How to Create a Weekly Marketing Schedule

A while back, I received the following question…

“Let’s say we had 10 hrs a week of super duper focus solely dedicated to marketing…how would you divi up the time over a 5 day work week?  Would you suggest a little bit each day on social media, content creation, email list building —- or would you find it more strategic to take a full 4 hours on a given day ONLY on content creation over the week?” – Annie Vovan

Now, let me preface my answer by saying that I’m extremely Type A, very driven, and very organized..and I’m aware that this probably isn’t normal…okay, maybe even on the verge of being cray-zay!…but I want to share with you how I approach my marketing schedule…

On average, if you’re working full-time to grow your business, that’s about a 40-hour work week.  I suggest taking a fourth of that time (10 hrs), to dedicate towards your social media.  I know this may sound like a lot of time, but it’s important to go deep with it, especially at the early stages of your business when you’re working to attract your following and foster engagement in order to grow your business.

So with that being said, let’s do a little math here: If you have 10 hrs, that equals 600 minutes, so this is what my weekly marketing strategy schedule looks like…

30 min: Social Media Prep

30 min: Social Media Execution (posting to social media)

30 min: FB Live Prep

30 min: FB Live

30 min: Weekly Blog Post

30 min: Weekly Newsletter

30 min: FB Live Blog Post

What I have realized is the importance to create different arms of marketing due to people’s preference of consuming information in different forms and times.  Not everyone has the time to sit down and watch a 30-minute FB live, but they may have 5-7 minutes to read through a blog post, so I will take the questions and feedback I get from people, do a FB Live and then take that same content and create a blog post.  

100 min: Online Education

I also spend 20 min a day/100 min a week researching and reading up on the latest trends, updates, and educating myself online in regards to social media.

100 min: Engage with FB page followers

100 min: Engage with Instagram followers

100 min: Engage with FB Groups/Hashtags

Engaging with followers on both my FB page/FB groups and Instagram account is vital to me, so I invest a significant amount of time reaching out and talking to them.  I will also take 20 min a day to engage in FB groups I’m a part of or hashtags that force me out of where I’m normally “at” online!

All those minutes should add up to around 600 minutes (okay, maybe 610 minutes…I was homeschooled y’all…math is not my forte!)

I understand that not everyone is afforded 10 hours a week and that’s okay!  Maybe you don’t do a FB live, or you don’t do a Newsletter, or maybe you prefer to only blog once a week.  Either way, there’s a give and take, so you get to make your own rules.

What I really hope for you is that  you can create your own personal version of this where, at the end of the week, you can look back and say 1) I did my best, 2) I had a strategy, and 3) is there room for improvement?  If there is room for improvement, it allows you to create a space for making changes that help you move in the direction you really want to go!