Who has time to manage and organize another calendar??
I know what you’re thinking, “Daniela, I don’t have the time or the energy to create or manage another calendar for my insurance agency!”
I get it. Between my personal appointment calendar, my gym schedule, marketing content calendar, and social media calendar I can find it overwhelming as well. However, when it comes to building your brand in today’s world of social media, it is important to be consistent, efficient, and effective in your social media presence.
Why is a social media content calendar important to my insurance agency?
Simple.
It is the infrastructure to creating brand recognition, engagement, lead generation, and most importantly keeping your agency in front of your audience by establishing consistent/regular publishing.
It helps your agency develop behaviors of efficiency and organization.
How?
By giving your insurance agency the ability to track, monitor, and plan for effective marketing strategies.
You see, whether you have a marketing guru in your office or not, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that whoever is managing your social media understands the importance of a plan.
Creating a month long plan that describes:
- What you are posting (blog, image, podcast, links, etc)
- How often you are posting in a week/day/month
- What time you are posting. There are general statistics out there that dictate the best times to post on various social media platforms. Read about them here: The Best Time to Post on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+
- Types of content that will be published on a daily and monthly basis. This keeps everyone organized and encourages you to post content that resonates with your audience.
- Major events that are happening within your insurance agency or in your community (products, holidays, campaigns, community events, etc.). This will inhibit you from missing important dates or events that your audience should be made aware of.
Creating a social media calendar is the first step to organizing your marketing plan. It is imperative that whoever is running your marketing/social media is following this calendar and using it to drive brand recognition and lead generation.
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Now, I know what your next question is…
Great. I want to create a calendar for my social media, but, how do I create one?
I’m glad you asked.
There are many tools out there that you can use:
- Excel
- Google Calendar
- Trello
- Hubspot
Many templates can be found online with a simple google search. Not all of these templates will suit your needs or have the necessary components for what you would like to deliver to your marketing. Currently, I am using a Hubspot template that I have become quite fond of. It is a simple excel document that allows me to build upon the template and customize accordingly.
This template will organize your content topics, times you wish to post, and an overview of the entire month. This document can be saved on google drive and shared with everyone in your insurance agency. Pretty simple right?
Okay, so we have the tools and components that will fill these tools…now what?
Well, now you need to set reminders for yourself:
- Pick a day every month where you will create the following month’s social media calendar
- Pick a day that the team will approve this calendar and give you necessary feedback of what they would like to see
- If you are releasing blog content, have those dates picked ahead of time as to when the publisher of those blogs must have the final product ready for you.
- Create all images for the following month on a designated day (I typically create images 2 weeks before)
- Schedule all (or most) social media content the week before the calendar begins.
So, this is great and all but, how long is this going to take me??
My only advice to you is this. The first time you try anything new, it always takes a bit longer than you expect, but as time goes on it becomes easier and your process is more streamlined. The same goes for creating a social media calendar. If you have the necessary tools and have designated time for yourself to create a plan, write out the plan, designate content to specific days, create the content, and then schedule the content you will find that marketing your agency isn’t as hard as you once thought.
Everything works better with a plan. We just need a push (maybe a shove) in the right direction to help us achieve our goals.
If you want more information on how Agency Performance Partners can help your insurance agency with its marketing, leave a comment below or book a time to talk to us. We would love to get to know your agency and how we can get you to that next level.
Until next time my friends,
Marketing Maven Out!
