Your blog is a business tool. Its task is to attract new readers and potential customers, maintain relationships with an already established audience, form an expert image for you, and the audience to trust you and your knowledge and skills. In a word, unobtrusively selling.

This is the main difference between the posts you write for the blog and the selling texts. The main task of the blog is to attract a relevant, non-random audience and create a long-term relationship with it. This audience, at the first need for your services, is converted into clients or, even if they are not your clients, but imbued with what and how you write, they advise you to others.

Paradox, but true! This is how the remote trust that you create with your blog works. Therefore, the main focus of the blog is always on creating interesting, relevant and useful content for the audience. How to create it?

Before I sat down to write this material, I looked at several articles on the net with tips on writing a content plan. They all started right off the bat: there are such and such types of posts, here's a template for you, distributed them according to the calendar and off we go.

But before you go, you need to decide on the direction, choose the route you need and understand why it is that way. And after that - yes, it remains only to mechanically distribute the types of posts on the calendar grid and go! That is why I deliberately put so much emphasis on the preparatory work and, above all, on the preparation of the strategy.

How to define a content strategy

Content strategy answers the questions “Why am I doing this? Why am I writing this and what do I want to achieve? ”, And the content plan structures the order and subject of the posts with which you achieve the stated goals. You can answer this question in five minutes if you clearly understand what the essence of your brand is. You can move towards becoming:

• a brand that offers a solution(educational games for children - a lot of options for how to take a child to good use)
• iconic brand(it's cool to sew shirts to order from X)
• lifestyle brand(people who buy tea only in the Oz network are people who choose a certain lifestyle)
• brand authority(the best plastic windows / Chinese courses / the most correct coffee, etc.)

These are just a few of the possible options. Don't think that branding is just a toy for big companies. You can leave aside brand books and brand codes - save on this, but formulate very clearly for yourself: who you are and what you are about. This will become the core of the brand. You can rely on the categories above. This is the first beacon you send to your customers.

Example. The choice of content strategy depends on what kind of brand you want to be. For example, you are a designer of women's clothing, brand X. You already have your own small production, you release collections 1-2 times a year, you are starting to form your own audience. What content strategy can you use for a blog?

1. Blog of an expert in a specific niche: write about fashion in an aspect that is close to your brand.

If you create clothes for business women, then these will be topics about business style and its diversity, comments on current trends, advice on shopping in different capitals of the world, on how to express individuality while remaining a business lady, etc.

2.Blog of the club of like-minded people where you are the center, the unifying link.

For example, the interests of girls who choose your brand X include healthy lifestyle, self-realization, and a sense of adventure. Understanding this, you offer them materials not only about fashion, but a wide range of topics. The only condition is to stay within your brand, then readers will not have the impression that the blog is about everything and nothing, but there will be a sense of integrity, versatility and added value from communication on your site.

And these are just two options out of more than a dozen possible.

3 things to do before writing a content plan

So, before you start compiling a content plan:

#1 Articulate who you are and what your brand is about

For example: I create clothes for people who like to challenge society, do not like stereotypical models, are open to new experiences, like to experiment, adventurous, not afraid to draw attention to themselves. My clothes help them to express this, they are an important element of their lifestyle.

#2 Describe your reader

You don't create content for everyone, you create it for your target audience. Then who are your readers? Describe in terms of their interests and values ​​and points of intersection with your business. Most likely, it will be several groups of customers interested in various kinds of content.

#3 Define your content strategy by answering the following questions:

— how can I convey information about my brand to people of this type (my potential customers)? What should blog posts be about to grab their attention?

The answer should be list of topics to which you will write.

- what should my posts be like: in terms of format? By style? By tone? What style of communication and presentation of information do such people prefer?

The answer should be just post types, which we will talk about below, and your position in relation to the audience: friend / expert / life writer / observer, etc.

Now that we have decided on a content strategy, we can move on to compiling and filling out a content plan. I will talk about this in the next article in 2 weeks.

