The Calendar That Prevents Chaos: Taming the Social Media Beast

We break down how we plan six months of social content while staying nimble for real‑time events, and we debate a counterintuitive framing tactic that might raise engagement but risks exclusion in public health. We close with a nod to Miss Frizzle and Bill Nye as models for authentic, audience‑first science communication.

• how a two‑level calendar keeps us on track
• tailoring topics to local audience cues
• reading the room and crisis pause protocols
• the “not for you” framing: upsides and risks
• authentic voice inspired by Ms. Frizzle and Bill Nye

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Note: all thoughts and opinions shared in this podcast are personal and not representative of any organization.

Transcript

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Tracy: 00:00
Welcome to Communications Breakdown, where we break down what works and doesn't and health and science communication. I'm Tracy Mehan.

Katrina: 00:09
And I'm Katrina Boylan. We are back. And it is incredible how busy we are already, like I'm sure most of you are as well. So in this episode, we're gonna bring you a couple of things that just kind of popped up over the holiday break. And we're gonna start with something I often forget about, which is that people cannot see our processes, you know, how we actually make the decisions we do, you know, why things turn out the way that they do. And it's one reason we created this podcast. So when we got a question over the break about how we created a social media calendar for one of our projects, I think Tracy and I both had this thought that it would be great to talk about that and bring that process to the podcast. So we're gonna break down the process for creating a social media calendar. And this is just our process. And I laughed because I think we've done it literally since I started working with Tracy.

Tracy: 01:16
Yes, it is something that I started a really long time ago, and I do think it'll be great. So hopefully everyone agrees and we'll learn a little something. So, what do we mean when we say social media calendar? For us, it is literally a document where we keep track of what we are going to be talking about on social media. We actually have two versions. We have one that is, I'm gonna call it a yearly calendar where we're going months out ahead of time. That's more of the planning document. 

And then we have a weekly version where we will actually put in posts for individual social media platforms. This is important for a couple of reasons. One, it's because if what we found when we weren't doing it is that it's really easy for social media to kind of slip and become an afterthought. And then you're not doing a great job with your posts. I think most of the people that are listening to this podcast probably don't have social media content creation as their only job. Most of us are doing it in addition to lots of other hats that we wear. And so social media a lot of times really does kind of it's easy to say, oh, I'll create that post later. And then we don't put as much thought into it as we should. So calendars can help us keep on track. 

Social media also matters in terms of how often you post things. So without this content calendar, it's easy to become where you only post once a week, once every couple of weeks, with the algorithms, your posts are gonna get lost. I like to joke and say social media is like a teenage boy, it's always hungry, but it's true, you gotta continually be creating content. And these social media calendars will help us do that. The other thing that they do is they help keep us on track and make sure that we are following the goals and the directions for each account. We have several programs and multiple social media platforms that we are managing, and they each have a different voice and different audiences. And by keeping all of our posts in this kind of one place, it allows us to make sure that we're meeting the voice in the audience for the platform that we're posting on. 

Before I turn it over to Katrina to talk through the process about how she actually creates it, I do want to end with our yearly calendar. We do actually only usually plan out for about six months ahead of time so that we're not getting too far ahead and it allows us space to kind of react to things that are happening in the world and make sure we're staying on with trends and things like that. Um, these calendars we do plan out ahead of time with content that we know can be evergreen or things that aren't gonna change a bunch. There are things that Katrina will talk about that, you know, we know are not gonna change. But these calendars aren't set in stone. If something happens that we need to respond to, we can always have that real time, real in the moment. Here's how we're creating things. So I think Katrina, with that, I'll kind of turn it over to you to talk about how you do some of this work in real time.

Katrina: 04:58
Yeah, so I normally would say right now that we will put a link to the social media calendar I'm gonna talk about in the show notes. But this particular calendar is a perk for the members of the program that we're that we're talking about. It's called Prevent Child Injury. And the you can sign up for free and you can access the calendar that way through the membership resources, but we're not gonna share it here because again, it's reserved as a perk for members of Prevent Child Injury. So we will put a link though to join Prevent Child Injury in the show notes. 

So anyway, we again we had a question when we put out the calendar about why we chose to put things in the weeks that we did. And so again, we do this in the six-month chunks. And so the way that we do that is we pull up the calendar. And the first thing we do is we slot in all of the big national campaigns. So the third week of March is always National Poison Prevention Week. Um, it's usually, I think, the third week of October, Teen Driver Safety Week. There's Child Passenger Safety Week. You know, there's just things that are always gonna happen the same time every single year. And those are the big national campaigns that we want to be a part of. So we start with those and we fill those in. 

