How to Create an Effective TikTok Marketing Calendar for 2023

To get the most out of TikTok marketing, you want to post content regularly. The easiest way to do this is to create a plan and use a marketing calendar. Your TikTok marketing calendar can help you organize your ideas so you stay on schedule.

Discover how to create an effective marketing calendar for TikTok.

What Is a TikTok Marketing Calendar?

Before you can start planning your TikTok marketing calendar, you need to understand what it is. A marketing or content calendar plans your goals on the platform throughout the year. It also includes your methods and strategies for achieving those goals.

The most detailed TikTok marketing calendars will outline what content you post and when. This will include the goals of specific TikTok videos, their outlines, and who will be working on them.

Overall, your TikTok marketing calendar should set long-term and short-term goals.

Why Do You Need a Calendar?

It may seem tempting to plan your content on a smaller scale or just create whatever TikToks appeal to you, but this is not smart from a marketing standpoint. Having a larger, well-planned calendar will help you stay on track. It will ensure that you always have content to post when you want to post it.

You will occasionally need to make last-minute changes. After all, you can’t predict what dance or hashtag will be trending a year in the future. But having a calendar reduces the number of decisions you have to make on the fly.

Remember that when you have more time to plan content, you will be better able to meet your goals. You can also confirm that it matches your brand and works well with other TikTok messaging you have.

Start with TikTok’s Official Marketing Calendar

TikTok itself gives you an excellent starting point in the form of its own marketing calendar. This calendar comes in the form of a PDF that divides 2023 into four quarters. From there, it includes special events and highlights you want to consider.

For example, the first quarter of the year includes the following events and ideas:

• Lunar New Year on January 22nd
• Black History Month in February
• Valentine's Day on February 14th
• Summer travel planning in March
• International Women's Day on March 8th
• Travel season kickoff in mid-March

The calendar has a similar list for the other quarters of the year.

Add More Seasonal Moments and Events as Necessary

Use that official marketing calendar as a starting point. Think about your audience, niche, or local area, and consider what other major events or holidays you should include in your calendar. You can also look at past TikTok marketing calendars for inspiration.

Prioritize the Calendar

Once you have a full list of potential events and themes to include in your TikTok content, it’s time to prioritize. Try to choose three or so major holidays throughout the year that you want to focus on. This will let you create solid TikTok marketing strategies for them without feeling as if you are pulled in every direction.

Start Planning Three Months (or More) in Advance

Part of the reason you only want to prioritize about three major events is the amount of planning involved. You will want to start your planning at least three months ahead of a major seasonal event. For winter holidays, you may want to start six months ahead.

Why do you have to start planning so early? You want to launch your TikTok marketing strategy before the major event arrives. But you also need sufficient time to plan it well and not feel rushed. That will let you deliver high-quality, relevant content.

Start Promoting a Few Months Ahead

As mentioned, your calendar should include plans to launch a given TikTok strategy well before the event arrives. For example, if you want to do a TikTok campaign for Black Friday, you should start about two months ahead.

Starting early gives you enough time to get attention. It also lets you build momentum, helping prime your TikTok followers to act when your strategy is ready to launch.

Extra Tips

As you go through the above steps to create your TikTok calendar, keep the following tips in mind.

• Set Specific Goals

  One of the most important parts of creating your TikTok calendar is to set specific goals. This will help you determine what type of content to post and how often to do so. When contemplating your goals, think about specific products or services you want to promote as well as how you can make your videos more fun.

• Learn About Your Target Audience

  Another crucial factor is working to understand your target audience. You need to look at their demographics as well as their psychographics to figure out the type of content they prefer to watch on TikTok. Pay attention to your target audience’s age, location, interests, hobbies, average income, and industry or job title. Ideally, you will create buyer personas to guide your content creation.

• Perform a Competitive Analysis

  One of the best ways to figure out what type of content you should be making on TikTok is to look at your competition. This will show you how well various types of TikTok videos work. It lets you see what type of content your target audience engages with the most.

  You should also look at the content created by your followers, or the other content they follow. This is another surefire way to see what they like on the platform.

• Make a Content Library

  Remember that part of the point of a TikTok marketing calendar is being able to plan your content. But you need somewhere to store that content, so develop a content library. This can include finished TikToks as well as assets you can use in future ones. For example, it can include user-generated content and new ideas.

Conclusion

Creating a TikTok marketing calendar will help you ensure that you always have content ready to post, including for major seasonal events. To come up with your calendar, go through the events and prioritize what’s most important to your brand and audience.