To be continued.

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The coldest and harshest season is coming to an end, and despite the fact that this year's winter turned out to be extremely beautiful and snowy, we all rejoice at the approach of spring. Very soon the world will change: nature will begin its awakening, the singing of birds and drops will complement the daily sound range, and more and more often you will notice a smile on the faces of passers-by.

The beginning of spring is the time when we most acutely feel our connection with nature. The upsurge of emotions that we feel, rejoicing at the first warm rays of the sun, the smells of spring and the revival reigning around, is familiar to each of us.

Interestingly, it is in March that a number of international holidays aimed at preserving the environment are celebrated. Do not be too lazy to create your content on an environmental theme. Don't think it doesn't matter. Your article or post on social networks will become part of a good cause.

What events and holidays await us in March? How to use them in your content marketing?

Brew tea, sit back, there are many exciting ideas ahead of you.

The coming of spring

The arrival of spring itself already gives rise to a lot of reasons for creating thematic content, the most relevant topics are transformation by summer, spring bows, beriberi and ... love. When writing articles, focus on your target audience and brand niche. And if a fashion blogger can successfully post the latest catwalk trends on his Instagram, a beauty salon would do well to advertise its services with “before and after” photos that will push the ladies to an impulse desire to visit the procedure.

World Writer's Day

World Day of the Writer is celebrated in almost all countries every year on March 3rd.

It so happened that now almost everyone is a bit of a writer. No, we certainly do not compare the average layman with the geniuses of classical literature, but still ...

Content Ideas

Run a "hot line" with your customers, find out their opinion about your product and service.

World Sleep Day

The first World Sleep Day was held on March 14, 2008 and has since been held annually, on Friday of the second full week of March, as part of the World Health Organization (WHO) project on sleep and health.

Content Ideas

• Create a PSA to raise awareness about the importance of sleep, sleep issues, and the impact of sleep disorders on human health and society as a whole.
• Draw your readers' attention to the importance of a healthy lifestyle, because a balanced diet, proper organization of the daily routine, sufficient time for sleep are necessary conditions for maintaining physical and mental health for many years.
• Or just post a funny meme 🙂

international customer day

The first International Client's Day was celebrated on March 19, 2010. The purpose of this holiday for manufacturers of goods and services in various fields is to attract new and encourage regular customers. It is interesting that entrepreneurs from Russia and Lithuania became its initiators.

Content Ideas

On this day, business owners around the world have the opportunity to express their gratitude to their customers by thanking them for their cooperation. How exactly - everyone decides for himself: it can be souvenirs, small gifts, discounts or holding promotions and festive events.

international day of happiness

In 2012, the UN, by its resolution No. 66/281, proclaimed March 20 as the International Day of Happiness in order to support the idea that the pursuit of happiness is a common feeling for all people of our planet.

How many of us know this feeling?

Alina Medvedeva, content manager at the Ivanych SMM agency, wrote how to create a content plan for a small business. Everything is real in the text: what questions to ask before drawing up a plan, how to use different types of content for sales, and, of course, the algorithm for creating a content plan for a month. About how to cry over Excel spreadsheets for several hours, and then walk happy all month, read the article.

We have been writing this article for a week. In between creating client content plans, posting and responding to comments. For a long time, because we collected literally everything in it so that you, too, can, like us, compose, post, respond.

See the text for detailed instructions:

• analysis of questions that need to be asked before you start creating a content plan;
• a description of the types of content that small businesses need to use;
• algorithm for compiling and filling the content plan itself.

In fact, you can take a person, make him learn the text so that it bounces off his teeth, and you have a ready-made content manager.

Ask yourself these 10 questions before creating a content plan

Do not rush to fulfill the order - it can be canceled. Let's immediately apply this army saying so as not to do useless work. Now we carefully read and ask ourselves. We answer honestly, maybe you don’t need any content plan, and all your problems are solved by another sales manager who needs to be beaten up and down.

