Creating and posting content on the fly is tricky. You’re more prone to typos and writer’s block. Spending a little time upfront creating a social media calendar is much more efficient. That way, you carve out dedicated time to create, tweak, proofread, and schedule posts — and take the stress of planning out of your day-to-day.
Keep reading for your complete guide to setting up a practical and powerful, easy-to-use social media calendar. We’ve even included some free social media calendar templates to get you started!
Bonus: Download our free, customizable social media calendar template to easily plan and schedule all your content in advance.
Social media is an essential tool for brands today to connect with customers, drive awareness and boost sales But without a strategic plan, your social media efforts can easily become disjointed and ineffective That’s where a social media content calendar comes in handy!
A social media content calendar allows you to plan out all of your posts and campaigns in advance so you can utilize your social media channels in the most efficient way possible When used effectively, a content calendar helps increase engagement, maintain brand consistency and save time
Follow this step-by-step guide to learn how to create a social media calendar that will maximize your impact and connect with your audience:
Identify Your Social Media Channels
First, make a list of all of the social media platforms you are currently using for your brand. This may include channels like:
- YouTube
List out every account you have on each platform. You want your calendar to provide an integrated plan to utilize all of these channels cohesively.
Conduct an Audit of Each Platform
Next, do a social media audit for each of your existing channels. Look back over the past 3-6 months of content on each platform.
Analyze metrics like followers, engagement, clicks, impressions and growth rate. See which types of content, hashtags and messaging spark the most interest. Discover which days and times your audience is most active on each platform.
An analytics tool like Sprout Social can help compile helpful data for your audit.
Decide What to Track in Your Calendar
Once you have insights from your audit, determine what key information you want to track on your calendar. This may include:
- Posting dates and times
- Type of content (photo, video, link, etc)
- Text and hashtags used
- Topics and themes
- Links and call-to-action
- Frequency of posts
- Content creation deadlines
- Who creates and approves content
- Expected engagement and clicks
Tracking this information will allow you to see the bigger picture and optimize how you utilize each platform.
Plan Your Posting Cadence
A posting cadence is how often you publish new content. Analyze your audit data to see what cadence works best for each of your social media platforms.
For example, one post per day may be optimal for Twitter, whereas 2-3 posts per week could be ideal for LinkedIn. Take your audience’s habits into account.
Consistency is key – stick to regular posting times for the best results. Flexibility is also important as major events come up or you experiment with new content types.
Build Out a Review Process
Your content calendar should include a streamlined review and approval process before content gets published. Identify who needs to review, provide input and approve each post.
Build in deadlines for when draft content must be submitted for feedback. Having an organized review workflow prevents mistakes and keeps your messaging aligned across channels.
Schedule Time for Content Creation
Don’t just plug in posting dates – also block off time for content creation. It’s easy to fall behind if you don’t dedicate real time for brainstorming ideas, creating content and putting posts together.
Identify all the steps required before hitting publish. Factor the time needed for content creation into your calendar. Assign team members to specific tasks if you manage social media collaboratively.
Track and Report on Results
Once your calendar is in motion, continuously track published content against your goals and metrics. Monitor engagement levels, clicks, follows, shares and overall growth.
Tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics provide data to analyze. Generate reports to showcase social media impact and find areas to refine.
Use an Editorial Calendar Template
Creating your calendar as an editorial calendar template helps organize information in one handy spreadsheet or document. Popular platforms like CoSchedule, Loomly or BaseOne have useful templates.
Or create your own using Excel, Google Sheets or project management software like Asana or Trello. Having all of your plans in one place streamlines social media management.
Plan Themes and Campaigns
An effective social media calendar incorporates overall themes, special campaigns and major events. Plan content around larger topics like seasons, awareness months or holidays.
Schedule social campaigns to promote launches, sales or special offers. Be sure to plan around major events for your business or niche. Tie individual posts back to your bigger picture themes and initiatives.
Prepare Content in Advance
Look ahead on your calendar and prepare as much unique content in advance as possible. Whether you create it yourself or work with creative teams, give yourself lead time.
Having a bank of prepped content helps avoid last minute scrambling. You can reuse evergreen content as needed too. Just be sure to mix in timely, in-the-moment posts as major events occur.
Integrate Other Marketing Efforts
Your social media calendar shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. Coordinate social media with your other marketing campaigns like email newsletters, webinars, advertising and blog content.
