Share This Page

Tweet

Contributed article | December 2021

There’s nothing quite as daunting as looking at your daily to-do list to find “post on social media” there, front and center. Taking a post from your spark of an idea to actually posted on your social-media feed takes a whole lot of work.

Depending on the platform(s) you’re using, you have to compile an image (or images), write a caption of some sort, and maybe even pop in some hashtags.

Each of these steps takes way more thought and time than you originally thought it would, leaving you feeling totally overwhelmed and unmotivated to keep up with your social-media feed.

We’ve been there, so we’re sharing our favorite way to keep on top of your social media.

What Is A Social-Media Calendar?

Instead of whipping something together last minute and hoping for the best, why not plan your posts out ahead of time? After all, you plan a lot of other things within your business; why shouldn’t you plan your marketing efforts too?

Forgot about National Dog Day last year? Or really wished that you would have said something on Election Day? Not planning ahead leaves you totally left behind when it comes to current events and holidays.

If you’re feeling motivated to get planning and stay on top of things, don’t forget to grab our 2022 Planning Calendar. This handy tool features pet-related holidays and observances you can highlight on social media plus monthly to-do lists for your pet-sitting business.

With your Planning Calendar in hand, it’s time to take your planning to the next level: a social-media calendar. A social-media calendar is a must-have tool for any pet-sitting business! Think of your social-media calendar as your go-to resource when it comes time to post on your social-media feed. Your calendar keeps all of the information that you need so that posting is easier… and nothing falls through the cracks!

How to Set Up Your Social-Media Calendar

Ready to create a social-media calendar for your pet-care business? First thing’s first; everyone works differently, so you want to take some time to think about how you work best. What format do you like to see things in? Would you prefer things planned out on a simple Excel spreadsheet? Or maybe you want to see your posts laid out in an actual calendar.

Once you have an idea of how you work best, you want to select the platform or place for your social-media calendar. You can keep it really simple and use a good, old-fashioned paper planner or calendar in your office. Or you can check out some helpful online tools like Google Calendar, Google Sheets, or a more advanced tool like Airtable.

The most important thing when creating your social-media calendar is to set yourself up for success. If you’re not super tech-savvy, that’s no problem, don’t select a more advanced tool. You want to pick something that you’re really going to stick with.

Once you make your selection and start to use it, make sure that you save it or bookmark it somewhere so that it’s really, really easy to access. Here are some ideas to make sure that your social-media calendar is always easily accessible:

• If you’re using a physical planner or calendar, you may want to choose a smaller-sized one so that it’s easy to pop into your purse or backpack for on-the-go planning or referencing.
• Most internet browsers (like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Safari) give you the ability to “Bookmark” a page. This pops the page into your top menu bar, making it easy for you to click when you open up the browser.
• Most internet browsers also allow you to set a “Home Page”. You can set your social-media calendar as the first page you see when you open up your browser.
• Want to be able to access your social-media calendar on your phone? Depending on the platform you’re using for your social-media calendar, you may be able to download an app to your phone.
• If your social-media calendar isn’t available in an app, you can usually save the webpage to your phone’s home screen! Simply google your phone type and “add web page to home screen” to look for a helpful tutorial.

Again, the most important thing is that you actually use your calendar! So be honest with yourself about your habits and routine.

What to Have in Your Social-Media Calendar?

Now that you’ve chosen a place to house your calendar, what do you even put on it? Well, most important, you’ve got the date. The date helps you know what you’re posting and when.

Some other important things to include on your calendar are:

• The social-media platform you’ll be posting to (if you use more than one social-media type)
• The type of post you’ll be posting (i.e., Instagram) now has regular posts, Reels, Stories, etc.
• The topic of your post (i.e., pet nutrition)
• The goal of your post (i.e., are you trying to book up a new service offering)?
• The caption fully written out for you to easily copy & paste where it needs to go
• A link to where you can find the image(s), graphic(s), or video(s) you’ll be posting
• Other supplemental details like: location you’ll be tagging, other accounts you’ll be tagging, hashtags you’ll use, etc.

But your calendar doesn’t need to stop there! There’s honestly so much you can include, so feel free to go crazy (again, so long as whatever you include helps you actually use this calendar)!

You also can include things like:

• The dates of when you’ll be working on certain parts of the post i.e. when you’ll film the video, when you’ll write the caption, etc. (Check out the Content-Batching tip below!)
• A status section so that you can track where you are in the process of planning, creating, and posting your post
• A way to indicate who is working on what (if you have a team working on your social media)
• Notes on any audio or effects you’ll be using with video content

Really, the options are basically endless!

Pro-Tip: Check Out Content-Batching

Content-batching is a great way to ‘hack’ your marketing efforts. The different parts of a single social-media post are all very different if you think about it. Gathering images or graphics takes a different set of skills than writing out a caption.

Content-batching is when you separate out your marketing work into chunks. For these two hours, you only write captions for your upcoming social-media posts. Then, tomorrow, you spend three hours compiling photos. Then, another hour later in the week to research the hashtags you’ll be using.

Instead of working on one single post from start to finish, you work in a “like with like” manner. You get a bunch of captions done at the same time while your brain is in writer-mode!

How you separate out, or batch, your content is totally up to you, but this is a great trick to keep your brain really, really focused on the specific task at hand!

How to Schedule Your Social-Media Posts in Advance

Have your calendar all dialed in? Great! Now, you may be the type of person who likes to actually physically press ‘Post’ yourself. And that’s totally fine.

But if you’re wanting to take the last, final step of social-media posting off of your plate (the actual posting of a post), then you can use a social-media scheduling tool. There are so many tools out there, many of which even offer free plans, so you’ll want to search around to find the tool with the right features for you. Some of our favorites include Later, Planoly, and Buffer.

With a scheduling tool, you pop your ready-to-be-posted posts into the tool, schedule for whatever time or day you want, and sit back as the tool handles the rest!

So what do you think? Are you ready to create a social-media calendar for your pet-care business?

And if you’ve already created one, make sure to share your best tips below!