As soon as we decided that SMM is your everything, we re-read it again more carefully, realize and penetrate it.

So let's go.

1. What is the purpose?

If it doesn't matter where you want to go, it doesn't matter where you go. Cheshire Cat VS Alice. Don't be like Alice. If you have already started to engage in promotion, you should definitely know your goal.

For small businesses, the basis of any promotion is the sale. That is why you gather people in social networks. Not to poison stories to people, but to sell them at a higher price.

The cries of customers about “you only need our money” should not be embarrassing. Of course they are. And more, and faster. Admit it to yourself, and you can tell others, or you can portray pure love, but keep it in your head.

The goal of all promotion is a sale. All further hand movements are considered through the prism of “how this will help me sell”. And preferably right now. Because there may simply not be enough money for “later”. Budgets tend to melt like butter on a hot baguette.

2. Do you need SMM?

Be honest with yourself. Will SMM help you personally? Will your sales increase from the fact that you will spill like a nightingale about your machine tool plant in social networks?

What is more effective: to hire a sms manager or another sales manager who will spend the night at the doorstep of customers? Do your customers accurately make decisions based on information in social networks? Are they there? Or vice versa. Your customer is every first, but not always.

For example, you repair washing machines and you have your own website. Wonderful! Fight for your site to rise higher in the search engine. Hit social media.

Just let go of that idea. People are not looking for a computer repairman and a coffee maker in Odnoklassniki and Vkontakte. Yandex is your everything. There is no need to show people the open insides of the washer and wish good morning in posts.

Think about whether the services of a sms manager will pay off? Close your eyes, open your mind, get an answer from the universe, go drink coffee and set up Yandex.Direct.

Decided. SMM is needed.

3. How do we sell?

In addition, we think in advance who is responsible for what. Who picks up applications from you, who communicates in the comments and pushes you to the point of sale, who responds to the attacks of dissatisfied customers.

If you think that we will figure it out later, just to start, everything will end badly and pretty quickly. The first wave of negativity will negate all the efforts made, or the effect will be strange - there are people in the public, but there are no sales.

Decided.

4. What is plan B?

What to do if everything went wrong? And it will definitely come at some point.

When everyone is running around, smearing themselves with panic and yelling “CHEF, ALL IS LOST!”, there must be a plan B.

We answer questions:

• What if no one signs up?
• What to do if they do not leave applications?
• What to do if orders are not closed for sale?

If you prepared in advance, you can instantly rebuild and taxi to the desired numbers by the end of the month.

5. Who is the target audience?

Do we understand who we are selling to, or not? The target audience is the basis of the content strategy, and at this stage we proceed to its formation.

What is the client profile? If there are already buyers, just look who they are. We speak the same language with them and give the information that will hook. If there are no clients yet, fantasize. Ask us in the comments for a list of questions that need to be answered in order to make a portrait - we are kind, we will give.

The portrait of the target audience arises with any further question - what to write about, what language to speak, what arguments to give, who to target advertising.

Done? Then they drove.

6. Who are the competitors?

Take a close look at your competitors in the industry. What do they write, what does the audience react to? How do they solve sales issues in their posts? Where they are great, and where not so much.

Look at the best. The best are those who sell a lot. Even if you personally do not like the content that competitors upload, but it works, accept that your audience needs it.

Trial and error method. You don't have to learn on your own.

7. What kind of advertising?

Work with a targetologist. Content and ads must be set to the same audience. Synchronicity and consistency is very important. If the people do not go, most likely, the dog rummaged right here.

The content does not meet the needs and interests of the people that the advertisement brings. Got it? Change something - a content or advertising strategy, a content manager or a tagretologist.

No, stop, don't change the contenter. The content manager is now you.

8. What events?

What's important to you? What events are expected in the next month: promotions, new products in the assortment, important dates in the life of the company? Don't forget to use this knowledge when creating your content plan. Take them out in a separate line and figure out how to beat each one. Again, in terms of purpose.

