What do Selena Gomez, The Rock, NASA, Christiano Ronaldo, and urm… Jamie Oliver all have in common? Nope, it’s not the new Celebrity Come Dine With Me in Space Special (although that could be interesting) or the fact they are all rich, famous and pretty darn successful.

It’s the fact that they put A LOT of effort into their social media channels. Or at least, someone does.

Yes, they might appear to post in the spare of the moment (and that’s exactly what they want you to think) but in reality, someone behind the scenes is planning their content schedule, leaving gaps for spontaneous posts and ensuring they fulfil their contracted obligations too. #AD.

Content planning. We agree it sounds a little dull, but bear with us! If it’s good enough for Selena, it’s good enough for you. And a good content plan is the bricks and mortar of every digital marketing strategy, whether you’re a wannabe influencer, a B2B business or indeed a famous celeb. But before we get into the how’s and why’s, let’s start with some basics:

What is a content plan?

Content is essentially what you put out into the digital world. From a business perspective, that could be social media posts, email campaigns, videos, infographics or whitepapers. Content will of course be different for every business, but chances are you’ll have a variety of media across a range of platforms.

Put simply, a content plan is a way of organising this information into a calendar, outlining key messaging, media required and platform. It may also take into account your goals and objectives, audience, budget and wider campaigns.

Why is a content plan so important?

It might surprise you to learn that many companies don’t have a documented content plan. Indeed, it might not have crossed your mind (it’s ok, we won’t judge). But if you’re serious about marketing your business online, then a solid content plan will make your life much easier in the long run! Here’s why:

1. Helps you to stay organised

Forgive us for stating the obvious but putting your content ideas into a plan helps to keep things on track, no matter how busy you get.

2. Saves time

Planning content means you have the time to research, write articles, schedule posts or design graphics ahead of time. It allows different teams to synchronise their workload and ensures that each element is ready to go out when needed.

3. Ensures consistency

We’ve said it before, but consistency is KEY when it comes to a successful digital strategy. Whether it’s daily social media posting, a weekly blog or a monthly email campaign, your content plan will ensure your output remains regular and consistent.

4. Builds brand credibility

Planning in advance gives you the opportunity to focus on what’s important to your business, which in hand helps to improve your brand’s reputation and reinforce credibility in your industry.

5. Helps to achieve wider goals

A successful content plan helps you to organise different digital elements, but it can also be a way to look at the bigger picture. For example, are there particular goals you want to meet? How does your digital content help you to achieve this?

6. Allows you to better communicate with your audience

By creating a plan, you get to see the variety of content from an audience perspective before it goes live. It means you can include different media to keep your audience interested.

7. Gives you time to react and change

Just because you schedule in advance, it doesn’t mean you can’t post reactively at times. A plan that allows for some flexibility means you can change it up when needed, ans still have your pre-planned ready to go.

8. Provides you with an opportunity to improve

A content plan allows you to include more of what’s working well and take out what isn’t. For example, maybe your reels do particularly well or your newsletters aren’t quite hitting the spot? You can adapt your content to fit!

If this all sounds like a bit too much (and let’s be honest, you’re probably busy enough with your own workload) then our cracking team of content planning enthusiasts would love to help. So why not get in touch and see how we can work wonders for your content strategy!