Create the Ultimate Social Media Calendar and Content Planner

Social media is an essential part of any modern marketing strategy. But juggling multiple social profiles can be overwhelming. That's why using a social media calendar is critical for social media success.

In this comprehensive guide, you'll learn how to create the ultimate social media calendar and content planner using templates. With the right planning, you can easily manage your social media and finally get ahead of the game.

Why Do You Need a Social Media Calendar?

A social media calendar is a content planning and publishing tool. It allows you to:

• Map out your social media strategy

• Plan and schedule content in advance

• Organize your workflows

• Streamline team collaboration

• Track performance across networks

Without a content calendar, your social media is likely sporadic and disjointed. But with calendar planning, you can take a strategic approach.

A calendar gives you an editorial plan for social media. This leads to consistent posting and less scrambling for content ideas.

Ultimately, a planned calendar saves you time while optimizing your impact on social. For any brand investing in social media, a calendar is essential.

The Key Elements of an Effective Social Media Calendar

An effective social media calendar has a few key elements:

Calendar View

A monthly calendar view of your content helps visualize your plans. Most social media calendars use a traditional calendar layout to map out posts.

This interface allows you to see your overall content calendar at-a-glance. You can also drill down into a specific day or week.

Post Scheduling

The calendar allows you to schedule social media posts in advance. This feature enables planning for future content.

You can draft posts and schedule them to automatically publish to social profiles. Scheduling eliminates the need for manual posting each day.

Multi-Platform Support

Top social media calendars support multiple platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.

The ability to plan cross-channel content from one dashboard saves a ton of time. You don't need separate calendars for each network.

Campaign Groupings

Leading calendars let you group content into campaigns or sequences. For example, you may have a set of posts that support a specific promotion.

Campaigns allow you to plan content that works together for special initiatives. This brings strategic focus to your planning.

Assessment

Tracking key metrics helps you continuously improve your approach over time. The best social media calendars have analytics and reporting built in.

Crucial data like engagement, reach, clicks, and more can inform your future content strategy.

Team Workflow

Top calendars support collaborating with others on a shared content plan. Useful features like content assignments, user permissions, and approvals facilitate teamwork.

Working together on campaigns leads to more content ideas and lighter workloads. But it requires tools to manage workflows.

Recurring Posting

For evergreen content that you want to repeat, some calendars allow you to schedule recurring posts.

This can save time versus manually posting the same thing over and over. Think of content like daily quotes that can be automated.

By incorporating these features, a social media calendar becomes a powerful multi-function tool. It evolves from a simple planner into a platform that transforms your entire approach.

How to Create Your Own Social Media Calendar in 5 Steps

Here is a simple 5-step process for creating your own social media calendar:

1. Audit Your Social Media Presence

Start by auditing your existing social media presence. Review your current network profiles and recent performance.

• What networks and accounts are you already using?

• How often do you post on each platform?

• What types of content get the best engagement?

Use your social media analytics to understand what's working and what's not. This will inform the strategy for your calendar.

2. Set Your Social Media Goals

Based on the audit, define your goals and intentions for social media moving forward.

Your goals might include driving more visitors to your website, generating leads, increasing brand awareness, etc.

Having clearly defined goals will dictate the types of content you create and how you use each network.

3. Craft Your Content Strategy

Now it's time to develop a high-level content strategy and editorial calendar.

• What themes align with your goals and audience interests?

• How will you balance educational content with promotions?

• What's the ideal mix of link shares, thought leadership, and engagement?

Map out the types of content you want to develop and share on a monthly basis. This will frame up your calendar.

4. Build Your Calendar

Given your strategy, goals, and audience research, start populating your calendar with planned posts.

• Schedule your content across networks on the appropriate dates and times.

• Use a mix of original posts, shares, and repurposed content.

• Group related posts into campaigns or sequences.

• Plan a few recurring posts each week or month.

Build at least a few months worth of social content to begin with. You can always add more later.

5. Monitor and Adapt

Once your calendar is up and running, monitor performance closely. Review your analytics to see what content resonates with your audience.

Based on these learnings, continuously refine your approach over time. Experiment with new post formats, topics, and networks.

Use what works, stop what doesn't, and regularly update your calendar. Effective social media is a process of constant optimization.

By following these steps, you'll craft a strategic social media calendar from the ground up. Next let's explore some tools that can streamline calendar creation.

Top 10 Social Media Calendar & Planner Tools

While you can create a calendar manually or in Excel, specialized tools make planning easier. Here are 10 top-rated social media calendar tools to consider:

1. Sprout Social

Sprout is an all-in-one social media management platform. Along with scheduling and analytics, Sprout offers a robust social media calendar.

Create and arrange posts on a visual calendar. Group content into campaign buckets for strategic planning. Collaborate with teammates and track performance, all from Sprout's centralized dashboard.

2. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is another highly rated platform for managing social media. Like Sprout, Hootsuite provides a calendar tool for planning your content.