• Company birthday - arrange a contest for the best congratulations with reposts and other goodies.
• Action or sale - shout about it loudly and often, more people will come.

Experiment, be creative, but don't forget the goal.

9. What are the possibilities?

You are not Nike, you have different budgets and goals. At first, make do with what you have. Increasing difficulty every week. First, we test what works for you, then we analyze the results and boost where necessary.

If on the fingers, then we take a photo of the goods that we already have. See if they play a role in sales. If there are more orders from those posts where the photo is better, next month we focus on photo content. If product descriptions mean more, then we go to art writing courses.

We act according to the situation. There is no need to immediately pump half the budget into a creative with a singing Baskov. First sing yourself, then you will see how it goes.

10. What are the objections?

We talked about the portrait of the client above. If you did, then you know his pains and fears. On the basis of them we will wang.

We come up with why the client may not buy from us. Yes, we come up with his objections and immediately how we will answer them.

We include such posts in our content plan and process objections in advance.

The best battle is the one that doesn't start.

Now, in fact, the formation of a content strategy

First, educational program. All content with which you will fill the community is divided according to science into several types. We will list everything and tell you why most of it is useless for you. And all the heresy that is usually filled with publics and groups does not work for small businesses.

• Useless content is generated by smms who are either too lazy to think, or they simply do not understand the task.
• The average smmschik believes that if he writes something there, then he is already well done.
• And if he knows what types of content are and what they are aimed at, then doubly well done.

We hasten to please - this is not so.

1. Useful content

Useful content helps in the acquisition of knowledge by subscribers, solves the problems of the audience.

Useful content types:

• Let's go straight. Net worth does not sell. Likes do not equal sales. And even the number of people in the group who come for the benefit is not equal to the sale. You need to sell. Therefore, we wrap even the benefit in a selling wrapper. Secrets and chips
• How to
• Answers on questions
• Tutorial articles
• Pros and cons
• Mythbusting

Useful content served as the basis for the emergence of millions of publics, and everyone suddenly realized that there was power behind the good. But the SMM workers behave as if they were given a shovel in their hands, but were not told where to dig. Hence the gifs "10 exercises for the press" in a public selling diet food, "salad recipes in 5 minutes" in a group selling women's cosmetics.

Let's go straight. Net worth does not sell. Likes do not equal sales. And even the number of people in the group who come for the benefit is not equal to the sale. You need to sell. Therefore, we wrap even the benefit in a selling wrapper.

Example: you have an online shoe store. You can endlessly come up with topics for useful posts, but do not forget about the main goal. Therefore, at the output we get not just “3 ways to properly store shoes”, “Properly store shoes in canvas bags, which we have cost 2.99. And by the way, here they are. Don't forget to order when you buy your pair."

2. Selling content

Selling content is aimed at increasing sales. Now it will seem to you that this is it! We have been talking about sales for so long and then we will turn around. Wrong. Now understand.

But first, by type:

• Stock
• Contests
• Promo posts
• Discounts
• Auction
• Description of individual types of products

Your task is to make the purchase process simple and convenient for customers: provide all the information at once - prices, contacts, links to the purchase form. Expand the nuances of delivery, payment.

Just do not forget that if people wanted to watch ads around the clock, there would already be a separate channel on television for this. Where is he? He is not here. Advertising is annoying.

Use the 20/80 rule. The share of selling content should not exceed 20% of the total amount of content in the community. Okay, okay, 30%. But no more.

Separately, let's say about promotions and discounts - consider the economy. All adults, well! Think right away how much to drive so many people to pay off and really look at things. Can you? The numbers are similar to last month's reach. Or you will work at a loss.

And contests, yes!

You need to clearly understand that the entire Internet is in this. People create separate accounts in order to participate in catching prizes. You will receive 80% of "prizes" and 20% of normal buyers. Contests are not for sale, albeit selling content. Contests for coverage. You don’t have to shake your fists and ask: “Where is the money, Zin ?!”.