Now, those are often big topics, though. Uh, you know, safe sleep, teen driving, things like that. Those are big topics. So we we want to talk about them more than once a year. And so we will also try to work in topics when we think they're going to be relevant. And so, you know, we try to think about what's happening at that point for a good chunk of people in our audience. 

So uh yeah, October, a lot of stuff happens in October. October is also Safe Sleep um and SIDS Awareness Month. And so we cover that topic then. But for instance, on this calendar that we just created, we decided to revisit safe sleep again in January, thinking it might be cold and people might be tempted to use, you know, blankets and things like that for their babies. 

You know, in the past, we've done sun safety around um Don't Fry Day, which is at the end of May near Memorial Day. But you know, sun safety is also something that can be done through large portions of the year. And so we do try to also move things around a little bit on that calendar so that we're not, it's not the same every single year. We've been doing this again as long as I have worked with Tracy. So more than a decade. And so we do look at the previous year's calendar, we see what did we do last year, and we try to give it a little variety, but still make it relevant and tied to things that are happening in the injury prevention in the public health world. 

And so the thing that I would add on all of this is that that is a jumping off point. We offer it as a sample calendar. As, you know, as uh public health people or just anyone trying to share a message, you you can start there, but you really do need to think about what's happening specifically, you know, in your region, in your specific field, what's happening in your backyard, in your world. What are things that are important to your specific audience? You know, if you're a local health department, for instance, it might be, you know, maybe a local team is, you know, doing well in sports or it's prom or, you know, things like that. We we need to be thinking very kind of locally. And I mean that in the sense of locally to your audience. Your audience might be spread across the world, but maybe it's an issue that brings them together. What's important to your audience? And then you can take that sample calendar and and give it the angle of what might resonate on that topic with your audience. So, you know, if it's prom, uh, you know, that's a good time to revisit teen driving as well, um, or distracted driving. April is Distracted Driving Month. And so maybe you're gonna do distracted driving on distracted driving around prom. 

So, anyway, that's just how we do it. That's how we um again try to give ourselves um some flexibility to respond to what's going out in the world, but still have that structure that that Tracy was talking about to keep us on track.

Tracy: 09:21
Yeah, I I think the way you described it was really good and it keeps us on track, but it also helps us make sure we're covering all of the topics we want to address in a year and and things like that. So I think it is important for us to make sure we're planning ahead, make sure it happens, make sure we're covering all the topics. 

But when we do it, it's kind of general, right? It's Teen Driver Safety Week. That can be a lot of things, right? Right? That can be a lot of different things. And so we know that during that week, we're gonna talk about Teen Driver Safety Week. Most times we don't actually create the content until it's a little closer to that week. So we can do exactly what you said, Katrina. We can think what's happening locally, what's happening in the world? Is there something relevant that we want to tie it to a certain angle? Is there a partner that reached out to us that says, hey, we have these new materials coming out? Our angle is gonna be this type of focus. Can you support that? You know, so the calendar helps us think big picture, and then the actual production happens a little closer usually to that week. So we're timely and relevant. Does that make sense?
 
Yep. Yep. One other thing we wanted to make sure that people thought about is you can fall into a little bit of a um danger area if you're planning too far ahead. And that is what happens when something big happens in the world. Um, I'm thinking, you know, unfortunately, we are seeing a rise in school shootings, or um, if something big happens locally, you know, Boston bombing is coming to mind. That's really gonna date me. But, you know, big events that happen, you want to make sure that you're, I'm gonna say reading the room, but know the environment and know what the what is happening out there in the world so that you're not just creating things and and scheduling them to go out when something big is happening. So if you're doing planning ahead of time, just make sure you're thinking and being aware of what's happening in the world. And you might have to change, not post something, change the tone of something, decide to do something a different week. All of that is okay. This is just a structure to help you through the the more normal times, if that makes sense.

Katrina: 11:50
Right, right. Yeah, the last thing that we want to appear at all is is tone-deaf or insensitive or for anything like that. So yeah, it's a great point to just keep an eye on what's happening out in the world and not just push those messages out.

