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Every time you post on your business page, story, or Facebook group, you should not reinvent the wheel. Content creation can initially be exciting but sometimes becomes a chore over time. But why re-do what is already working?
Turn Down The Hustle by taking advantage of re-occurring weekly or monthly staple posts. Instead of fighting the algorithm, appreciate it for what it is, but give your audience a sense of predictability, so they know when to look for specific posts from you. There are three types of posts you should consider scheduling consistently, whether it be weekly or monthly.
Template Posts
Template posts are posts nearly any business could use, and it is not unique to the person or company per se. Queen B Graphics & Design includes 14 of these in her engagement collections included in all of my Content Calendars. They range from Mental Monday, Tradition Tuesday, Wish List Wednesday, Throwback Thursday, Flash Sale Friday, Spotlight Saturday, or Slow It Down Sunday. Schedule these posts in your group and observe for a month or two which posts elicit the most response from your audience. Once you have identified 1-2 best-performing template posts, move those to occur every week.
For example, Wear It Wednesday tends to be a popular template engagement post. When you post this graphic, ask your followers to share a selfie of themselves or a photo of someone else wearing your items. Participants are entered to win a $5 Store Credit. These submissions could also double as marketing content. Ask for permission before resharing their photo on your social media or website.
HOMEWORK ➡️ Schedule at least 14 template posts each month for two months. Analyze which gets the most responses and adopt that as your weekly staple post for the next two months. Then, switch it up as required.
Personalized Posts
Personalized posts are not templated but encourage your audience to share more about themselves. Schedule out 12 different posts each month, asking them a variety of questions ranging from:
- What is your New Years' resolution? (January)
- What do you have planned for Valentine's Day? (February)
- Do you wear green on St. Patrick's Day? (March)
- What are your Spring Break plans? (April)
- Do you observe Cinco de Mayo? (May)
- Who is ready for summer break? (June)
- Are you going on any fun adventures this month? (July)
- Who is prepared for the kids to go back to school? (August)
- Are you a pumpkin spice fan? (September)
- Please show me your family costumes! (October)
- What are you thankful for this year? (November)
- Do you open one gift on Christmas Eve? (December)
Another great example is a Birthday Celebration post. Make a post asking for all those who have a birthday this month. When they comment, set the alarm in your phone to remember to go back and wish them a Happy Birthday. Another idea is to schedule a post to your group wishing them a Happy Birthday ahead of time. Make your audience feel seen, and make sure they know you care!
HOMEWORK ➡️ Schedule 12 monthly personalized posts for the entire year!
Hybrid Posts
A hybrid post is a mix of template and personalized posts. This post type is my go-to. Hybrid posts become a themed posts that you repeat weekly or monthly. It will give you an idea of what to post each week or month, but the ability to batch-post hybrid posts well in advance may be limited. Here are some examples below:
- Top Contributor - while the post itself is templated, selecting your winner every month is where it becomes a hybrid post. Encourage your audience to engage for their chance to win. To alleviate the same person winning each month and give more people a chance, I like to do a drawing and give entries based on monthly order:
- 5 entries - 1st Place
- 4 entries - 2nd Place
- 3 entries - 3rd Place
- 1 entry - 4th-10th Place
Conduct your drawing on a website such as Wheel of Names.
- ICYMI - Every Saturday, you can do a complete wrap-up of the week, so those who may have missed what happened in the group or my business can easily reference it in one place. I have a dedicated blog to "ICYMI" you can read about here and get your template to create your own.
The following two posts types I rotate in my VIP group:
- What would you do Wednesday? I batch schedule this theme of posts in my group but create a new weekly scenario for my audience to answer. During this series, my audience soon knows to look for the new question posted.
I did a similar theme in retail with "Would you Rather Wednesday." I set these questions up as polls and asked them fun, middle school-type questions such as Would you Rather give up Water or Coffee? It was a lot of fun to see what people picked, and then the conversation continued in the comments. So take advantage of scheduling polls, and don't be surprised if you miss a week and your audience asks where the question is (this happened to me more than once).
- Tell me about your Thursday - When building out this hybrid post set for the month, I choose a central topic for the month. It may be related to a season or a specific niche in business. I craft 4-5 posts related to this topic and ask my audience to elaborate. There is typically a lot of great answers and responses to these posts. As a result, I created a guide dedicated to these posts where I save them every week so they stay visible in my group feed for future readers.
HOMEWORK ➡️ Choose a weekly hybrid post you want to try (I recommend ICYMI) and commit to scheduling them every week in January.
So What
I know you are juggling many things within your business, not to mention juggling your business as a whole along with motherhood, your 9-5, and trying to remember if you gave the dog heartworm medicine or not this month. However, engaging with your audience and scheduling posts is not as complicated as it may feel. If you find something that works, don't move on to the next shiny penny... keep doing what works!
Links mentioned in this episode
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