No need to grab your heart and scream like a wounded seagull. We have warned you.

3. Reputational content

And now the most important thing. Reputational content is aimed at improving the attitude of users towards the brand. Here we sell ourselves without selling texts.

• Photos from production
• Manufacturing workshops
• People who make the product - founder, best specialists/salesmen
• Manufacturing process
• behind the scenes
• company's news
• Achievements and prizes
• Customer Reviews

By publishing such content, we work with several main client fears at once:

1. We show ourselves and humanize the team - this increases loyalty. People buy from people, not from companies;

2. We show that we understand what we do, we are professionals, which means that buying from us is not scary;

3. We show the quality of the product, how much work is invested in it and justify its cost. Especially if the low price is not your competitive advantage;

4. We show what other people tell us. Any selling text from a copywriting guru, written according to a secret magic formula, is nothing compared to Aunt Zoya's post, in which she, skipping commas, says what great fellows and sincere guys you are. It's simple - Aunt Zoya doesn't get paid for this.

Make the most of your gestures to get such user-generated content: arrange photo contests for happy owners, post screenshots with thanks to buyers. You can even secretly pay Aunt Zoya to tell about you.

In general, tune in to the fact that any content is reputational. Or killing reputation, it depends on you. Even comments under posts and your answers are content. Therefore, speak honestly, openly, be able to admit mistakes and apologize.

Do not delete angry reviews - they will definitely notice this, discontent will grow like a snowball, and it will only get worse. Feel free to answer them. And grow zen for it. If there is, don't forget to use a sense of humor.

4. Communicative content

A type of content that does not carry a special load, but without it in any way.

Types of communication content:

• polls
• discussions
• posts-reactions to hot newsbreaks in the industry
• adviсe
• candid provocative materials

Now for the real truth: you need comments because that's how posts get more reach. They influence the search results in the smart feed, they talk about it VKontakte developers. A upon application Andrey Rogozov, managing director of Vkontakte, as of September 26, 2017, 85% of the VKontakte audience use smart feed.

So talk to these weird, often disgruntled people in the comments. Create discussions, use polls, encourage communication in posts by asking questions to subscribers. Use the hottest newsbreaks, write a categorical opinion so that every wise guy can crush in a response comment with his weighty and undeniable argument.

You need it. We have already explained why.

5. News content

It is important to always be up to date with the latest changes and give your assessment of current events. Yeah of course.

Types of news content:

• market news
• company's news
• market trends
• event reports
• figures and reports

In fact, no one cares what happened if:

• the person did not participate in it himself,
• over this you can not laugh,
• it does not give the person any personal benefit.

News is not interesting until you show why this event is worth paying attention to. Reduce, again, to how it affects a person. Or if you know how - to neighing.

Company news can be attributed to both reputational and entertainment content:

• To reputational if you have won something somewhere.
• For entertainment, if the chief accountant Semyon Semenovich fell asleep on his face in a birthday cake at a corporate party, and the junior assistant manager managed to film it.

Publish! It’s not a pity to fire a junior assistant when the chief accountant sees.

6. Entertaining content

The content presented in this section is aimed at increasing audience engagement indicators. Visually appealing posts with selections, humorous posts, motivate the user to like or share the post on their wall.

Content types:

• situational humor
• quotes
• stories, short stories, poems
• riddles (puzzles)
• entertainment collections (music, videos, images, gifs)

In fact, this is again a story about reach.

Regarding situational content - relax. You need to react instantly, have a sense of humor and understand the main task. Only Aviasales can beat the news quickly, funny and for the benefit. If you can too, why the hell are you reading this manual.

Posts with a proposal to solve a riddle or answer a question, if they do not relate to the topic of the community, it is not clear where and why the type of content appeared. He does not sell. Yes, activity develops and is shown higher in the search results, but why raise a useless post.

Be careful with humor. Anything that is funny to you will not necessarily hit your target audience. Not everyone likes our humor either, but we do not give up trying. And you experiment: try different things, see what gets more likes, keep going.

