When I published my book The Fourth Moon, I was introduced to a Social Media Consultant who taught me about setting up a Digital Media Calendar.
She used a simple analogy that I understood immediately.
Think of your digital media strategy as a TV guide.
A TV guide has channels down the left and a calendar across the top creating a matrix. Within the guide, TV shows are plotted based on the channel and date/time.
The guide schedules when the content is to be broadcast by the various stations and the viewer simply tunes in to view their favourite shows.
Everyone understands a TV Guide.
What she said next was brilliant.
Imagine that you are Pay TV Company like Foxtel. Instead of having different channels broadcasting shows, you have different digital media platforms (email, website & social media platforms). Just like your viewing habits on TV, choose the stations (platforms) you want to broadcast from. You might choose LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. Or perhaps you prefer Pinterest and Instagram.
Based on your product and service offering, select the digital mediums that you are comfortable in broadcasting on and that most suit your business. For example, many B2B (Business to Business) owners use LinkedIn.
Now using your selected digital mediums, think about the content that you want to broadcast. It could be blogs, videos, webinars, reviews, tips, events or other resources. With your ideal customer and target market defined, now simply create great content that helps them.
With your digital mediums chosen (TV channels) and your content (TV shows), now you need to create your Digital Media Calendar (TV Guide).
Map out the month ahead on a calendar of when you are going to broadcast your content through each of your chosen digital mediums.
Think about the best times for the content to be received by your target market. Does your target market look at content before/after work or on weekends? Or do they view content during working hours? What are the optimal days and times for content to be consumed?
Also think about releasing premium content staggered over multiple digital mediums at different times/days. For example, you may upload your blog to your website on Tuesday, post it on LinkedIn on Wednesday and share it on Facebook Thursday.
Try and populate content within the Digital Media Calendar on a balanced basis so that there is a steady stream of great content on different digital mediums on different days.
Remember don’t overwhelm your audience with a constant barrage of content nor provide content too infrequently.
While your target market may enjoy binge-watching Game of Thrones, they’ll be unlikely to enjoy over-saturation of your content on all digital media channels.
But also, if you don’t produce any content and rarely broadcast, they will never think of you.
And finally, you need a reliable antenna to broadcast your content following your Digital Media Calendar. That could be you. However, if you are running a busy business and creating content, you might need some help.
An in-house solution is to appoint a Broadcaster who is responsible for scheduling the Digital Media Calendar, procuring content and broadcasting. An outsourced solution is to engage a consultant or digital media agency to handle this for you.
The decision to do this in-house or outsource digital media broadcasting should be based on scope, resources and cost.
The power of using a Digital Media Calendar is that it creates a predictable, reliable and cost-effective methodology for providing valuable content to your target market.
Remember to review and tweak your Digital Media Calendar over time based on your evolution, insights and feedback from your target market.
And most importantly, digital media is a two-way conversation, so please ensure you respond to inbound communication on a timely, friendly and generous basis.
I listened to my Social Media Consultant and you should too.
In summary:
- Choose digital mediums that best suit your business (TV Channels)
- Create valuable content for your target audience (TV Shows)
- Draft a Digital Media Calendar (TV Guide)
- Appoint a person to maintain calendar, curate content and broadcast (Broadcaster)
- Listen to your audience and respond
To start creating sustainable success in your business and life, download a copy of my eBook 'The Success Algorithm' which details my process to work less and earn more. You can get a free copy on the Giveaways page of my website. Plus some bonus videos from my Fourth Moon video series to reach your goals sooner!
All the best,
Darren K Bourke