Plan, optimize, share: Unpacking the power of Sprout’s Publishing Calendar

Your content calendar is your closest ally. It’s the tool that gives every social media marketer a systematic view of each message they’ve planned out for any given period of time. Not to mention, it just makes life a lot easier.

Sprout’s social calendar is constantly evolving to keep up with changing social needs. In the last year we’ve made a lot of enhancements to better organize and manage your content. Most recently, we introduced the new Calendar Month View, unlocking a high-level way to visualize and plan your campaigns and publishing strategy.

Now it’s easier than ever to quickly view and schedule content for each of your social platforms with the entire month in sight. We’ve asked some of our users to let us know what they love about the calendar. Here are a few ways they’ve found it helpful.

Filling in Gaps & Optimizing Engagement

The Publishing Calendar gives a holistic view of content so you can make sure you’re seizing every opportunity to engage and grow your audience. It’s simple to switch gears between the big picture of a campaign and drilling down to days, even specific times, for a full scope of what you’re putting out.

Assessing content through this lens helps you easily fill in gaps, maximize engagement and schedule in bulk to save time.

Repurposing High Performing Content

Referencing Sent Messages in your calendar to identify and repurpose high performing content is a favorite feature for Sprout All Star, Stephen Burke, Digital Content at DonorsChoose.org.

You can better understand which posts your audience is engaging with most and leverage that data to move forward in strategically creating similar content. The Duplicate Message feature helps you to quickly duplicate or slightly alter a message to reschedule for future posts.

A Holistic View of Content, at Every Level

In working seamlessly as a team, it’s important to not only have an interconnected view of content, but to be ready and confident in sharing that plan with other team members.

For stakeholders, you can easily export and email your calendar, showcasing a combination of your month view and a more detailed list view with message content.

A priority for Brooklyn Sondgeroth, Guest Engagement Coordinator at Miller’s Ale House, is providing their team with a digestible, presentable view of how they’re using social, what’s coming down the pipeline and, for upper management, the overall value of social engagement.

Leveraging the calendar with Sprout’s Sent Messages Report allows content creators like Sondgeroth to tie her content planning directly to how it performs.

Collaboration Is Always Key

In addition to acting as your at-a-glance view of content, the Publishing Calendar is also a quick view of what everyone on your team has planned.

The TechSmith team uses Sprout across various departments, making it a priority to collaborate harmoniously on social content. TechSmith’s Influencer Relations Coordinator, Jessie LaHaie, recognizes that planning and working together is much easier with the ability to align content to specific marketing objectives.

The calendar helps brands like TechSmith collaborate across departments to visualize and plan campaigns in order to reach their audiences at optimal times.

Sprout’s Publishing Calendar is a tool that instills in your organization a deeper understanding of message context and the value of social engagement. Leveraging a dynamic calendar view of your social strategy through the lens of content keeps you organized, informed and can help you easily share insights with your team.