color of the library: You can also add custom colors to your libraries depending on the content they store or the social platform they are made for. For instance, “Facebook posts” could be blue, and “Instagram posts” could be purple.
- One-time use or Recurring library: In case you don’t want to post your updates recurringly i.e. in repeating cycles, you can choose to create a ‘One-time use library’. Updates in this library once posted, will expire and not be used recurringly.
Keep in mind that the updates you add in a one-time-use library are not recurring in nature and will expire once posted on your social accounts. Once you have set these details up, go ahead and click ‘Add Library’. Your library is now created! Go ahead and fill it up with new content!
B. Adding content to your RecurPost library
Inside the library, you will find a lot of options to add recurring updates. You can add a single update, add images/text/link posts in bulk, add content through a CSV/Excel file, import content from a social account, or set up an RSS feed.
Once your account and libraries are set-up, you will have the option of adding one-off posts that will be released only once, or you can create updates for repeated use that will go out multiple times in the future.
Go to your dashboard and click on “share a post box”, from there you will create your one-off post.
Once you open the box where you can create an update, you will have the option of adding in all details about your update. You need to add the message or the description, it can be a link or text. There is also the option of adding media like images, GIFs, and videos. The latest integration of RecurPost with Canva will make your job of finding good quality images easier than you can imagine.
Once all the details are added, choose the social accounts on which you want to post. There is an icon with an eye in the bottom right corner, if you want to see how your post looks before posting, click on that. You will get an exact preview of what is to go live soon.
Now, let’s say you want to add the update to your library for later use or editing, you have the ability to do so by clicking on the “repeat this post” button. This will copy your one-off post to your selected libraries and it will get published as per how those libraries are scheduled.
Once you are done with all of that, it’s finally time to put your post on a schedule. You can do this by selecting the “schedule update” button and then adding in the preferred date and time for posting. All your posts will be published on your accounts as per the schedules.
Creating and Scheduling Social Media Posts
A. Building your posting schedule
- Strategic Timing: To maximize the impact of your social media posts, it’s crucial to establish a posting schedule that aligns with your target audience’s online habits. RecurPost can help you find the best times to post through its AI-driven recommendations.
- Consistency: Consistency is key in social media. RecurPost enables you to set up a consistent posting schedule through social media bulk scheduling, ensuring that your audience knows when to expect new content from you.
- Customization: Customize your posting schedule based on the unique preferences of each social media platform. For instance, you might post more frequently on Twitter than on LinkedIn.
- Queue Management: Utilize RecurPost’s queue system to maintain a steady flow of content. You can add posts to your queues, and RecurPost will automatically publish them according to your schedule.
B. Crafting engaging and shareable content
- Audience-Centric Approach: Always keep your target audience in mind when creating content. Understand their interests, pain points, and aspirations to craft content that resonates.
- Visual Appeal: Visual content often performs exceptionally well on social media. Use images, videos, and infographics to convey your message effectively.
- Compelling Copy: Your captions and text should be concise, engaging, and relevant to your post. Use storytelling techniques to draw your audience in.
- Call to Action (CTA): Encourage interaction by including clear CTAs in your posts. Whether it’s asking for likes, shares, comments, or clicks, CTAs guide your audience’s next steps.
C. Using RecurPost's post creation tools
- Canva Integration: Take advantage of RecurPost’s integration with Canva to design eye-catching graphics and images directly within the platform. This feature simplifies the design process and ensures your visuals are optimized for each platform.
- GPT-Powered Assistant: If you ever find yourself in need of content ideas, RecurPost’s GPT-powered assistant can provide inspiration. It generates post ideas based on your preferences, making it easier to diversify your content.
Simply toggle on the option of “Share a post using AI” while creating a post from your dashboard.
D. Scheduling posts for optimal times
AI Recommendations: RecurPost’s AI-driven algorithms analyze your audience’s behavior and suggest the best times to post for maximum engagement. This feature takes the guesswork out of scheduling. While scheduling a post, simply toggle on the option for ‘Auto-schedule for best time.’
