A social media calendar can prove to be the best way to organize and plan your content marketing strategy. It feels like a major time investment at first, but you can be assured that it will pay back time in the future. Whether it’s a basic grid with a few links or a custom dashboard that can schedule hundreds of updates, the social media calendar can be as simple or dynamic as your company wants it to be.
In a nutshell, social media calendar is a detailed and oraganized run-through of the tentative plan for managing and strategizing your social media activities such as posts, campaigns, launches and so much more. And as we walk you through this topic in the blog further, the concepts will get clearer.
Managing social media and building an audience can be difficult, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot make the process simpler by using certain tricks. A social media content calendar is one of the things that will make this process fun and easy.
A calendar might not be the solution to everything. Still, it will help you get a better grip on your social media marketing strategy and alleviate some pressure of sharing updates on social media.
So, in this guide, we’ll show you how to prepare a calendar for your social media.
How to create a social media content calendar
Creating an effective social media calendar basically involves 8 steps:
1. Analyze your social media accounts
Developing a good understanding of your existing social media efforts would help you to recognize areas for change and prospects for new efforts. The audit is key to fine-tune your plan and optimize your ROI. You can use a social media audit template which will help in keeping the following things up-to-date:
- Inactive accounts and out-of-date profiles
- Security settings and passwords
- Goals of every social media platform
- Details of your audience and their behavior
- Responsibilities and accountability of people in your team
- Top performing posts, social media campaigns, and marketing tactics
- Gaps in strategy, disappointing results, and scope for improvements
- Key statistics to measure future success on each social media platform
Keep aside some dedicated time period to analyze all your social media profiles. Then you’ll be confident that you’re going to tackle your refreshed social plan with the best details. Those are the details that are specific to your target audience, your accounts, and your brand.
2. Select appropriate social channels
A concentrated effort is required to find time to remain on top of new technologies in the hustle and bustle of daily struggle. Like, is your audience present on TikTok? And should your brand be using Instagram reels? That’s why you should take some time to make sure that you are aware of the audience that is present on different social media channels. Concentrate your social media marketing efforts on the right channels where your audience is present.
That doesn’t mean that you need to brush up your knowledge from the start point, just have some professional development reading breaks, and you’ll be gleaming with new ideas from time to time.
3. Find out the data that your social media calendar will track
As you find out what this amazing beast would look like, you would want to plan out the details and features that this tool is going to offer you. If you are starting fresh and managing the social media for a single brand, a simple spreadsheet might do the job.
However, if you’re running a five-person team with a dozen of different consumer-facing products, you’re going to need something that will tell you who’s doing what, when it’s done, when it’s approved, and when it’s uploaded – and then how effective it was. In such cases, a spreadsheet is not enough, and you might need a tool to keep track of everything.
Our advice is to begin with the basic details like Name of platform, date, time, visuals (photo, video, gif, etc), link to published posts, and link to assets. After that, you can add in advanced details like platform-specific format, geo-targeting, the campaign it’s affiliated with (product launch, event, contests, annual giving, etc.), analytics, results, paid or organic, etc.
4. Prepare a content library
Some people call them content repositories, media resource databases, or digital resources reserves. Doesn’t matter what you name it, your visual content supply shouldn’t be just lying on your device’s folders. You can use a tool dedicated to this purpose. Below are the few features of a content library:
- It is spacious enough for holding large files
- It can be accessed from both phone and desktop
- Can be shared easily with team members
Setting up your content library is as important as preparing a social media calendar. The less you have to search for your content, the better. For example, RecurPost’s social media scheduling tool lets you make content libraries along with an editorial calendar, schedule all the content in advance, and create recurring schedules. Click here to see how it works.
5. Set up a workflow
Okay, now that you’ve compiled all the details you can, it’s time to begin sketching the bones of your daily, weekly, and monthly social media calendar. You will have to decide the following:
- How often you will upload posts on each social media channel.
- The best time to post on all social media platforms
- Who will approve the posts.
- The process of brainstorming new content, assigning, and creating it.
Once you have outlined a process for social media, consider noting it down in an easy-to-access location. The more diverse your team is, the more important it is to break down concepts and procedures.
6. Create your social media posts
Right now your mind will probably be flooding up with content ideas. Take out some time and go through all the folders lying in your devices like social media calendar template excel and start creating some sensible posts! While you work, see how your social media calendar feels. If it’s complicated and fussy, you may want to turn back on some of the specifics. Or maybe it’s not comprehensive enough, and you need to add a bunch of columns for deets.
7. Ask your team to review the social media calendar
Now that you’ve molded the pillars of your organizational kingdom, it’s time to unveil your work to the world, or at least to your team members. You want your calendar to be reasonably intuitive, so give an invite to those who need to use it every day. Tell them to keep pace with it, and arrange a briefing for all to connect on findings. You will probably find some gaps in the content strategy.
- Does everybody have the credentials that they need?
- Can people understand the requirements of the UTM?
- Does everyone know how to search, import, and upload the high-resolution infographic that the designer has created? If not, will they quickly work that out?
