ContentCal is a social media marketing agency that has been in business for a decade. Like many other agencies, it was established when brands and marketers recognized the power of marketing on social media but lacked the expertise to do it effectively. As a result, social media marketing agencies like ContentCal were formed to create content and manage campaigns for brands. However, as the agency grew, it found that daily tasks and administrative work were taking up too much time. One of these tasks was managing the deployment of content across multiple channels. To address this, the agency created tech-based tools to automate certain tasks and increase efficiency for others.
ContentCal is a content marketing platform that was founded in 2014 by CEO and founder Alex Packham. The software, which started as an in-house toolset, was developed quickly and launched as a standalone SaaS product in just two years. The platform allows users to plan, create, collaborate, publish, and analyze their content from one central location. It also includes built-in approval flows to streamline the process and avoid delays. The platform offers a variety of features and tools that make content creation and management more efficient and effective. The author of the text found the platform to be packed with useful features that they did not know they needed until they saw them, and once they used them they didn’t want to live without them.
Pricing
ContentCal is a social media management software that is affordable for businesses of all sizes, even at the highest pricing tier. The platform offers three pricing options: Essential, Advanced, and Expert.
- The Essential plan starts at $37/mo ($30/mo when billed annually) and includes 1 or 2 users and 1 or 2 calendars, 5 connections per Calendar, Custom Planning Channels, Instagram Grid view, analytics with PDF export, approval workflows, user permissions, and support via chat and email.
- The Advanced plan is $119/mo ($96/mo when billed annually) and includes 3 users and 3 calendars, 10 connections per calendar, and additional features such as Articles, pause content publishing, dedicated account manager, and advanced approvals.
- The Expert plan is custom priced and includes a custom number of calendars and users, 15 connections per calendar, all features in the Essential and Advanced plans, Contributions, and unlimited personalized training. Additionally, businesses on the Expert plan have the option to add bolt-on features such as Engage and Advanced Analytics to their account.
Ease of Use
ContentCal is a visually oriented calendar software that prioritizes both aesthetics and ease of use. The software has a well-organized interface that is easy to navigate, making it simple for users to learn. The main dashboard includes a variety of tutorial videos that cover all the features of the platform, roughly an hour’s worth of videos in total. These videos are easily accessible and can be used as reference later on. Additionally, when first entering any of ContentCal’s modules, there is an overlay that provides a brief orientation of the features available in that module.
The ContentCal calendar is visually appealing and user-friendly. Posts are displayed in a large format on the calendar, allowing users to easily view the image and caption without having to click further. The platform uses color coding to give users a quick understanding of the status of their posts. A thin line across the top of each entry in the calendar indicates the approval status of the post. Green means approved, yellow means waiting for approval, red means declined and blue means not yet submitted for approval. This color coding feature allows users to easily identify the status of their posts and quickly understand the progress of their workflow.
The color coding feature also improves the organization and categorization of posts. By associating different categories with different colors, users can quickly identify the balance of content in their calendar at a glance. For example, if a user sees an abundance of one color, it may indicate that they have too many posts in that category. This feature helps users to quickly identify if they are over-emphasizing one type of content over another. Many other tools also offer a visual calendar, but ContentCal’s scheduling and publishing features are exceptional and stands out in the market.
The Features
ContentCal offers several features that support its primary function of scheduling and publishing content. In addition to the color-coding feature for ease of use, the platform also includes two rows across the top of the calendar for additional labeling. The first row is for specifying the campaign that each day is covering, and the second row is for writing notes to communicate with team members any other important information. These campaigns and notes are specific to each day, allowing users to be highly detailed and organized.
ContentCal’s Snippets feature is a great time-saver for content creation. It allows users to pre-define frequently used text, such as disclaimers or hashtags, and then easily insert them into posts at creation time by selecting them from a drop-down menu. This feature reduces the need for repetitive manual typing and helps to ensure consistency in the content. It also highlights the attention to detail and user-friendliness that the platform has been developed with.
ContentCal also allows users to enter all their hashtags into the platform’s setup. Users can then easily append relevant hashtags to a post by typing in “#” during post creation, which will trigger a drop-down menu of all the hashtags that have been entered into the system. This feature makes it easy to quickly and easily add hashtags to a post without the need for manual typing or searching for the right hashtags to use. It also helps to ensure consistency and accuracy in the hashtags used across all posts.