- Time Zones: If your audience is spread across different time zones, RecurPost helps you schedule posts accordingly. You can target specific regions and ensure your content reaches the right people at the right times.
- Weekday vs. Weekend: Consider your audience’s activity patterns. RecurPost allows you to schedule posts for weekdays, weekends, or specific days of the week when your audience is most active.
Automating Your Social Media Planner
A. Bulk uploading content
- Efficiency with Bulk Upload: When you have multiple posts to schedule at once, RecurPost’s bulk upload feature is a time-saving gem.
- How It Works: Create a spreadsheet or CSV file with the details of your posts, including captions, images, and scheduling times. Then, use RecurPost’s bulk upload tool to import the file. You can also download a sample CSV file to get an idea of the details required.
- Review and Adjust: After bulk uploading, review your scheduled posts to ensure everything looks perfect. You can make adjustments as needed within RecurPost’s scheduling interface.
B. Utilizing RSS feeds for automation
- The Power of RSS Feeds: Integrating RSS feeds into RecurPost is an excellent way to automate content sharing from trusted sources, industry news, or your blog.
- Adding RSS Feeds: In your RecurPost dashboard, look for the option of ‘Feed Manager’ and input the URLs of the feeds you want to follow.
- Automation Settings: Configure how often you want RecurPost to check the feeds and share new content. You can also set content filters to ensure that only relevant articles get shared.
- Content Variety: RSS feeds provide a steady stream of fresh content to supplement your original posts, keeping your social media profiles active and engaging.
Monitoring and Analytics
A. Tracking the performance of your social media posts
- Analytics Overview: RecurPost provides detailed analytics for each of your social media posts. You can access these insights within the platform to gauge the performance of your content.
- Engagement Metrics: Key metrics to track include likes, comments, shares, clicks, and reach. These metrics provide a snapshot of how well your posts are resonating with your audience. Go to the ‘Reports’ section to see a detailed overview of your analytics.
- Audience Insights: Analyze the demographics and behavior of your audience. RecurPost often offers information on your followers’ locations, age groups, and online activity patterns.
- Top-Performing Content: Identify which types of content, categories, or topics generate the most engagement. This insight helps you fine-tune your content strategy.
B. Adjusting your strategy based on analytics
- Continuous Improvement: Analytics data should drive your social media strategy. Regularly review your social media analytics to identify trends and areas that require improvement.
- Content Optimization: If certain types of posts consistently perform better, consider focusing on creating more content in those categories. Conversely, if some content underperforms, reevaluate your approach.
- Posting Times: Use analytics to refine your posting schedule. Adjust your posting times based on when your audience is most active to maximize engagement.
- Audience Targeting: Leverage audience insights to tailor your content to your followers’ preferences. Create content that speaks directly to their interests and needs.
C. A/B testing with RecurPost
- What Is A/B Testing: A/B testing (or split testing) involves comparing two different versions of a post to determine which one performs better. RecurPost simplifies this process.
- Creating Variations: Within RecurPost, you can easily create variations of a post with different captions, images, or headlines. For instance, you might test two different headlines for an article link.
- Scheduling Variations: Schedule the variations to be posted at the same time or on different days. This allows you to compare their performance under similar conditions.
- Analyzing Results: After the posts are live, monitor the analytics for each variation. Determine which version achieved higher engagement, clicks, or conversions.
- Iterate and Refine: Based on the results, refine your content strategy. Implement the lessons learned from A/B testing into your future posts for continuous improvement.
Engaging with Your Audience
A. Responding to comments and messages
- Timely Responses: One of the key aspects of audience engagement is responding promptly to comments and messages. Whether it’s a simple “like” or a detailed question, acknowledging and replying to your audience demonstrates your commitment to their needs.
- Customer Support: Social media often serves as a customer support channel. Use RecurPost to ensure you never miss a customer query or complaint. Responding professionally and promptly can turn a negative experience into a positive one.
