Calendars Are SO Last Year

How many times this week have you accepted, declined, or maybe’d a calendar invite? How tired are you of being “interested” on Facebook for yet another damn event marketing thing with some business and a bar in the lamest attempt at branding possible? How many Eventbrites did you RSVP for and actually attend?

Is the calendar over? I mean no, technically we are only (almost) 4 months into 2018. The calendar hasn’t stopped moving. And the world hasn’t ended…well not yet at least.

But in the world of content, strategy, and advertising – is it time to stop planning out so many posts, tweets, and hashtags? Should we finally give up the color coded content calendars? The ones with 7 different colors of post its – yes they really do make that many colors – listing a million different “holidays,” Instagram hashtags, and post ideas. And I don’t know maybe go back to being real again?

Real as in not every Instagram is posted at exactly 5 p.m. on Sunday because that’s when engagement is high and you’ll receive the most likes. Real as in some things are planned but you aren’t dependent on some calendar hanging on your wall covered in colors and Sharpie.

Society has become obsessed with and dependent on what other people think, and also WHEN they think it. Go sit in any coffee shop on any college campus and you’ll hear roughly 10 different conversations about the best time to post a photo on social media. These conversations no longer just exist in the Mad Men agencies, boardrooms, and email chatter of employees.They’ve spread to the common people – the influencers that sell you skinny tea and the college kids spending too much time consuming caffeine.

The idea of when to post is now universal to everyone on social media and you can find the “perfect calendar with times” on any marketing Pinterest board out there – go look, I dare you.

Have we become a society where everything is about timing and nothing is about just living anymore? I think so, yes. Yes, the world now revolves around how many impressions your last post got instead of how great the actual content was.

Maybe it’s time to stop planning so much and start spending some time living with your brand, as your brand, and alongside your brand.

And oh by the way, don’t forget that today is National Spinach Day – hope that was on your content calendar in a pink sticky note (like it, um, might have been on mine).

Written by guest contributor Kylee Orlando