- At the completion of this phase, you should have an airtight paper that even the newest member of the team will comprehend.
8. Begin scheduling/publishing posts
Your social media calendar is now ready to run! This is how you can create a social media calendar in google sheets or any other social media management tool. When you start uploading regularly, you will realize that it always takes time to sit down and post your content manually. This is particularly true if you’re dealing with a high-volume feed. In this case, you should ideally use a social media scheduler, such as Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn etc., to organize and schedule your posts in advance.
How to manage a social media content calendar
Managing content can be tricky, but if not managed well, the very social media calendar that helps plan the content can make it challenging too. However, it is no rocket science either. There are some things that can really help manage the social media content calendar and are stated below:-
1. Keeping content theme or initiative-wise organised
The main purpose of a social media calendar is to keep things organised, along with many others. And to keep it organised, it is crucial to maintain the content, ideas and texts arranged according to their respective themes. If all the ideas, post content and texts will be dumped in one folder, the whole purpose of the social media calendar will lose its essence. On the other hand, keeping the data topic wise specified will ensure efficient organisation.
2. Choose a social media calendar with effective tools
Choosing a social media calendar that has advanced and practical elements can make all the difference in the world regarding its functionality! And RecurPost’s social media calendar comes in handy for it. With features like weekly and monthly view, list calendar, shared calendar, queue and history, filter by date, library calendar, and so many others; it can completely transform one’s social media management!
3. Formulate a strategy in order to run things smoothly
In order to run things smoothly, it is of utmost importance to formulate a strategy that is in sync with the company’s principles and disposition; and also best helps the company keep the calendar super planned and organised. Once the strategy is finalised, the system as well as the members must abide by it to maintain the social media calendar.
4. Make sure to keep a close tab on your outcomes
Keeping close and constant tabs on your outcomes shall be on priority for the business or organization in order to make sure what works best for the company and what does not. So that whatever is favourable for the company and its growth can be accepted, and whatever is not can be rejected and replaced with, through a better strategy.
What are the benefits of using a Social Media Calendar?
While the most amazing features that are being introduced to various social media applications have really amped up the marketing game for a lot of brands and companies, it has also presented people with multiple mediums to share content, making it difficult to keep up with the whirlwind of constant competition. But the concept of social media calendars is like a knight in shining armor for business owners as well as content creators, and the reasons mentioned below explain it further:-
1. Better time management: Social media calendars enable the user to plan and schedule content not just for the upcoming days or weeks, but months; thus helping make more time and space for other important tasks that need more attention.
2. Efficient planning: Organizing and specifying post content and other details help laying out a tentative plan, which makes it more convenient to spot any gaps or shortcomings in the early layout of the plans, leaving scope for improvement.
3. Increased growth opportunity: As social media calendars simplify planning and scheduling posts and other activities to such an extent, the team is able to come up with more innovative and interesting ideas, hence presenting the brand with major growth opportunities.
4. Relatively hassle-free process: With content resources being all over the place without any plan or specification, can make the whole process very chaotic. However, with social media calendars in use, the content can be categorized to different dates according to various themes, thus making it relatively hassle-free!
Social media content calendar examples
What does a social media calendar look like ?
It is completely understandable that after reading so much information about how to craft a social media calendar or strategy, it can be rather overwhelming to imagine what exactly this calendar looks like. But it is not to be worried about, for we will shed light on the same!
Now if you are wondering how an ideal social media calendar looks like, here are some examples for you to refer to.
1. Digital Opportunity Trust’s internal social media content calendar
One of the hardest things to search online—believe us, we searched—is what the real functioning social media calendar looks like. Luckily, DOT’s Director of Marketing and Digital Communication, Anne Patterson, has slipped few screenshots of what her team’s day-to-day activities look like. DOT’s social media content calendar is tidy and straightforward, enabling all of its platforms to be accessed at a glance—including its proprietary platform, Innojo.
2. National Geographic’s editorial calendar
Let’s see how top-level editorial eyes interpret long-range content preparation. This is not a social media content calendar, but editorial calendars for magazines are normally made with prospective clients in mind. Their aim is to give advertisers an indication of what’s going on, point by point.
These calendars are good-looking, descriptive, and they just detail the main hook. They often usually provide the demographics of audience and mission statements. Whether you’re presenting your higher-ups—or you’re an influencer looking to show your skills to prospective brand partners—the editorial calendar might be a key.
Tools and Software for Social Media Calendars
A) Recurpost
While there are multiple social media management softwares that are great tools for crafting a social media calendar, RecurPost, which is a social media automation tool and is also a part of the social media management tools certainly stands out, with its supportive features that make social media planning so much more efficient and expertized. The features are as follows:-
1. Custom Workspace: These special zones let you work on one client at a time, cutting out distractions and making things smoother for your team. With just one click, you can jump from one client to another, each with its own setup ready to go.
2. Library filters: Categorize your content at a snap of a finger and get your strategies, content and campaigns organized in seconds. Gain control over social media strategy and make your client’s social media shine.