Tracy: 12:06
Yeah, and it's important to have kind of a crisis response plan for when these types of things happen. I know some people are in social media settings where they are required to get a bunch of approvals and things like that. So having a plan in place that allows them to withdraw posts or change the tone of a post more quickly than they normally would is an important part of your social media planning. Yeah. Yep.

Katrina: 12:38
All right. Well, our next topic here uh once again comes from the newsletter from the Center for Health Communication at the Harvard School of Public Health. I think this is second, the second time we've cited it now. And it's because they've always got a really great practical tip in their newsletter. And the one they sent out this month, um, I sent it to Tracy saying, "Hey, you know, we should maybe talk about this on the podcast." And she sent it right back saying, "You know, I thought the same thing."

And I had to laugh though, because once I read this tip, um it turns out they actually used the tip we're gonna talk about in the subject line. And it worked well enough at the subject line. It got me intrigued. And I read the tip. So what we're about to say worked on me. So I am living proof that this works. Now we're gonna talk about that, but it did work on me in this in this regard. And so here it is. The tip is, and again, this is from the Center for Health Communication at the Harvard Chan School, Harvard Chan School of Public Health. And the lesson learned, and this is verbatim, says, "Specifying who a message isn't for increases persuasion among the people it is for." 

And this is what they say about this. This is the example that they give. So it says, "Imagine you're trying to recruit people for a program that fights loneliness through dog encounters. You're deciding between these two possible messages. If you love dogs, this is the meetup for you." That's a persuasive frame. Versus: "If you don't love dogs, this is not the meetup for you," or a dissuasive frame. 

And so it says, you know, intuitively, most people would choose the first option because it directly appeals to the audience you want to reach. But they had an experiment that tested that. And so what they found is that that second framing, the dissuasive frame that, you know, if you don't love dogs, this is not the meetup for you, that frame led to higher engagement and stronger purchase-related responses among people in the target audience as compared to persuasive framing. Now it had the opposite effect for people outside the target audience. So in this case, it would be people who loved dogs, making them less likely to engage or choose the offering. So if you didn't like dogs, then choosing that dissuasive framing made them less likely to engage or choose, you know, whatever you're trying to say. 

And so uh it says that the reason that dissuasive messages make the offering uh it's that it says that the reason is that dissuasive messages make the offering feel more narrowly targeted. When a message clearly excludes some people, it signals that the product or experience is designed for a specific audience. For people who see themselves as a good fit with that message, that makes that message feel more relevant and persuasive. But for those who don't, it has the opposite effect. And I just think that's fascinating. 

So it's a just to wrap this up, it says, "Why it matters: Health messages are often not universal and are intended for specific audiences. Dissuasive framing is a tool that can help communicators better reach the people that need to hear the message and avoid the people that don't." So we'll share a link to this in the show notes because again, this is a a really important tip, I think. 

And I think we're needing to sit with it a little bit because it is really kind of counterintuitive and it's not the way I tend to write. And so I'm trying to think about how I'm gonna use this in my own practice and my own writing. And I'll be honest, I am struggling a little bit to see how I'm gonna be able to use this in a way that still feels good to me. I guess maybe it's the right or wrong way to say that.

Tracy: 16:50
Yeah, I I have a mixed feelings on this one, honestly. I feel like right now in the world, everybody is trying to divide everybody into different groups all the time, and everything is so we-they and divisive and all of that. I don't love the idea of excluding people. So I think we would have to be really careful about how we use it. I mean, if it's dog user or dog lovers, not dog lovers, eh, you know, that's that's feels harmless.

Katrina: 17:24
There's no harm. Right. It's right. You gotta think about what kind of us versus them are you creating.

Tracy: 17:31
Right. And and especially in public health and topics like injury prevention where we are, yes, our messages are often like we're trying to make sure our message is reaching a certain audience that may be more specific. But that doesn't mean that other people wouldn't also benefit from that type of behavior. So I'm worried that if we say this is only for this group, or, you know, we're leaving people out, it may make other people feel like, oh, well, that's not relevant to me. When in most cases, at least in injury prevention, it is.

Katrina: 18:06
Well, I I think though that brings up an important distinction to make here is that it's said that it this is this dissuasive framing led to higher engagement and stronger purchase-related responses. And what they're testing is engagement and or you know, kind of who's going to attend an event. I wonder if behavior change that's not the same as kind of a cons whether or not to attend an event is again almost a consumer purchase. It's a, it's a, it's not a a behavior decision. It's not almost an expression of values in a certain way. I think a lot of safety behavior is almost an extension of values. And so I I think that's an important distinction that maybe for this research, maybe we can't make that jump then to behavior change.

