We’ve put together a roundup of the 5 best social media calendars for digital publishers, with all the tools and templates you’ll need to develop a winning social media strategy.
At this point, most digital publishers understand how important it is to have a presence on social media. Fifteen-percent of adults in the United States say social media is their “preferred” pathway to local news, and roughly one-in-four “often” get local news from either social media or websites and apps.
As a digital publisher, how can you make sure people are getting their news from your social media pages and feeds?
That’s where social media calendars for digital publishers come into the picture. With multiple social media accounts to manage, digital publishers often find it challenging to stay organized. Having a plan in place for which content will be published on which platform, and when those pieces of content will be published, gets infinitely more difficult as you start adding more social media platforms to the pile.
Just like with an editorial calendar, social media calendars help ensure that digital publishers are regularly posting and engaging with followers across all of their social media accounts.
Five benefits of using social media calendars are:
- Getting organized (and staying that way)
- Planning customized posts for each social channel
- Tracking the performance of social media posts
- Planning for future social media posts
- Remembering holidays and other days of observance
In this blog post, we have put together a list of some of the most useful social media calendars and tools for developing and managing an effective social media strategy. Check out our list below.
Top Social Media Calendars for Digital Publishers
1. Google Drive
Digital publishers don’t have to pay a fortune to develop social media calendars. Some of the best tools are free. Teams can use shared Google Calendars to track and plan for social media posts. Combining calendars for social media and editorial content makes it even easier for teams to align the content they are posting. Other features available within Google Drive that digital publishers might be interested in using include Google Sheets (for scheduling posts and tracking the status of content) and Google Docs (for writing the content that’s ultimately published on various social media accounts).
2. ContentCal
ContentCal is simple and intuitive, which is what most local news publishers want in social media calendars. Editorial and marketing teams can login to the ContentCal platform to collaborate on upcoming posts and use approval workflows as they get content ready to publish. ContentCal’s calendars are visual, which gives publishers the ability to quickly scan and see what they’ve got coming up across all of the channels they use. Upcoming events and article drafts can be added as placeholders in the social media calendar even before they are finished. With their social media accounts connected to their calendars, publishers can share content across the web from their social media calendars and learn how to boost engagement on their posts using analytics.
3. Loomly
Loomly is a neat tool that digital publishers can use to collaborate, publish, and measure the success of their social media strategies. Loomly is integrated with all of the most popular social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Publishers can manage social media content, including organic posts and paid ads, through the Loomly platform. Information is viewable as a calendar, with automated posts sent via email, push, Slack, or Microsoft Teams whenever content is ready to go out.
4. Buffer
Buffer is a social media management platform that has been around for a number of years. Known as the “simpler” social media platform, Buffer still has the sophisticated tools that digital publishers need to plan, publish, and optimize their content across social media channels. The Buffer social media calendar gives users an overview of all the content they have lined up, plus scheduling tools and a preset publishing schedule for each social account. For digital publishers with WordPress websites, the WordPress to Buffer plugin is a tool that automatically publishes posts, pages, and custom post types to a Buffer account for scheduled publishing to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
5. Monday
Built for teams with advanced needs, Monday is a cloud-based platform with a prominent calendar and scheduling component. Monday is for digital publishers who want to go beyond simply republishing existing content across their social media channels. The platform’s marketing bundle includes a “smart calendar,” which social media marketing teams use to organize content and assign writers, designers, and editors to work on specific posts. With “Calendar View,” users can see all of the posts in the queue displayed by date. Color coding can be set up to show where certain posts are within the editing process, as well.
Getting Started with Social Media Scheduling
Now that we’ve gone through the most helpful tools for setting up social media calendars, we hope you’ll be ready to kick your strategy into high gear. Because every publication is different, you may need to combine a few of these platforms to generate the maximum ROI.
Are there any other social media calendars you love? Reach out and let us know!
