As we quickly approach the end of another year, it’s the perfect time to take stock of all of your small business accomplishments and pop some champagne! As dreamy as that sounds, most entrepreneurs skip the celebrations and go straight into stressing out about planning for the year ahead. Sound familiar? Don’t worry — we’ve been there, too.
The truth is, a new year and a blank slate can be exciting for most people. But for those who create content calendars, it can look like 12 months of empty white space. By the end of the year, we all have very little brainpower to fill those twelve months.
Luckily, Styled Stock Society is here to help! With these simple content planning tips for the new year, you’ll have your calendar filled in no time (or, at the very least, a really solid starting point).
Review your 2020 posts
Just because it’s a brand new year doesn’t mean you have to have all brand new ideas. Remember what we said about reflecting on this year’s accomplishments? Now’s the time to do it! By reviewing your 2020 content — blogs, social posts, emails, and all — you can spark ideas for 2021. How? Ask yourself these questions:
- What were your most popular posts? How can you expand on them next year?
- What were your least popular posts? Can you optimize and re-promote them to boost engagement?
- Can you repurpose any of your top-performing blogs? (Psst! Yes, you can. Learn how to do just that in this blog post.)
Bottom line: If you’ve already served up content that performs well, make more of the same! Also, our founder Elle is a special lover of hard numbers and data. In her honor, make sure you’re looking at your website traffic, Google Analytics, and other information to show you (in cold hard data) what your people love.
Plan launches + special promotions
Do you have any exciting launches or special promotions happening next year? Mark them on the calendar! Even if they’re tentative dates, it can quickly help you fill gaps in your calendar by planning the content you’ll need to have done in advance. Consider things like:
- Promotional posts + graphics
- Insta Story content
- Website assets
- Event promotion
- Video assets
- And anything other content needed leading up to your launch!
Another idea to help fuel content creation? Collaborations! Think about what brands or businesses you’d like to collab with next year and start reaching out. Once they’re confirmed in your calendar, you can plan out content just like you would for promotions and launches. If you’re not sure where to start, check out these 10 types of collaboration to help grow your business.
Survey your audience
We’ve said it a few times, and we’ll say it a few times more: Ask the people what they want! One of the easiest ways to spark new content ideas is to survey your audience. Ask questions like:
- What content or posts did they most enjoy?
- What do they still need help with?
- What would they like to see in the new year?
- What types of content do they like best (blogs, Insta posts, Insta Stories, reels, etc.)
You’ll not only get tons of ideas, but you’ll feel a lot more confident generating content you know your audience will be interested in. That’s definitely what we’d call #winning.
Join Styled Stock Society for planning, creating, and much more!
Once next year’s content calendar is bustling with amazing ideas, it’s time to get to work. One way to help with that? Joining the Styled Stock Society!
With your membership, you’ll get access to tons of resources that make the content creation process even better. Resources like gorgeous stock photos, customizable templates, Instagram caption prompts, and so much more! We’ll even share a new marketing toolkit each month, with everything you need to successfully promote and grow your biz.
Hopefully, these New Year content planning tips have helped — but don’t forget to celebrate. Once you finally pop that champagne and celebrate this year’s successes, step into the New Year with your Styled Stock Society membership!