ContentCal’s Advanced Analytics is a well-implemented feature that enables users to easily demonstrate their success, identify growth opportunities, and analyze all their social media data through a visual, intuitive, and easy-to-use dashboard. The feature provides real-time visibility of performance across organic and paid social and the website. It provides basic audience information, such as follower count, audience growth and breakdown by channel, but the main focus is on helping users improve their future effectiveness. The analytics show the number of posts, engagement, and best performing times, allowing users to refine their schedule going forward. Additionally, it shows the top performing posts and allows users to repurpose them by scheduling them back into the calendar.
ContentCal offers an Advanced Analytics add-on that provides a more detailed and granular view of how each channel is performing, who is engaging with your posts, and how well your competitors are doing. It also shows which pieces of content are driving conversions. This add-on feature allows users to get more sophisticated with their reporting on content and social media performance. Additionally, it allows users to customize and download various reports from this analytics feature, enabling them to share their success and future plans with senior teams.
ContentCal’s Content Hub is a great resource for content creators seeking inspiration, ideas, and a place to craft their content without pressure or context. The Content Hub Library allows users to add posts at any point without needing to choose a channel or a time/date for publishing. It can be used to draft content, store ideas to come back to later, or even create template posts that can be reused. Additionally, if the Contributions feature is used, users can create custom-made forms to collect content ideas and suggestions from customers, clients, and team members who do not have access to their ContentCal account. All submissions via Contributions forms will automatically be added to the Content Hub Library, ready to be developed into marketing content.
Integrations
ContentCal offers some basic and predictable integrations, which are necessary for any company. These include Google Drive, Dropbox, and Bit.ly connections. The most significant integration that ContentCal offers is with Zapier, a middle man for apps that don’t work together. For example, by connecting ContentCal with Zapier, users can create new posts from content found on apps like Pocket, Pinterest, Airtable, Google Sheets, Slack, and thousands more.
Conclusion
ContentCal stands out in a market saturated with social media and content management platforms, by providing a simple and easy-to-use tool, at an affordable price point, that can help automate the tedious and repetitive tasks of planning, scheduling, and posting content. It offers a range of features including planning, collaboration, analyzing, and storing content, while still maintaining its original simplicity. By automating these tasks, ContentCal allows businesses to focus on creating or sourcing quality content that resonates with audiences, making it an ideal tool for small and large businesses alike.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does ContentCal cost?
ContentCal offers a range of affordable pricing plans, making it accessible for businesses of all sizes. The plans include the Pro, Company, Premium and Agency, with prices starting at $17 per month for the Pro plan. The plans offer different levels of features and capabilities, with the option for custom packages for agencies managing multiple clients. Additionally, the plans are also available at reduced pricing when billed annually, making it cost-effective for businesses.
Is ContentCal easy to use?
ContentCal is a powerful content marketing platform that offers a variety of features to help businesses plan, create, collaborate, publish, and analyze their content. One of its key features is its visual calendar, which is easy to use and intuitive. The platform also offers a variety of tools to help users create and organize their content, such as Snippets and hashtags. Additionally, ContentCal offers advanced analytics and reporting options, as well as a Content Hub for inspiration and idea generation. The platform is also affordable, with pricing plans that are accessible to businesses of all sizes. Overall, ContentCal is a great option for businesses looking for an easy-to-use, yet powerful content marketing platform.
Is ContentCal a good choice for small businesses?
ContentCal offers a wide range of features that can help small businesses improve their social media presence and content marketing strategies. The visual calendar, color coding, campaign and note labeling, snippets, hashtags, and analytics and reporting features all contribute to making the content management process more efficient and effective. The Content Hub also provides a platform for content creation and inspiration without the pressure of scheduling and publishing. Overall, ContentCal is a great option for small businesses looking to improve their social media and content marketing efforts.
What makes ContentCal great?
ContentCal is a great tool for content management and scheduling because it offers a wide range of features such as planning, scheduling, publishing, collaboration, approvals, analytics, and community management. It is easy to use, simple, efficient, and purposeful. The calendar feature is superior to other tools as it displays posts in a large format with clear images and captions, and uses color coding to improve categorization.
How does ContentCal work?
ContentCal is a tool that helps schedule and publish content by providing a range of features. It has a calendar view at the top where users can label campaigns and add notes for each day to communicate with team members or any other key information. It allows for precision in scheduling and planning, making it easy to organize and manage content.
