How to create a social media schedule (and what should you post)

In this support article, we outline the key steps for creating an effective social media schedule and give you some ideas of what you can post.

Social media has become an indispensable tool for you to engage with your audience, promote events, and build a vibrant community around your venue. A well-structured social media schedule can help you maximise your online presence, attract new customers, and keep existing patrons informed and engaged. In this support article, we'll outline the key steps for creating an effective social media schedule.

Where should you start?

If you haven't already, you'll need to pick the right social media channels for your facilities.

Once you've done that, you'll need to make sure that your social media schedule is completely in line with your marketing plan. If you haven't created a marketing plan, find out how by reading our article 'How to create your marketing calendar'. The two should go hand in hand - your social media channels are an effective way of delivering the messages you've got planned in your marketing calendar.

Establishing your schedule

Once you've picked your channels and created your marketing calendar you'll need to establish your timeframe and frame work. Ask yourself these questions:

• How many times a week do you want to be communicating with your audience through social media?
• How much time/resource can you commit to delivering good, quality content on your channels?

Once you've got the answers to these questions, start plotting when you can post. Make sure that plot in news and operational updates into your schedule - this could be things like new opening times or a new club that has availability.

What next?

Now for the fun part - getting creative with what you want to post. Using the list you've created in your marketing calendar you can start to put some meat on the bones of your schedule.

What can you post? Here are some ideas to get you started

• Operational information and seasonal updates
  
  • Opening hours
  • Cost
  • Booking links
  • Changes to timetables or schedule
  • Any closures for maintenance
  • Seasonal time changes and updates
• Players using the facilities to bring your venue to life
  • Leagues
  • Tournaments
  • Clubs
  • Events

• Highlight availability and new spaces to drive bookings
  • Has a popular slot just opened up? Tell your database!
• Shout about your deals or promotions
  • Let customers know about new discounts to encourage bookings

• Highlight your clubs and use cases to promote both your hirers and your facilities
  • Communities
  • Club usage
  • Leagues
  • Big events, like when/if you host tournaments, family fun or open days
• Encourage user generated content
  • Create a hashtag so that players can tag your page. This is a great way of building and showing the community you have at your venue. Find out how to use hashtags to grow your social media audience.
  • By asking your users to share their content with you, you can then repost this with minimal effort and maximum effectiveness.
  • If you have the budget and time, you could create a photo-frame or 'selfie wall' for them to use it to highlight achievements like 'player of the match'.
  • You could start a sport-related challenge, and invite all of your players to take part with a small prize for the winner.
• Highlight maintenance work being carried out to show you looking after the facilities
  • This could be something simple like the grass being cut or a deep clean
  • By showing this, you'll highlight that you take pride in your facility for the community

Things to remember:

💡 It's important to show off what you're trying to promote - in most instances this is going to your facilities. Get off on the right foot by using high quality images or video and not stock imagery. Making sure you are using real photos that you own can make all the difference. Don't worry if you don't have the last Nikon, most smartphones have a high quality camera that will certainly do the job for social media imagery.

💡 Be descriptive in your posts! Including details about what makes your facility special for your community will really help you stand out against your competitors.

Make sure you include details like:

• How much are the facilities?
• Are the bookable? If so, how do they book?
• Any additional information like access or opening hours