Aerobatics - to write your own jokes, for example, in the form of funny dialogues or individual statements, framed in the form of quotes. You can come up with your own character, on behalf of which to write these posts. This immediately adds +5 Image and +10 Loyalty.

Understand the types of content.

Here's a map for you to put in front of your eyes:

Now you will understand why we talked so long and tediously. Knowing everything we've told you makes content planning a bit like assembling a construction set.

See for yourself.

Drawing up a content plan

Well, let's get started. If everyone has carefully read it, now it will easily go like clockwork.

1. Compiling a rubricator

For each type of content, we come up with several headings within which we will write posts.

As you already understood, we sell with every post, every heading, every type of content, we just do it not openly, not in the forehead.

When compiling the rubricator, we focus on reputational and useful content. These types are most suitable for our tasks - they are not as intrusive as direct selling posts, they work for reputation, and in relation to the product, they return the user to thoughts about buying.

• #all_sama@adres - how to take care of yourself at home (with reference to salons)
• #Cleopatra_secret@adres - secrets and tricks, life hacks, as it should be (with reference to the masters, recommendations on their behalf).
• #like_e_profi@adres - we explain professional terms in simple language, reveal small professional secrets. What is shatush, how it differs from shugaring, why mill the ends of the haircut.
• #recommends@adres - a story about the products used for personal care: varnishes, shampoos, tanning creams. Description of products, their advantages, special qualities. Products are those that are used or sold in salons.
• #master_says@adres - stories from masters, tips, recommendations.

• #new products@adres - presentation of new products. #promotion@adres - promotions for a limited period of time.
• #choice@adres - a story about several products, comparing products with each other.
• #product_day@adres - a story about one product, a description of a particular product, its advantages, special qualities.
• #assortment@adres - possible modifications of models available in the permanent assortment of the workshop or exclusive and unusual models designed to order.

• #reviews@adres - customer reviews.
• #happy_satisfied@adres - photos of buyers with a link to them in social networks.
• #creating_and_making@adres - reports from past events.
• #product_face@adres - the process of creating a hairstyle, manicure, etc., as we do it, emphasis on quality, safety.
• #suddenly@adres - funny random photos, masters caught off guard in the process of work, everyday scenes from the life of salons.
• #team@adres - a story about the people who work, the history of creation, the best employees.
• #with_head_order@adres - examples of haircuts and styling, work done.
• #nails_and_hands@adres - examples of manicure and pedicure, completed works.
• #result_obvious@adres - examples of make-up, eyebrow correction and other procedures related to the face.

• #voice@adres - surveys related to getting feedback on new, existing products and related topics.
• #have_opinion@adres - discussion of controversial issues related to related topics.

• #trends_brands@adres - industry news, beauty world news, trends.
• #fresh_number@adres - company news, events, program presentations.

• #inspiration@adres - quotes, entertaining selections. #smile@adres - humor.
• #quote@adres - quotes from women about beauty and health.

Thinking over the rubricator, immediately enter the rubrics into the excel file in the format #rubric @yourpage address.

It will be convenient for you to add these hashtags to each post so that users can click and see all publications on a given topic.

You need it for content analytics by hashtags - in the monthly report you will immediately see which category causes the greatest response from the audience.

2. Fill out the content plan

• We create a sheet with a content plan, in which we immediately create lines for the Date, Event, Content Topic, Hashtag and links to the TK. Fill in the numbers by day of the week.

• By numbers, we spread all the upcoming events of the company - the birthday of the company, the dates of the promotions and the validity of special offers.

• Fill in the headings. For this you have space in the hashtag cell. You simply transfer rubrics from the rubricator. Make sure each week is filled with balance.

Follow the approximate ratio: 30% - selling, 20% - useful, 30% - reputational, 20% - everything else mixed up.