3. Calendar control: Whether it’s refining the wording, or updating visuals, you have the flexibility to fine-tune your posts to better align with your objectives.
4. Access Management: We adapt according to your agency’s expanding requirements and enable you to manage multiple teams and client portfolios effortlessly.
5. Edit and upload multiple posts: This powerful tool will streamline your uploading process. It makes posting easy and fast, giving you more time to engage with your followers. By simplifying your tasks, it not only frees up your schedule but also boosts your online presence, making it consistent and eye-catching.
Pricing: Starts from $25/month with a 14-day free trial.
B) CoSchedule
CoSchedule, as the name implies, helps marketers schedule their social postings in advance through an AI marketing calendar for content, social, and beyond. It is a boon for marketers requiring assistance with social media calendars, providing many outstanding features such as AI writing tools, marketing dictionary, drag and drop calendar, bulk scheduling, unlimited client calendars and so much more.
Pricing: Starts from $29/month with a 14-day free trial.
C) Trello
Trello is a flexible work management tool that helps managing multiple social media accounts smoothly with some most amazing features like organising workflows, It manages the amazing milestones of the day along with day-to-day goals, thus maintaining a proper organized calendar.
Pricing: Starts from $6/month with a 14-day free trial.
Elements of Social Media Calendars
A social media content calendar is an essential tool for organizing and planning your social media posts. It ensures consistency, saves time, and helps align your social media efforts with your overall marketing strategy. When creating a social media calendar, it’s important to include specific elements that make each entry comprehensive and effective.
Let’s explore the key elements that should be part of every entry in your social media calendar.
1. Weekly and monthly view: The calendar in Recurpost is available in both, monthly as well as weekly view. If you wish to keep the data ready only for the immediate future, the weekly view is ideal. However, if you wish to schedule posts or view the scheduled posts for the upcoming months, a monthly view would be most helpful.
2. List calendar: Right next to the option of monthly view is the tab to list view 
3. Shared Calendar: With the feature of ‘Shared calendar’ 
4. Queue and history: While ‘Queue’ allows you to access the weekly, monthly, as well as list view 
5. Filter by date: After clicking on ‘History’ option, and going through all the past posts, you can still not locate the particular post that you are scouring for, ‘filter by date’ could be your go to. All you have to do is enter the date in the blank space next to the filter by date option, and you will be able to locate that specific post!
6. See only failed posts: Quite often do the people who post regularly, come across times where they fail to share their posts due to multiple reasons. Well, RecurPost gives you an option to view and edit these posts as well in order to maintain your brand image and uniformity.
7. Pause queue: The feature of ‘Pause Queue’ allows you to pause the queue which means no more posts are updated from your account until you wish to and turn the option off. This option can be very useful, especially if you decide to post a new concept in your line of posts!
8. Library calendar: And lastly, the feature of ‘Library calendar’ is the kind of life saving feature that would prove to be useful in more ways than one might imagine! In the library calendar, you will be able to sort content according to days, months, themes or campaigns, in order to keep your content and data pleasantly organised.
Final thoughts
As a marketer handling digital marketing services, your time is too precious to waste deciding what to upload every single day. A well-planned social media calendar helps you use your resources to prepare for the future. And also concentrate on other facets of your marketing campaign.
Once you’ve planned your content calendar, use RecurPost to schedule all of your social media posts, engage with your followers, and track the success of your efforts. Sign up now for a 14-days free trial.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the purpose of a social media calendar?
The purpose of a social media calendar is to plan, brainstorm, strategize and organize the post content, texts, data and other necessities in order to make social media management more hassle-free and efficient.
2. How do I create a digital marketing calendar?
You can create a digital marketing calendar using tools like Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Google sheets or any other third-party applications like RecurPost with enhanced features.
3. What are 7 C’s of social media?
The 7 C’s of social media are as follows:-
- Community
- Content
- Curation
- Creation
- Connection
- Conversation
- Conversion
4. What is the example of a content strategy?
Structuring contrast and versus pages are a great example for content strategy as they fare really well for B2B companies, since they chiefly focus more on displaying the worth of your product or services, thus keeping users hooked to the page.
5.What are the 4 pillars of content marketing?
To boost your content marketing plans, it is very beneficial to abide by and use the 4 pillars of content marketing which are as follows:-
- Context
- Channels
- Connection
- Commeerce
6. How to craft a content marketing strategy template?
You can begin by representing your sky-rocketing goals of your content strategy, then determine how you plan to accomplish your creative strategy in the upcoming weeks. Further,you can take the opinion of your team as well as partners to make it as detailed and helpful as possible.
7. What is included in a content calendar?
A content calendar contains various things like your upcoming content pieces, planned campaigns, future post ideas, status updates, upgrades and reforms to existing published content, and so much more!
Dr. Dinesh Agarwal is a research scientist turned entrepreneur. He is fascinated with the social media world and has been working in the industry since 2013, where he built his first social media management tool that got acquired a few years later. He likes sharing his experience on podcasts, conferences and via his articles.