By Parker Dickens, Beauty As A Business, @beautyasabiz

Parker Dickens from Beauty As A Business partnered up with Prosper U to teach us all about developing an effective social media strategy using content calendars in this two part blog series. Part 1 goes into theory, while part 2 puts it into practice. Beauty As A Business empowers the hair and beauty pro to do what they’re passionate about by teaching them to use social media to showcase their work, connect with clientele, fill their schedule, and in doing so, build a lasting career in the industry. They know social media fame isn’t for everyone, but believe every beauty professional should know how they can harness their online presence to build their dream job.

Creating Your First Social Media Content Calendar

If you made it through part one, where we covered the main concepts of social media content calendars, you may be itching to put it into practice! 

To get started, click here to download the Beauty As A Business’ free content calendar. 

Before we get to work filling out the calendar, you’ll also need to have at least one social media profile you plan to use for your business or personal portfolio. In our example today, we’ll make a social calendar for our Facebook and Instagram accounts. 

Step 1: Pencil It In

We’ve got a blank calendar in front of us. Using the information from business.facebook.com or Instagram’s professional dashboard identify the best days of the week and best times of the day to post.

Once you have that data, pencil in eight to twelve days that you are going to post. For now, your days can just be something like: April 28th: IG post @ 10:32 am and FB post at 9:06 am. We’ll be fleshing it out in later steps. 

Step 2: Categorize Your Post Types

Now that you have the when sorted out, we can start – at a very high level – figuring out the what. Using the funnel and 90-10 rule principles we learned, categorize each post type. 

To use the same example from above, it might look something like: 

April 28th

IG post @ 10:32 am and FB post at 9:06 am 

Mid-funnel – Portfolio

The bolded section can be anything you’d like. Top-funnel – Quiz. Mid-funnel – About me video. Bottom funnel – 10% off product sale. What is important is that you have a proper balance of content. Try to keep your content engaging and as high in the funnel as possible. Only one or two posts should be “hard sales.” 

Step 3: Hashtag Research

A lot of brands and influencers utilize pre-set hashtag clusters. You can have up to 30 hashtags in a single post and should consider adding them as the first comment on your post (as opposed to in your caption). You might consider having a couple different hashtag clusters saved that you can simply paste in from notes on your phone. One for products, one for services, one for engagement posts, one for posts about yourself. Something along those lines. 

In this step, you’ll want to start identifying those hashtags and writing them down so you can use them on your posts. 

To find effective hashtags, check out what local salons and stylists/barbers/etc. in your area are using. Click on a hashtag in one of their posts. From there you can find other posts that use that hashtag and from those posts you can find more hashtags. What you are looking for is a balance of high volume and locality. 

For example, #barber has over twenty-seven million posts! It is too broad and people who follow or search that tag are unlikely to be anywhere near you. But if we add a local keyword like #saltlakebarber, we narrow it down to just 10.2k posts. You are not just more likely to be seen, you are more likely to be seen by people who could actually become customers. On the flipside, #saltlakecitybarbering only has 23 posts and is long and clunky. It would be too narrow and probably not worth your time. 

Step 4: Gathering Your Content

It’s time to start mapping out actual content to the posts. Gather your inspirations quotes, your testimonials or reviews, your memes, pictures of your best work. Whatever you have. 

If you need to put a quote or review on a graphic and make it look nice, but don’t have access or a lot of experience with something like photoshop, you can use a tool like Canva. Whatever you use, try to make your posts cohesive, like they feel a part of your brand. Your posts ultimately become your brand identity. 

Assign images to the dates you’ve blocked out on the calendar. If you don’t have the exact image yet, write down exactly what you want to post. For example, you might want to wait until you’ve had a certain appointment and done a certain service or style so you can post a picture of it. That’s fine as long as it is not the majority of your posts. 

Step 5: Write Your Captions

At this point, you know what you are going to post and when. Write your captions for each post. Remember, on Facebook you can put links directly in your caption (for example, you could link to an appointment booking app), but hashtags are a faux pas. On Instagram you can only have one link, and that is in your bio, but you’ll want to use your hashtag clusters from step 3. 

Step 6: Schedule ‘em! 

Whether you use an app like Later, Facebook’s native publishing tools, or set a reminder on your phone, it’s time to put the social calendar into motion. Upload your images, paste in your captions, set the date and time and hit schedule!

Step 7: Interactions and Reporting

When the day rolls around that your post goes live, make sure you are logged on and responding to comments and answering questions. Use this time to also engage and interact with those that you follow. You can interact with your followers and those you follow as often as you like, but should be doing it every time your post goes live at a minimum. 

Also take this time to look at how your last post or two did. Did posting certain types of content or at different times of the day perform like you hoped? Write down any patterns you notice so that you can learn and adapt for future social media content calendars. 

You Are All Set!

Congratulations, you just created your first social media calendar! For more tips and tricks on leveraging social media to grow your business follow Beauty As A Business on Instagram, @beautyasabiz or check out  their online courses here.