If you're not planning your social media content ahead of time, you're missing out. The key to successful social media content is planning ahead of time to optimize both your time and your content's impact. There are so many moving elements in a robust social media marketing strategy, and often social media managers need to be multitaskers to succeed at their jobs. Social content creators need to be able to think strategically, come up with content plans, master social media tools and be a liaison between the marketing and creative departments, all while having a pulse on the community they have created. 

If you're all about conquering social media marketing best practices, keeping a content calendar and mastering the art of scheduling should be the first thing on your to-do list. 

As the middleman between your brand's strategy and its public image, you're responsible for crafting its digital identity. Brand-building requires consistency, and honing a specific aesthetic is a strategic move that will make your business appear more attractive. Determine your content pillars, the appropriate colour palette, as well as your brand voice and tone, and work your magic.

Choosing the Right Platforms for Social Media Scheduling

Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to be on every social network or platform. That approach can do more harm than good if you are spreading yourself and your content too thin. Even large, well-established brands with dedicated social media marketing teams are careful when approaching new social channels, often starting with a very limited or targeted presence as they learn the ins and outs. Before selecting platforms, you need to understand what social networks your target audience uses, what story you are trying to tell about your brand, and what kinds of content you plan to produce.

Planning a Social Media Schedule and Publishing 

Once you have determined which platforms your brand will be present on, you need to be prepared to manage your social media accounts 24/7, 365 days a year. An effective posting schedule is both organized and gives you the ability to stay nimble while executing your visual brand strategy. Dash Hudson's powerful, multi-channel solution is the simplest way to schedule your social media content to your most important channels. With a visual content calendar, you can curate your owned and user-generated content across channels and preview your feed from desktop or the Dash Hudson mobile app. Auto-publishing transforms your workflow, making posting engaging content and publishing to multiple channels easy to check off your to-do list.

Analyzing How Scheduled Content Performs 

In a world where there are myriads of visual touchpoints and where images are conversation drivers, it can be complicated to figure out what assets will perform best on your brand's social networks. Social media marketing has traditionally relied on equal parts numbers and intuition since the industry first took off - but consumers are becoming increasingly savvy and spoiled for choice. Enter Vision AI. 

Vision is an image search engine powered by computer vision image recognition. It's programmed to sort millions of photos via big data visualization to then inform brands on which ones will trigger the highest engagement based on real-time visual analysis of their content. It scans millions of photos and picks up on visual cues within an image to identify what's in it. Vision facilitates a quick, streamlined, efficient content curation process, taking the guesswork out of your day-to-day.

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