Social media moves fast. It’s easy for it to seem like everything posted is done in the moment.

But that’s not the reality for most successful social media campaigns.

Those brilliant efforts by big brands take weeks and months to plan and edit before they are ever published for the world to see.

Even when it seems like a big internet celebrity, like an influencer, is doing something spur of the moment, chances are it was carefully calculated.

Timing matters, the type of content matters, video and graphics must be edited and live-streams topics and content need to be planned as well.

As with all things social media marketing, it comes back to knowing your ideal client and knowing what their interests and concerns are.

Take for example upcoming holidays, if you know your ideal client will be celebrating a certain holiday or event, plan a post ahead of time for it, don’t wait until the day of.

The hard truth is, waiting until the last minute to post usually means content isn’t as good. Inspiration rarely strikes on demand.

So if your brand is hoping to launch a big social media effort, give yourself plenty of time to plan it out.