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Blog Posts for Social Media Managers

How We Plan Our Social Media Content Strategy at Later


Updated on April 13, 2022
6 minute read

File under: game-changing content management hacks ⚡️

Published April 13, 2022
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Managing a busy social media content calendar can be time consuming — especially when you’re juggling a jam-packed to-do list.  

However, with the right content management practices in place, you can make your life easier and save a ton of time.

At Later, our small team creates and publishes over 90 pieces of content every single week, so we know a thing or two about maximizing efficiency!

From organizing assets to repurposing posts, here are our top content management hacks:

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Hack #1: Use a Content Calendar to Map Out Your Content Strategy for Each Platform 

First things first: take a big-picture look at your upcoming content for the month or quarter, depending on how far out you prefer to plan in advance. 

By taking a macro look at what’s coming up, you’ll be able plan your content more efficiently, and spot opportunities to promote the same piece of content across multiple social media channels. 

And when it comes to organizing all of your ideas, keep it simple.

At Later, we use a color-coded calendar on Google Sheets to map out what content we want to share on each channel each day.

We change the color once they’ve been added to Later (our social media scheduling app) and are set to be auto-published.

laters social media planning calendar

It’s simple and shareable.

FYI: Later is a social media management tool trusted by over 4M businesses, creators, and social media managers — sign up today, it’s free! 

Hack #2: Set Content Pillars to Guide Your Content Planning 

Content pillars (also known as buckets or themes) are the topics (usually 2-5) that you talk about and create content around on social media. 

Setting clear content pillars can act as a guideline for your content planning: are you tapping into each of your pillars? Is there a healthy balance between them? 

Alongside content pillars, it can also help to set what types of posts you want to share.

At Later, for example, we have a “creative menu” for the types of post we know perform best with our audience: Tweet treatments, pop culture-inspired memes, short-form videos, and carousel posts.

This way, when it comes to pre-planning our grid, we can confidently set what theme we want to tap into and what format would be best for it — making our content creation process more structured and formulaic.

It helps us save time, stay on track with our strategy, and tell our brand’s story in a way that’s interesting to our audience.

Hack #3: Batch Create Content in Bulk 

Creating content takes a ton of time and effort. You have to set up your equipment, find good lighting, and get in the zone — and that’s all before the cameras start rolling.

Our #1 time-saving tip? Set aside one day to film all your content in one productive session

It’s the ultimate time-saver.

You can also use this bulk batching hack for pretty much everything — from writing post captions to finding user-generated (UGC) content.

ICYMI: You can use Later’s free desktop scheduling tools to write all of your social media post captions in one focused power hour. Check out Later today, it’s free.

Hack #4: Find Opportunities to Repurpose Content Across Multiple Platforms 

Cross-posting one piece of content to multiple channels not only saves time, but it also helps you get more value from your content. 

If you’re unsure on what content formats are prime for repurposing, check out the quick guide we use at Later

overview of ways to repurpose content on social media

For example, if we’re filming a social media tutorial on TikTok, we’ll also repurpose it for Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts, making necessary adjustments to the video or copy before we hit publish. 

Another example — we often screenshot our Tweets and turn them into Tweet treatments for Instagram. It gets us double the reach from a single piece of content, and works well across both platforms.

By getting creative with how we repurpose content, we quickly fill up our multi-channel content strategy, while still providing relevant content to each audience. Win-win!

Hack #5: Keep Assets Organized and Easy to Find  

If you’re running a social media account, you’ve probably maxxed out your phone storage at least once this year.  

Save your storage (and the frustration of finding “that” image) with our top asset organization tips: 

1. Create Saved Folders on Instagram and TikTok 

When inspiration strikes during your afternoon scroll, use Instagram and TikTok’s “save” tools to organize your ideas for later. 

Whether it’s potential UGC, pop culture moments to turn into memes, or creative inspiration for your next launch, save it all in dedicated folders that make finding that content in future much easier. 

TIP: Find out how to organize posts into saved collections on Instagram here.

2. Upload and Label Assets in a Media Library 

Later’s Media Library makes it easy for you to upload, store, and manage all your media in one place.

laters media library

You can easily upload content from desktop, mobile, Dropbox or Google Drive in seconds, creating one central repository for you and your team members. 

You can also label your media with keywords to help categorize your content, making it super easy to find exactly what you need, when you need it. 

Media items are automatically labeled with “Used” once scheduled, so you can keep track of your content and easily review what you have left to work with.

It’s the most efficient way to keep your assets organized.

Hack #6: Prep and Schedule Social Media Posts in Advance

Once your content is all organized and ready to go, it’s time to get scheduling! 

With Later, you can drag and drop images from your Media Library onto your content calendar, schedule at your best time to post, and easily add lists of saved hashtags to your posts. 

Plus, you can preview your Instagram grid before you post — so you can make sure your aesthetic is always on-point. 

A gif showing how to use Laters visual feed planner

Once you’ve scheduled, you can sit back and let Later take care of the rest.

With the right social media content management processes in place, you can publish a higher volume of content and maximize efficiency, all without sacrificing quality. 

Hello, work-free weekends! 👋

Looking to improve your social media content management workflow? Sign up for a free Later account today.

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Plan, schedule, and automatically publish your social media posts with Later.

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