Hootsuite also allows you to schedule posts, manage approval workflows, and collaborate with others. Their calendar simplifies planning for teams and individuals.

3. CoSchedule

CoSchedule focuses specifically on content marketing calendars, though it integrates with social media. Their calendar tool allows you map out a detailed editorial plan.

You can also use CoSchedule to ideate and assign tasks. Powerful reporting provides data to inform your approach.

4. MeetEdgar

In addition to scheduling, MeetEdgar makes it easy to recycle your top-performing social posts. Their calendar tool focuses on repurposing your best content on autopilot.

This can save you time spent creating new posts from scratch every day or week. MeetEdgar streamlines efficient social media management.

5. Loomly

Loomly offers a visual calendar editor for social media planning. Create and schedule posts while collaborating with your team in real-time.

Their calendar tool also provides recommendations for timing and frequency based on your audience. This takes the guesswork out of planning.

6. Later

Later specializes in Instagram scheduling specifically. Their calendar tool analyzes your audience to suggest the best times to post.

This helps you align your Instagram content with when your followers are most engaged. Data-driven scheduling is Later's strength.

7. Buffer

Buffer provides social media calendars for scheduling, analytics, and team management. View your calendar in weekly or monthly formats to plan your content.

They also offer suggestions for the optimal timing and frequency of posts. And you can collaborate, discuss, and approve content as a team.

8. SocialPilot

SocialPilot incorporates a calendar tool into their wider social media management platform. Along with an editorial planner, they offer post scheduling, approvals, and reporting.

Their calendar is highly visual with many customization options. And the tool is designed to streamline team workflows.

9. Post Planner

As the name suggests, Post Planner focuses on social media calendars for scheduling content. Their tool allows you to easily plan posts in advance across networks.

Beyond a calendar, Post Planner also provides audience analytics. This helps you understand the best times and frequencies to share content.

10. Sendible

Sendible offers an integrated calendar alongside their social media marketing platform. You can schedule and plan posts, campaigns, and recurring content.

Their calendar tool also includes resource assignment, review processes, and content libraries for easily managing team workflows.

As you can see, many robust social media calendars exist beyond just creating something manually. The options provide a spectrum of features, integrations, and pricing.

Consider which tool best aligns with your budget, use cases, and team needs. Most offer free trials to test out the features and interface.

How to Use a Social Media Calendar Template

If you want a basic calendar to start with, numerous free social media calendar templates are available online.

For example, here are some easy-to-use templates to download:

• Social Media Content Calendar Google Sheet

• Social Media Calendar Google Doc

• Monthly Social Media Calendar Template PDF

• Social Media Planner Google Sheet

• Social Media Editorial Calendar Template

These templates provide a basic calendar grid along with prompts for your content details. Simply download them and customize for your own needs.

While more manual, these free templates can get your calendar up and running quickly. And they integrate easily with tools like Google Docs that your team may already use.

Once you outgrow a basic template, consider exploring the more advanced platforms in this guide. But templates make a good starting point.

Tips for Managing Your Calendar

Once you build your social media calendar, you need to actually use and maintain it. Here are some top tips for managing your calendar:

• Check it daily - Set a reminder to review your calendar each day. Update statuses, swap posts, and keep it current.

• Plan consistently - Set aside dedicated time every week or month to plan and populate your calendar. Don't let it fall out of date.

• Analyze data - Review social media analytics to identify your top-performing content. Find themes and formats to incorporate into future planning.

• Reuse content - Repurpose your evergreen content through recurring posts. This saves you time while maximizing impact.

• Collaborate - Use your calendar's team features. Assign, discuss, review, and approve content together. More eyes lead to more ideas.

• Adapt and optimize - Continuously refine your approach based on performance. Stay on top of new trends, platforms, and audience interests.

• Automate where possible - Use calendar integrations with tools like RSS feeds and Google Analytics to reduce manual work.

• Try new tactics - Experiment with different content formats, angles, and topics. Track what resonates and do more of that.

Following these tips will help you get the most from your calendar. Ultimately, your social media is only as strong as your content planning.

Key Takeaways and Next Steps

Creating an effective social media calendar takes effort but delivers tremendous value. Here are some key tips to remember:

• Audit your current social media presence and goals to inform your calendar strategy.

• Map out an editorial plan with the types of content to develop each month. Consider a mix of original, curated, and repurposed posts.

• Use a dedicated calendar tool to schedule and plan your content across networks. Many free templates are available to start with.

• Populate your calendar by scheduling posts days or weeks in advance. Include a variety of content formats and topics.

• Group related posts into campaigns for strategic focus. And leverage recurring posts to save time recreating the same content.

• Monitor performance closely using built-in analytics. Continuously optimize your approach based on data and learnings.

• Maintain your calendar daily and keep it updated. Use team features to assign and collaborate on content.

Investing the time into a thoughtful social media calendar will elevate your brand's presence. But execution requires discipline and consistency. Use the templates and tools in this guide to start planning your content today.

What tips do you have for managing a successful social media calendar? Share your top lessons in the comments below!