By Judith Lee

Last week we discussed your social media planning for 2016, which is key to consistent and thoughtful posting, and will lay a solid foundation for your social media program. With a good plan, your business will “get out there” with appropriate content no matter how busy and distracted you may become in any given season or time period.

Once you have laid in the Seasonal and Holiday content for next year, you should have a minimum of 32 posts planned (4 per Season, and one for each of 16 mainstream Holidays we identified). Now you will flesh it out with content specific to your industry and your business.

Industry content. Every industry has predictable events of note: Major meetings or conventions, and major observances. For instance, I have some clients in the vision and eye care business. Every year their industry has 6 major meetings (shows) and monthly eye or vision observance, such as Glaucoma Awareness, Diabetic Eye Month, Sports Eye Safety Month, etc.

These businesses should schedule posts around the 6 major meetings (the dates are announced a year in advance) plus one or more posts each month for the observance. This should provide something like 25 posts.

Your business. Now you will look at your typical calendar for:

• Community events in which you will participate (i.e., Kennett Run, Mushroom Festival, etc.)
• Non-profit or charity events your business will support
• Sales or specials you will run (most likely during your “slow” season)
• Marketing events you will host or sponsor
• Important anniversaries, such as Founder’s Day or One Year in the New Building
• Individual work anniversaries that are coming up, such as 5-year recognitions, 10-year recognitions, a retirement, etc.
• Company picnic and/or Holiday party
• Birthdays of staff or key people you will celebrate in the office

These will yield another 25 to 30 planned posts. The grand total is up to about 87 posts you can create and schedule right now.

Laid out over the year, that comes to about 2 posts a week for the entire 12 months. When true “news” occurs, you can post that as it happens, along with other comments or activities that are more spontaneous.

Without much effort, you should be able to come up with 2 or 3 of those a week – and now you have a consistent social media program of 4 to 5 posts a week.

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Judith Lee is a marketing and communications professional who focuses on social media and email marketing based in Atglen. She is a SCORE Volunteer and the Chair-Elect of the Southern Chester County Chamber of Commerce. She can be reached at 610-368-2058 or via email at judithlee@epix.net.