There are so many templates online or free downloads for you to create your own social media content calendar, but I’ve never found any of them useful. There aren’t any prompts and there is nowhere convenient to store the calendar. If it’s a PDF, you’d have to print it, and if you put images on it, you still have to recreate the content. Here though, I’m going to go through what works for me and how you can build a content calendar that works for you too.
Decide on posting days - The good news is, that most platforms allow for scheduling now, so you can post as many times as you want in a month, but personally, I prefer something a little more realistic. For me, I like to have a post scheduled for every other day. It means that my feed is not too overcrowded. It also allows for enough creativity and variety without taking too much of my time. After all, Zortex isn’t a social media business.
Grab a notebook and coloured pens - I’m old school. There is nothing better than physical paper and pens to get things out of your head effectively. I have a dedicated notebook for social media planning. One full page is where I draw out the calendar. Since I don’t need a spot for every day, I only need it to show the days that I will need to create content for. I colour-coded the days to help with the visualisation of the content and the plan itself.
Draw up a table - This is where a bit of maths comes in. You want to see how much space you have on the page and then figure out how you want to split it. I decided I wanted the table to be somewhat square and I would only need four columns since I’m posting every other day. I measured the page with a ruler and decided the overall width of the table should be 18cm which meant each column would be 4.5cm. Each row would be four lines high. Squared paper might make it easier and if you don’t mind things being a little uneven, you can always just eyeball it.
Decide what kind of content you want to post on certain days (i.e. reels, single posts, carousels) - This is the variety I was talking about. It depends on what platform you want to post on but I try to keep my content applicable for all platforms which means being able to create different types of content. Reels can be posted on TikTok or YouTube Shorts. Single posts can go on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Video content is the most attractive in recent times so I go with that twice a week and in between either do a carousel post with multiple slides or a single post.
Outline the post idea - Once you have a general idea of the format, you can create and develop certain concepts. Say you want to promote your gardening business. Your videos could be a timelapse of a project or a quick how-to and your images would be that of the plants you look after or any products you use.
Get creating - Canva is one of the easiest tools to use. Find a template you like for the content format, fill it with your own stuff, use your brand colours, download and then schedule the post.
Do you plan your social content for your business?
Yes
No
Sometimes
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