Tracy: 18:53
Yeah, I I think it's an interesting uh concept to explore. And I will say it worked on me because when I got your email, I had already opened the foreword to the email that I was writing an email back to you saying, you know, we should look at this. So we it worked on both of us. Yeah, but but it worked on us for something we were gonna talk about on the podcast or something we wanted to read. But I just it, you know, I would want to sit with it a minute and make sure you're really thinking about who you're excluding if you're gonna decide to use it.

Katrina: 19:29
Well, great, but also I I did just occur to me, we are consumers of this product of this newsletter. So in this concept, right? They're marketing. Yes. This is a marketing concept for them. It worked on us in a marketing setting. They're not asking it's suggesting a behavior change and maybe the writing style that we use, if that's appropriate. But it's not quite the same as what we're doing, which is "make this change to you know, keep your kids safer" because, like, I did have to laugh about this, about like how would I do this construct? You know, you know, "if you don't care about your kid's safety, this message isn't for you." Um, as much as I would love to test that, just to see as a communicator if that kind of thing worked. You know, "if you want your kid to have head injuries, don't read this message." You know, I just we can never say that kind of thing. 

So I would love to have more research on this, but again, it's just so hard to test these things and all of the different scenarios where public health might use them. And so it's important to also, I guess, uh, you know, make sure that we're not reading too much into what they're trying to say with this study.

Tracy: 20:44
Yeah. This is one of those ones where I think we're not 100% sure where we land on this at the moment, right? And I think that's okay. I think it's interesting to have us talk about that. And and we'd love to hear from you. Tell us what you think. Are you gonna use it? Is this does this resonate with you? What do you think about this idea?

Katrina: 21:05
Yep. All right, well, we have one last thing that came up in the last few weeks. And like many of our discussions, it started with a shower thought. Um, I don't know about you, Tracy and I do some of our best thinking in the shower. And this was no exception. 

Um, so in the shower, you know, recently, I have no idea why I thought this, but all of a sudden it popped into my head that Ms. Frizzle, you know, from the Magic School Bus, is my kind of original scicomm icon. You know, woman is out there literally presenting complex subjects to children. You know, she's putting the story and the audience first, and she is 100% authentic.

And so I was just laughing in the shower about this, about how actually, again, she's she's kind of the OG scicomm icon. And so, of course, I shared this thought with Tracy. And if I if I recall correctly, as I did so, I wondered aloud if Bill Nye, though, would you know have something to say about this if he's overall kind of more iconic in a way. 

Um, and so you know, we're thinking about it, and you know, he didn't tell stories the same way, obviously. He was kind of shooting for a different age group, I think. Um, and you know, he went into more detail and the the level of science was higher. So it's hard to compare, but you know, I had to laugh because even though they're kind of different, both of those are still 100% authentic.

Tracy: 22:46
Yeah, first of all, I love both of them. Huge Ms. Frizzle and Bill Nye fan. I got the opportunity actually to work on the Bill Nye show in a former life, former career, and it was a really cool experience to get to do some research on the show. Um, I absolutely love both of them, but I do think it's interesting, right? Ms. Fizz Frizzle almost wasn't like a science audience. She was reaching everybody, and she happened to be talking about science. Yep. Bill Nye was more you watched him to learn about science. So each had their role, each different audiences, same audience crossover. I don't know. There's a Venn diagram in there somewhere.

Katrina: 23:34
I would wonder if is the is the Ms. Frizzle to Bill Nye pipeline established? Is there a correlation here of uh Ms. Frizzle to Bill Nye viewers? Um, although I yeah, right. I'm just thinking about this. Was it could we put Mythbusters as maybe the next one after that?

Tracy: 23:52
Maybe. I don't know. He we love them all, but yeah, shout out to Ms. Frizzle and Bill Nye for both being Scicom icons.

Katrina: 24:00
Yep, absolutely. All right, well, that is it for this episode. As always, please follow this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, wherever you're listening, so that you can be notified when we post new episodes. We are also sharing these over on YouTube, so you can subscribe over there if you prefer. So you can just search for Communications Breakdown. Also, you can come talk to us on Blue Sky and LinkedIn as CIRTC.

Tracy: 24:35
All right, that's it for this episode. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.