Five steps to create a successful content plan

A content plan can be useful in keeping posts innovative and engaging. This article will explain what a content plan is, why it is crucial to have one, and the steps required to develop a successful content plan.

Even though the concepts are intertwined, a content strategy differs from a content plan. While the strategy is what keeps you on track, the content plan is the fuel that keeps the train moving. Having a content strategy and a content plan will be useful to ensure sustainability and consistency in content production. These again are crucial variables in order to succeed with specific goals that are set.

Set goals for the content plan

What do you want to accomplish through the content plan? Define objectives in order to increase the ability to assess the plan’s effectiveness.

Building a community, increasing brand awareness and getting customers engaged are some excellent goals to consider in your social campaign.

You also need to set content goals for yourself. If you are new to content marketing, consider these content marketing plan example ideas:

• Set goals for publishing frequency
• Increase activity level for a variety of channels
• Utilise a new platform and create a new channel

Get to know the audience

In order for the content plan to be as effective as possible, the target audience should be clearly defined. Demographics such as age, gender and occupation will not be sufficient to do the trick.

Check out social channel bios, ask questions in blog posts and A/B test advertising to understand how the audience is thinking.

• How does the audience research a product?
• What products appeal the most to them?
• What encourages the audience to complete a sale?

A thorough understanding of the audience will help fill their needs.

Brainstorm content ideas

Research content subjects and make a list of interesting topics that can be distributed over a given period of time.

Set up a plan for the different titles and align the plan with external events. Maybe the post about your three favourite running shoes would be more suitable prior to the local city marathon as compared to after.

Encourage audience engagement with content that is valuable to the target audience.

Determine content platforms

Social media platforms vary in use and users and it’s therefore important to pick suitable channels to reach a given target audience and a platform at which you like creating content.
Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok and Instagram are some of the most popular platforms to share content on.

While many content creators prefer to publish specific content on specific platforms, here are a few tips for publishers who’d like to create a variety of content for different platforms:

• Change a popular blog post into a video
• Transform a popular video into a blog post
• Publish infographics across platforms
• Include polls or surveys to engage and get to know the target audience

Publish and manage the content

Pushing out content alone does not necessarily do the trick. Engage and use the social platforms to build relationships with the audience, and be service oriented.

Another tip to manage the content is to find a CMS that is enjoyable to work in.

There are also a variety of social media management tools that can simplify working across platforms. Examples of such tools include Hootsuite and Sprout social. If necessary, the content should be updated to increase continuous relevancy.

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