Planned, integrated campaigns maximize your impact across all channels. Link your social posts to other initiatives happening on your website or in customer communications.
Don’t Over-Schedule
While consistency is important, you don’t want your calendar to be overly crowded. Too many posts in a day risks overwhelming your audience. Allow space for real-time reactions too.
Aim for a mix of planned posts and spontaneous responses on hot topics. Schedule just what makes sense based on your audit findings and capacity for high-quality content.
Analyze Competitors
Research what your competitor’s social media calendars likely look like. See what their cadence is across platforms and which content succeeds. Don’t copy them entirely, but let their approach inform your own planning.
Pay attention to their language, special campaigns, product photos etc. Use what works well for them as inspiration to test with your own audience.
Know When to Outsource
Don’t overburden your team. If managing a detailed social media calendar feels too time consuming based on your resources, consider outsourcing some aspects.
Hiring a social media manager, freelance writer or growth expert can lift some of the burden while still keeping you in control. You provide direction and feedback while they handle creation and publishing.
Use Scheduling Tools
Social media apps like Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer allow you to schedule out your posts in advance according to your calendar. Using a scheduling tool saves time and keeps your calendars posts queued up and ready to go.
Just be cautious about over-scheduling. You still need flexibility to respond and engage in real-time. Don’t let every post be prescheduled.
Stay Nimble and Adaptable
Social media moves fast. As you execute your calendar, stay adaptable. If a post flops, adjust your approach. Capitalize on trending topics as they emerge. Be ready to shift campaigns or tone if needed.
Treat your calendar as a framework, but leave room to improvise and experiment. Keep track of what works to inform future plans.
Make Time for Engagement
No matter how perfectly you plan your social media calendar, it will fall flat without active community engagement. Don’t just broadcast content – make sure to regularly interact.
Reply to comments, respond to questions and jump into relevant conversations. Being an active part of social communities is crucial for growing your audience. Factor in ample time for this as you build your calendar.
Executing a thoughtful social media calendar takes effort, but pays off exponentially. When done consistently over time, you’ll see increased followers, engagement, leads, sales and brand awareness as you directly reach your audience. Stay nimble, analyze data and keep refining your approach. With the right planning, your social media channels can flourish.
Invite your team to review, and use their feedback to improve
An effective social calendar makes sense to everyone on your marketing team. Ask for feedback and ideas from stakeholders and your team to make sure it serves everyone’s needs.
As you start to work with your calendar, evaluate how it feels to you, and ask the team to provide ongoing feedback. For example, if it feels onerous and finicky, maybe you want to dial back some of the detail. If it’s not detailed enough, you may need to add a few columns.
Your calendar will probably continue to evolve as your business does — and that’s okay!
Time your content to important holidays and events
Planning your content in a calendar forces you to keep an eye on what’s happening in, well, the calendar. This means you’re prepared for everything from Daylight Savings Time to the Super Bowl. (And everything else: We’re looking at you, National Pizza Day.)
We’ve created a Google Calendar of holidays you can use to frame social media posts. You can import it into your own Google Calendar to give your content planning a little extra relevance.
Let’s take a look at the Charlotte Parent magazine’s 2022 editorial calendar. It shows how content themes and specific articles align with relevant events, like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.
How To Create An Effective Social Media Calendar (FREE TEMPLATE)
How to create a social media calendar?
Choose a social media calendar template that suits your needs, or create a customized template using software like Google Sheets. A well-designed template should include sections for content categories, publishing dates, post captions, and details specific to your content strategy.
What is a social media content calendar?
Social media content calendars are the best way to plan and organize your content. Build one in 4 easy steps or use our free templates. What is a social media calendar? Why use a social media content calendar? A social media calendar is a lifesaver for busy social marketers. Creating and posting content on the fly is tricky.
How do I use the social media content calendar template?
You can easily use our social media content calendar template on Microsoft Excel. Marketers can easily use this template to plan individual social media posts— monthly or annually — while keeping an eye on more significant picture events, holidays, publications, and partnerships.
What is a good social media calendar template?
The ClickUp social media calendar template has lots of great options to plan months of content, including custom fields for use with your team. The downside is that you need to transfer the content to another tool to post the content to the social media channels. 6. Google Sheets For many people, their tool of choice is good old Google Sheets.