- Personalization: Personalize your responses by addressing individuals by their names. This human touch goes a long way in building a rapport with your followers.
B. Staying connected with your followers
- Consistent Interaction: Engage with your audience consistently by liking, sharing, or commenting on their posts. This reciprocal interaction strengthens your relationship and shows that you value your followers.
- Engagement Posts: Create content specifically designed to encourage engagement, such as polls, quizzes, or user-generated content campaigns. RecurPost can help you schedule these posts strategically.
- Community Building: Foster a sense of community among your followers. Encourage them to connect with each other by creating discussions, forums, or themed hashtags.
C. Using RecurPost's social inbox feature
- Social Inbox Overview: RecurPost includes a social inbox feature that consolidates messages and comments from various social media platforms into a single interface. This simplifies communication management.
- Unified Messaging: With the social inbox, you can respond to comments and messages from different platforms without the need to switch between accounts or apps.
- Notification Management: Stay organized with notifications and alerts for new messages. RecurPost’s social inbox ensures you don’t overlook any interactions with your audience.
- Collaborative Teamwork: If you have a team managing your social media, the social inbox allows multiple team members to collaborate on responses and ensures no message goes unanswered.
Advanced Tips and Strategies
A. Incorporating user-generated content
User-generated content refers to any content that your audience creates and shares related to your brand. This can include customer reviews, testimonials, photos, videos, and social media posts.
- Benefits of UGC: UGC is a powerful tool for social media marketing. It builds trust, showcases authentic customer experiences, and encourages community participation.
- Encouraging UGC: Encourage your followers to create and share content related to your brand. Create branded hashtags, run contests, or host challenges to inspire UGC.
B. Running social media campaigns with RecurPost
- Campaign Objectives: Clearly define the objectives of your social media campaign. Whether it’s promoting a new product, increasing brand awareness, or driving traffic to your website, having a specific goal in mind is crucial.
- Content Planning: Plan your campaign content meticulously. RecurPost’s content library and scheduling tools can assist you in organizing and scheduling campaign posts.
- Hashtags and Keywords: Use relevant hashtags and keywords to enhance the visibility of your campaign. Research trending and industry-specific hashtags to reach a broader audience.
- Monitoring and Optimization: Continuously monitor the performance of your campaign using RecurPost’s analytics. Adjust your strategy based on real-time data to maximize the campaign’s impact.
- Engagement and Interaction: As the campaign unfolds, actively engage with your audience. Respond to comments, answer questions, and encourage participation to create a buzz around your campaign.
Conclusion
By defining your goals, organizing your content, utilizing automation features, and engaging with your audience, you can transform your social media presence into a dynamic, efficient, and engaging platform. With user-generated content, influencer collaborations, and strategic campaigns, you’ll not only save time but also maximize your impact.
RecurPost is your ally in this journey, simplifying the complex world of social media management and helping you build a stronger and more authentic online presence.
Get ready to elevate your social media game with RecurPost! Register for your free account and check out its features today.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a social media planner?
A social media planner is a tool or strategy used to schedule and organize social media posts and content for marketing purposes.
How do you organize social media planning?
You can organize social media planning by defining goals, creating a social media content calendar, categorizing content, and using automation tools.
How do I create a social media planner in Excel?
To create a social media planner in Excel, set up a spreadsheet with columns for date, content, platform, and scheduling details, and use it to schedule and track your posts.
How do I create a 30-day social media plan?
To create a 30-day social media plan, outline your objectives, choose content themes, create a content calendar, and schedule posts strategically for a month.
Do I need a social media planner?
Whether or not you need a social media planner depends on the complexity and goals of your social media strategy; it can be highly beneficial for efficient planning.
How do I start planning social media posts?
Start planning social media posts by defining your target audience, setting goals, creating a content strategy, and using scheduling tools like RecurPost.
What is a social media plan template?
A social media content planner template is a pre-designed document that outlines the structure and key elements of a social media strategy, making it easier to create and implement your plan.
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