Blog Post #9: Content Calendar Takeaways

I think that all the takeaways from CoSchedule’s Content Calendar Examples are equally valuable as they are relevant to different kinds of brands with differing goals from their social media. For the purpose of this blog post, I will be highlighting 4 takeaways that I found especially insightful. 

• Red Bull Takeaway: “Organic social media content doesn't always need to sell directly in order to be successful.”
• ModCloth Takeaway: “Organic social media content should not always look and feel like an ad.”

Red Bull and ModCloth both have products that are not straight-forward to sell. Part of these brands’ success comes from their ability to market themselves on social media in a way that does not look or feel like an advertisement. Red Bull does this through video content of thrill-seekers having fun and attempting crazy stunts. ModCloth does this by sharing style inspiration and outfit ideas. The key insight that both of these takeaways tell us is that social media content shouldn’t always directly sell the product. 

• Disney Parks Takeaway: “Show your audience how to create an experience when they visit you.”
• Concordia College Takeaway: “Reinforce the idea that your organization creates a community.”

Disney Parks and Concordia College are both brands driven by experience. Their social media is successful because they use it to showcase the experience of their product and appeal to the consumers’ feelings and emotions by creating FOMO- the fear of missing out. These takeaways tell us that social media should emphasize or highlight the benefits and experiences a consumer would have by choosing that brand. 

I found these takeaways to be most valuable because in my experience with social media, these are the issues that brands struggle with the most. So many brands are focused solely on selling their products on social media, without realizing that they likely will not see the benefits of social media by using that approach. What they really should be focusing on is finding out what kind of content their audience is seeking out and becoming the source of that content.