See statistics, analyze when the audience is more active, and put up selling and communicative content at this time. Most often, it's morning. Don't post too many posts a day - it's bad for SERPs, and it's hard to generate that much quality content. Optimally 2 posts a day - morning and evening.

• And now we create. In each section, we come up with a topic for the post. And we write it down. With selling, news and reputation content, everything is clear.

A good question is where to find useful, communicative and entertaining topics that will be relevant to your audience. To do this, we studied competitors - see what comes from them. You can use the Buzzsumo service to look at the top topics in your field and adapt them for yourself.

• Fill in the cells with links to TK. Here you prescribe the materials that you need to write a post and publish. These may be missing photos, statistics, information about products from sellers.

Eventually

That, in fact, is all. Now you can exhale, relax and smoke. You have a document in your hands that will be your headache pill for a whole month “What should I publish today?” At first it can be difficult and painful, but then it will take time from breakfast to lunch.

If it seems to you that everything we just talked about is nonsense, then look at the numbers.

After the implementation of a content strategy in a public selling accessories made of genuine leather, on average, the number of subscribers to this page increases by 1800 people per month. In total, about 500 applications per month are received. So innovate and grow rich.

In this article, I would like to show you my example social media content plan. I use it to promote your VKontakte group. To be honest, now I don’t use it at all, because I mainly do SEO promotion. And the VKontakte group serves only as a supporting platform.

But before, I purposefully filled it with content in accordance with all the rules, and this even brought results. At the end of the article, you can download the social media content plan template for free (there are actually five templates).

But first, let's take a quick look at what a good content plan should be. After all, you still need to fill out these templates. The result will depend on this.

• Why you really need a content plan
• How to fill out a content plan

And above all - why do we actually need this very content plan?

Why do you really need a content plan?

Everything is very simple here. You need a content plan in order to avoid the so-called "creative block". To get promoted, you have to post something every time, right? And one day, such an unpleasant moment is sure to happen when you open your laptop and realize that you have absolutely no idea what to make a new post about.

The content plan gives you a clear understanding of what and at what point you will do with the prospect of a couple of weeks or even months. When you have a plan, you get much more done and much less tired.

Do you know what the worst kind of fatigue is? This is when you seem to be doing something all day, but in fact you didn’t manage to do anything. And at the same time, you are exhausted to the limit, and you can’t sleep at night, because you know that your business has not progressed anywhere.

To avoid all this, we draw up a content plan. In the morning you wake up, immediately do the most necessary - a new post according to the plan, and then you spend the whole day on the rise of mental strength. Because you know for sure that you have taken the next step. Here it is already marked in green in the plan.

How to write a content plan

To begin with, it would be nice to decide on the main goal of your promotion. Do you need clients to sell your services? Or do you promote your information products and trainings? Or do you want to make money from ads? For each of these goals, the content plan will be slightly different.

1. have fun
2. Communicate

Accordingly, you need to learn how to pack what you want to convey to people in these two packages: entertainment and communication. Let's say you're a director who wants to find a lot of expensive and free clients on social networks.

To do this, you start a VKontakte group and start filling it with content. If you just post examples of your work and lessons on how Yandex-Direct works, then of course ... it will work. After all, this is how you show your expertise. People read your posts, gain confidence in you, and eventually become your customers.

It just won't work well. That is, the number of participants will grow slowly, people will repost reluctantly, they will not want to actively participate in the development of your community.

What type of content always works

The main part of the content at the initial stage should be entertainment - humor, "shock", conflicts, interesting facts, and so on. If you have less than 2-3 thousand live people in your group, then the content for communication will most likely not go very well.

So first, plan enough entertaining posts in your content plan.

Then you can move on to communication. At this stage, your content is not as important as the content that people will create. And people are different. As a rule, the most sociable of them are just the strangest. They will strive to arrange a shit under each of your posts in order to attract maximum attention to themselves.

We will have to actively work with them - to support the dispute, to develop the conflict. Most of the audience will silently watch and have fun (remember the first purpose of visiting social networks).

