How to Build a Content Calendar
Plus 18 ways to survive and thrive on a social media team.
I spent my entire weekend poring over David Fowler’s “The Creative Companion”. My friend Grace Clarke tweeted some photos from it the other day and I’ve been tearing through it ever since.
David Fowler, who spent twenty years at Ogilvy & Mather, is an advertising and copywriting legend. His guidebook is filled with thought starters and short ideas that reframe the creative process in ways that feel both approachable and inspiring.
As I’ve been reading this book, I’ve been thinking about how I’d apply it specifically to the creative process of working in social media.
How would I sum up making a shareable post? Or an engaging video intro? Or the daunting feeling of sitting down to build out a content calendar? Or reporting on post data?
So for today’s newsletter, I am making a very small attempt to do that. Below are 18 helpful ways to approach the creative process of working in social media. I hope you enjoy! This is one of my favorite newsletters I’ve ever written.
Build out a bad content calendar. Then make it better.
There’s nothing more daunting than sitting down to build out the next few weeks of social content.
But the key is knowing that the best version of those posts isn’t going to come from that one session. Create a bad idea and then use your bad idea as a premise to make better ones.
Maybe it starts as “weird motivational posters for ingredients”. And by the fifth round of edits the idea it turns into this.
Just get the idea on the calendar.
Don’t be afraid to tell the same story over and over again.
Attention spans are short, stories can be repackaged one million different ways.
Scrub Daddy has told the story of “other sponges are our enemy” countless times. Sometimes they tell it in a meme and other times they tell it in a video. It always resonates and no one ever comments “we’ve heard you say this before”.
Identify your brand’s universal truth.
When trying to decide “who” your brand is on social media, establish a universal truth that your brand is speaking to.
YETI’s universal truth is that the right gear can help you stay out longer, travel farther, and live harder. Their social media content focuses on all of the adventures that are possible when you’re equipped with good gear.
Duolingo’s universal truth is that learning a language is hard, so they make it fun. Their social media content focuses on the silly, lighthearted aspects of learning a new language.
Omsom’s universal truth is that there are multitudes to be found in Asian flavors, stories, and communities—and as a brand they reclaim and celebrate them. Their social media content focuses on owning that rowdy spirit proudly.
It’s nearly impossible to make good social content without first establishing a universal truth. This is your content north star.
“Me” makes people feel seen.
How do you make people feel seen? Use “me”.
Brands should optimize their own content to be shared. A meme from a brand becomes a relatable meme for the consumer with the simple use of “me”.
“Me when”. “My face when”. "My favorite.”
Is “me” referring to the brand? The customer? It’s blurry. And that’s the point.
Dunkin’ does it here. Chipotle does it here. Reformation does it here.
Story rules.
If story is what you’re trying to do, Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling is a brilliant road map.
(The above idea is from the “The Creative Companion” and is one of my favorites)
Think outside your feed.
It’s easy to use your own scrolling as a reference point for “what’s in”. In reality, your feed and who you follow is a tiny slice of what’s actually popular.
Some of the biggest campaigns from brands feature influencers or references that you won’t understand. And that’s okay.
Create a group chat or Slack group with other coworkers to see what’s going on outside your scroll. Every Monday have them drop a video from a creator they love or a trend they saw popping on their FYP. You never know what you might discover.
Throw spaghetti at your notes app.
The best social ideas often come to you when you least expect it. Watching a tennis match. Browsing the cereal aisle. In the middle of the night.
When one of those ideas comes, don’t expect to remember it 24 hours later.
Use the notes app on your phone as a scratch pad for those half-baked thoughts. Come back to the note during brainstorms—bake until the knife comes out clean.
Don’t get stuck in the past.
If something that used to work on a platform now doesn’t, don’t be afraid to switch things up.
Ever since this newsletter about the success of text-only Facebook posts, I’ve heard from countless brands saying this was a huge unlock for them.
If photo posts don’t work anymore, try sprinkling in some text-only prompts.
Small tweaks can lead to big results.
So you want to “go viral”.
Going viral starts with a foundation.
Brands that go viral have:
A company culture of trust.
Appetite for calculated risk.
Oftentimes the same bosses that ask their social media managers to “go viral” are the same ones not creating the environment to do so.
Don’t overcomplicate your campaign.
If you have to explain what your social campaign or hashtag means, it’s too complicated.
Feel the brand.
A brand is the way a person feels about a product or service. It’s created not by advertising or social media, but by a set of experiences. Think of a brand like an art museum. How you feel about the pictures is what makes them matter. Otherwise, it’s just a room of sailcloth stretched on frames.
When you get lost in all the noise around you, stop and see the brand like a customer. What do you feel? There might be an idea in there.
(The above idea is adapted from the “The Creative Companion” and is one of my favorites)
Reporting isn’t for you.
As a social manager, you know what works and what doesn’t. You see the numbers every day. You know which posts did well and which didn’t.
Whether you know it or not, those insights guide you.
So why put together reports?
Because reporting isn’t for you.
Make entertaining and fun-to-read weekly, monthly, and quarterly reports for your bosses and your bosses bosses. These help build excitement around your work, give you a chance to build stories around your strategy, and consistently remind management just how important social is.
And yeah, you’ll probably learn something too.
Hold up a fun house mirror to your audience.
Some of the best brands on social media hold a mirror back up to their audience. But it’s not just any mirror. It’s a fun house mirror.
When brands take user behavior and fun-ify that behavior—that’s the magic.
Like when McDonald’s got in on the joke about their McFlurry spoon being a straw. Or when Liquid Death made an outrageous commercial with kids drinking their water.
Take a consumer insight and bend it.
Does your post pass “the share test”?
Shareable content is a huge driver for organic growth.
Posts that make you want to add to your story, DM to a friend, or tag someone.
Knowing this, I run everything through the “shareability test”. The “shareability test” is as follows:
Will this post make our audience “feel seen” in some way? Will they feel an emotion (love or hate) when they view the content?
Will this post help facilitate connection with other audience members? Will it make them feel like they are part of a community?
Will this post provide some sort of service? Is the post communicating information in an entertaining way?
If two of the three bullets are a YES, then it passes the “shareability test”.
Phone a friend.
Working in social media requires us to make lots of decisions, very quickly.
Find a coworker who can be your gut check, your spell check, your moral check.
Solve the first five seconds.
The most important part of any social media video is its opening, the first five seconds.
That’s the part that hooks, intrigues, explains or builds up the next twenty-five, thirty, sixty seconds. If you’re not clear about the first five seconds, you’re not clear about anything, because that’s where your premise gets introduced. If it’s not interesting, people will scroll.
Write the first five seconds before anything else.
(The above idea is tweaked the “The Creative Companion” where Fowler says to focus on the last five seconds)
Built to last.
Following every trend will only get your brand so far. Build a social presence that stands the test of time. Original, interesting content will always rise above the trend hunters.
Like Planet Money’s wacky, ownable explainers. Or SSENSE’s luxury, brand-safe memes. Or Omsom’s personality-first videos.
If your brand currently relies on trends, hold a brainstorm where everyone pitches an idea for what a non-trend social presence would look like. Start there.
Best practices don’t matter if the idea is bad.
I’ve seen plenty of good content go viral that didn’t adhere to best practices.
I’ve never seen bad content go viral just because they adhered to best practices.
Idea first. Best practices second.
Thank you all so much for reading! What ideas would you add? Tell me in the comments or in the Link in Bio Discord!