5 Common Content Planning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Let's see 5 Common Content Planning Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

MaiLy Thao

11.10.2024

When it comes to growing your small business and reaching new audiences, social media marketing is essential. However, managing your social media effectively alongside other responsibilities can be tough, especially with limited resources. That’s why having a solid content plan is crucial.

Content planning, which involves creating and scheduling content to meet business goals, is a game-changer for anyone looking to achieve significant results efficiently. It helps save time, reduce stress, and boost productivity, allowing you to make the most of your social media efforts.

However, if you're new to this process, it's easy to make mistakes that could hinder your success. In this article, we'll highlight the five most common content planning mistakes and provide simple solutions to help you steer clear of them.

Importance of content planning for small business

Content planning is essential for small businesses as it enables them to stay organized, consistent, and strategic in their marketing efforts. Unlike larger companies, small businesses often operate with limited resources and time, making it crucial to have a clear plan in place.

A well-structured content plan ensures that social media posts align with business goals and resonate with the target audience, which is key to building a strong online presence. By organizing content ahead of time, businesses can avoid the stress of last-minute posting, maintain a consistent schedule, and ensure that their messaging remains on brand. This consistency helps in building trust and recognition among followers, which is critical for long-term success.

Additionally, content planning allows small businesses to maximize audience engagement, as it provides the opportunity to create content tailored to the audience’s needs and preferences. Ultimately, a solid content plan increases the chances of achieving business objectives such as growing brand awareness, driving traffic to the website, and boosting sales.

In today's competitive digital landscape, where businesses vie for attention, effective content planning can be the key to standing out, driving growth, and ensuring a more efficient use of limited resources.

Content planning mistakes and solutions

1. Lacking a Clear Strategy

The Problem

Jumping into social media planning without first understanding your target audience, setting goals, or outlining processes is a critical mistake. A well-defined strategy is the foundation of effective social media planning, guiding your efforts toward achieving your goals. Skipping this step means you’ll only achieve a fraction of the potential results.

The Solution

While it's tempting to dive right into social media planning, it’s crucial to first take the time to develop a comprehensive social media strategy. This upfront effort will pay off significantly in the long run, helping you stay focused and efficient.

Key Elements of a Social Media Strategy:

Define your goals and objectives: Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals that align with your business aims. Examples include increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, or generating leads.
Understand your target audience: Identify your ideal customer by outlining their demographics, interests, pain points, and preferred platforms. This ensures your content resonates with them.
Build a content strategy: Plan the type of content you’ll create, including formats, frequency, and purpose. Ensure it aligns with your goals and audience preferences.
Choose relevant social media channels: Focus on platforms where your target audience is most active, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, or Twitter.
Develop a brand voice and tone: Maintain a consistent voice and tone that reflects your brand’s personality and values, while appealing to your audience.
Engage with your audience: Plan how you’ll interact with followers, including replying to comments, running contests, and collaborating with influencers.
Measure results: Track key performance indicators (KPIs) like engagement rate, reach, click-through rate, conversions, and ROI to assess your strategy’s effectiveness.

2. Not Planning Ahead

The Problem

The key to successful social media management is proper planning. If you don’t allocate enough time to organize your posts in advance, you’ll likely end up feeling stressed, wasting time, and presenting an inconsistent brand voice. A lack of planning can also lead to missed posting schedules, which can negatively affect your social media performance.

On the flip side, taking the time to plan ahead allows for greater efficiency, helps you stick to a consistent posting schedule, and can even boost your visibility with algorithms that favor regular posting.

The Solution

The best practice is to plan your social media posts at least a week in advance, though planning for an entire month can be even more beneficial if possible. This gives you the opportunity to apply your strategy, account for upcoming events or holidays, and ensure your content calendar is full and organized to meet your posting goals.

Promo Tip: Use tools like SO9 to stay on track and make sure you’re always at least a week ahead in your social media planning.

3. Not Using a Content Calendar

The Problem

When planning social media, you’ll often generate and create a significant amount of content in advance. Without an organized system to manage these ideas and posts, it can become difficult to track everything. A content calendar, which outlines the content you plan to create and publish over a specific period, is the industry standard tool for keeping everything in order.

Failing to use a content calendar can lead to misplaced content, missed deadlines, and an inability to see the big picture of your content strategy and workflow.

The Solution

There are a variety of options for creating a content calendar, ranging from simple, low-cost methods to more advanced tools. Consider the following options:

Spreadsheets: Basic tools like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel can be used to build a simple content calendar. Include columns for the date, topic, content type, channel, and status.
Online organization tools: Tools like Trello, Asana, or Airtable offer customizable templates and drag-and-drop functionality to create and manage content calendars effectively.
Social media management platforms: Tools such as SO9, Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social feature built-in content calendars that allow you to schedule and publish posts across multiple social media platforms. The SO9 Content Planner offers a smooth and efficient way to organize and schedule your content.

4. Posting Too Infrequently

The Problem 

When planning your social media content, one of the key decisions is how often to post. While it’s important to set realistic expectations and avoid overcommitting, it’s equally critical to post frequently enough.

Inconsistent posting—such as posting a lot for one week and nothing the next—can hinder your progress. Social media algorithms favor accounts that post consistently, and each platform has an ideal posting frequency or "sweet spot" for maximizing engagement.

The Solution

Refer to the chart below for the recommended posting frequency on each social media platform.

Social Media Platform	Ideal Posting Frequency	Source
Instagram	2 feed posts per week and 2 stories per day	Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri
Facebook	2 feed posts per week and 2 stories per day	Hubspot
LinkedIn	Once per day	LinkedIn’s guide for small businesses
TikTok	1 to 4 times per day	TikTok
YouTube	At least one video per week	YouTube Strategist Maria Concepcion Zabala

Though this might seem like a lot at first, a solid social media plan can help you stay on top of things and maintain the consistency needed to satisfy the algorithms.

5. Not Scheduling Posts

The Problem

If you’re still posting content manually, it’s time to switch to a scheduling tool. Logging into each platform to post content is not only time-consuming but also inefficient when you could be automating the process. A scheduling tool allows you to plan and publish posts automatically, saving you valuable time.

The Solution

SO9 integrates seamlessly with your social media accounts, allowing you to schedule and publish posts directly from the platform. This feature enables you to create videos and schedule them for publishing from the same page, streamlining your workflow and boosting your social media efficiency.

Happy planning!

Content planning is crucial for small businesses looking to expand their reach. However, common pitfalls like not having a clear strategy, neglecting to use a content calendar, and posting inconsistently can hinder progress.

To avoid these issues, businesses should develop a solid social media strategy, utilize a content calendar, and schedule posts in advance. By following these tips, small businesses can streamline their social media efforts, save time and energy, and achieve their goals more effectively.