One of the biggest aspects of being a writer today is marketing. And social media is a huge part of that!
So for today’s writer tool, with it being September first and all, I thought I’d provide a template to help you get organized and motivated about posting on social media.
I’m also going to talk about scheduling posts on Facebook, which will help you to fill out your calendar, and be more active on Facebook with time spent up front instead of throughout the week or month.
Social Media Calendar
Click the link above to download the calendar for yourself. This calendar includes Sept-Dec of 2020. I’ll try and update the file in 2021! Here’s what it looks like:
It’s a simple calendar, but you can do a lot with it. I like to mess with fonts and text color myself!
You can even print it out and post it beside your desk, if that works better for you. Then you can handwrite your plans on it. Otherwise, keep it on your computer and update it frequently.
Keep track of:
- WHERE you’re posting (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.)
- WHAT you’re posting (is it a fun picture every Friday? A book teaser on Tuesday?)
Here’s mine. As you can see, I have a thing for fonts! I color-coded in green posts on Facebook that I’ve already got scheduled to run.
Do I have to update it every time I post, then?
Not if you don’t want to. For Facebook, you can schedule as many posts as you want to automatically run in the future. You can also use the calendar to plan out what you’ll post, then just refer to it when the time comes.
Let’s talk about Scheduling Facebook Posts
Save time during the average day by scheduling all your posts in advance. You’ll need to sit down and spend the time up front scheduling them, but it’s an extremely helpful writer tool. You can use this tool if you have a Facebook Page.
From your Page, find the Publishing Tools tab. This is the only pace where you can schedule posts. Facebook used to let you create a post like normal, then choose to schedule instead of post right away, but they did away with that at some point.
Next, find Scheduled Posts. (Side note: if you’ve never been in Publishing Tools before, check out “Published Posts” too, to see how your previous posts performed [how many views, clicks, participation, etc.] It can also help you decide what kinds of posts you want to continue to do in the future).
From there, click Create Post. This brings up the familiar post creation popup. Upload promo photos, create a text post, whatever you’re planning on posting. Then after you click “Schedule Post”, it will let you choose the date and time. This is even handy if you want to post something later in the same day but you won’t be at a computer.