Next, you need to make the content plan more diverse. On the first day - a humorous picture and analysis of an interesting case. The second is infographics. Third, a question for readers. The fourth is your review of some service or book. And so on. The more varied, the better.

Let me now show my example of a content plan, as I did it.

My example of a content plan for a VKontakte group

I “promoted” my VKontakte group from scratch, without involving any bots and programs. That is, all the members of this group are quite alive and real. And here is a screenshot of what my content plan looks like.

As you can see, I did not try to make a lot of content. One to two posts per day maximum. But I tried to make them really interesting. Here, in my opinion, quality wins over quantity. Moreover, we still won’t be able to beat the number of millions of daily posts on VKontakte.

Please note that opposite each post, I kept track of the number of likes, reposts and comments in order to understand which topics and in what format are most interesting for my audience. Just below you can download the five promised content plan templates. This template is there at number 3. I like it most of all for its simplicity and conciseness.

On the second tab of my content plan, I also made a graph that shows the increase in the number of group members. This is more for motivation and visualization of the result of the work done. You can do this for yourself too.

Pay attention to the interesting paragraph "Goal" next to each post. In theory, you should write there - “sale of such and such a product”, or “maximum repost”. But I didn’t do it, because at the beginning I had one single goal - to attract attention and new participants.

Well, now, actually five free content plan templates, as promised.

5 content plan templates in excel

As I said above, I chose example number 3. You may well like some other one. Here are screenshots so you understand what you are downloading.

Example #1 - Professional template for a large VK community

Example #2 - The minimum template for the very start

Example #3 - my favorite pattern

I am often asked questions: How to search for blog topics? And what is there to write about? Where do you get ideas for articles?

In fact, everything is very simple. We have already done a number of articles on this topic:

But today it’s about how to create a content plan for a blog or website. FAST.

Let's get right down to business:

1. Collection of ideas and titles for articles

This is the most common problem for everyone. Although there are tools with which you can do this very quickly.

Especially for this, I have prepared a video lesson in which I will clearly show and tell everything.

Let's watch the video tutorial:

If you use the method that is discussed in the video lesson, then in 3 minutes you can collect:

- topics in the main areas

- put them in excel

But we know that article titles can't be search engine-only, and thus the titles themselves get less attention. Let's move on to the next step.

2. Composing attractive titles

In our case, we do not need to invent a bicycle. And just use ready-made guides.

As we can see, the article has a lot of examples of how you can strengthen a simple and boring request that will be clicked on more.

But in the article, examples are mainly with commercial requests. And for the content plan, we mainly use information queries.

A) Distribute topics by time

C) At the output we get a ready-made content plan

In fact, everything is simple, especially finding topics. It is much more difficult to write a useful article for your visitors.

3. Is the target audience important?

Most and very often talk about the target audience, and about what content needs to be done for it.

In fact, the tasks of the blog are simple:

- show how to do it

- show how you can do it yourself

- show your expertise

- present information easily and interestingly

In the content plan example above, we used only the search query and article titles.

But it is important when drawing up a content plan to determine the headings within which the blog will develop.

For example, in our blog, the main ones are:

- step by step guides

- video on board

- video lessons

— infographics

There are many article formats and you need to use them in order to better convey the necessary information to the audience of your site or blog.

So is the target audience important for a blog?

If you write articles on the topics of marble or granite, then at 90 % of the time you will have a target audience.

Blogging is best approached through learning:

- help you get better at something

- show your experience and expertise

- submit everything in different formats

- focus on those formats that give the most return

And now everything is short and to the point

1. We collect topics for articles (we use Prodvigator.ua for this)
2. Improving headlines (according to the method of Denis Kaplunov)
3. We distribute by time (depending on the frequency of publications)
4. Content plan ready

The process of quickly compiling a content plan visually:

If you already have a full hand, for example, like me, then it will take you no more than 5-10 minutes for a blog.

The rest is up to the creation and distribution of content.

What do you think about the quick creation of a content plan and this method?