Using a social media content planner can be a game-changer for busy marketers – and in more ways than you might think.

Of course, social media content planners cover the basics, like helping you to stay organized and consistent with your posts across multiple platforms. But if you get the right tool, you can transform your content and vastly improve your overall social media output.

Done well, your planner can act as the anchor for your overall social media marketing strategy, and become a focal point for your day-to-day activities.

It won't take long for an effective social media calendar to take shape. From here, you can begin making major efficiencies while improving overall output.

In this blog, you'll learn everything you need to know about creating a consistent and engaging social media content planner.

What's the point of a social media content planner?

Your social media plan is just as important as the content itself. If you fail to plan correctly, your social media posts can quickly look messy, off-brand, and unprofessional.

This isn't just about ensuring your Instagram grid looks appealing. The art of planning is to create social media posts that work together to form a product that your audience can buy into.

Our guide is designed to help anyone who has not used social media calendars before. Read on to discover the basics of social media content planning, what tools are available to businesses, how to create a robust calendar, and what follow-up activities you can undertake to maintain consistency.

With these points in mind, you'll learn how a social media calendar can act as a hub to channel all your creativity.

We'll also discuss the best way to manage multiple social media accounts, like using social media calendar tools such as Brandwatch, alongside finding the right data and analytics features for your brand. With this in mind, you'll avoid the mistake of being in the dark with your content. Instead, you can use data mined from your tool to guide your decisions.

This guide is applicable across multiple social media platforms. So, if you're looking to schedule TikTok posts, track engagement on X, improve your Instagram posts, or post consistently on LinkedIn, then we're here to help.

In this guide

Understanding the basics of social media planning

Let's begin with looking at the basics of social media planning. This section aims to set out the benefits and components of a social media calendar so you know how they work in principle. We'll then go into more detail later in this guid.

Remember, social media planning helps you stay organized and consistent with your online presence. It lets you map out your content in advance and align it with your goals.

What is a social media content planner?

A social media content planner is anything that helps you to organize and schedule your posts ahead of time. It's essentially a roadmap for your social media strategy.

A basic calendar can allow you to see what you'll post, when you'll post it, and on which platforms. Facebook offers this entry-level service within the Meta Business Suite, where you can schedule posts for future dates. More in-depth planners can even help you with post analysis and optimization across a suite of social platforms.

Your planner doesn't have to be complicated. You can use built-in tools on each social media site – such as the Meta Business Suite or the 'Schedule Post' option on X. You could also map everything out on a simple spreadsheet before uploading posts manually. Or, you could use a social media calendar tool to make things super simple.

No matter what you use, a good planner helps you track important dates and events. You can plan content around holidays, product launches, or industry trends, so your content reaches your audience at exactly the right time.

Benefits of using a content calendar

Using a content calendar makes your social media efforts more effective. It saves you time by letting you plan and create content in batches, which also improves consistency across your content.

Instead of thinking up new ideas every day, you can set aside time to plan for weeks or months in advance.

This is particularly important if you are developing a new marketing strategy that relies on an improved social media performance. Get a calendar in place at the strategy stage and you'll be able to prepare your next campaign months in advance.

It's also worth remembering that a planner means you're less likely to forget to post. You might not be about to launch a whole new marketing campaign, but you may need to remember to post on certain days.

For example, if a store is closed for the weekend so the owner can go on vacation, then being able to schedule Instagram posts means the owner doesn't have to send updates to their customers while relaxing by the pool.

Another benefit to a social media calendar is that they make it easier to balance different types of posts. You can mix promotional content with educational and entertaining posts. This variety keeps your feed interesting for your followers.

What is in a social media calendar?

There are some key features that every good social media calendar must have. Here's a quick look:

  1. Timing: Calendars must allow you to time your posts for when you want them published.
  2. Multiple platforms: If you're using a social media content calendar like Brandwatch, then it needs to be able to post consistently across multiple platforms, not just one.
  3. Content: Planners should allow you access to the full range of content options available on each social network. For example, being able to tag, add alt text, create clickable images, and include shop links.
  4. Tracking: The best calendars also track post performance. This lets you see what's working and adjust your strategy. You might include fields for likes, comments, shares, or click-throughs.

If you find a social calendar platform that doesn't provide these features, then you might want to look for one that does.

Tools for effective content planning

Planning social media content gets a whole lot easier with the right tools. These days, managing a brand's social media posts across various channels is difficult unless you have software to help.

After all, even the act of logging into each social site, reshaping your content to fit the different specifications, and writing individual captions can take hours.

Below is an overview of the tools on offer. We've split the section into free tools and paid-for software, so you can see the difference between the two.

Free templates and tools for beginners

You don't need to spend money to start planning your social media content. Google Sheets is a great free option. You can create a basic content calendar to track post ideas, dates, and platforms. Google Calendar also works well for scheduling posts.

Many social media management tools offer free templates you can download. These often include columns for content type, caption drafts, and visual assets.

Using a template helps you stay organized and consistent. However, this can be very labor intensive. As easy as Google Sheets is to use, it's not possible to create automated posts and data tracking from a spreadsheet. It will require a lot of manual input from your social media team.

Some free tools let you plan and schedule posts directly. However, they usually have limits on accounts or posts per month.

These free tools are perfect for trying out automated posting before investing in paid options. Or, you can try a free demo and see how paid-for tools work, before signing up.

You might think someone new to social media content planning should stick to a free tool, yet some of the most successful marketing campaigns to date have emerged from rookie marketers who pay a small fee for a calendar that works for them.

Paid-for tools usually have varying levels of provision. You can pay a few dollars a month for the basic plan, in which your social media calendar lets you prepare and post across multiple accounts.

From here you can elevate your subscription as high as you like. Professional social media management tools offer features like:

These tools save time by centralizing your planning and posting. You might not need all of these features, which is why a tiered pricing approach is common.

Many tools also integrate with design software, making it easy to create and schedule visuals.

And some have started to use artificial intelligence to better support content and calendar creation. These AI social media tools may cost money, but they are designed to be more efficient and boost your productivity.

Best social media calendar tools

Brandwatch – Brandwatch’s social media scheduling tool makes it easy to schedule, edit, preview, and publish all your social media posts from a single calendar. Its AI-powered Iris Writing Assistant feature allows you to create catchy, engaging social posts faster.

Sendible – Simplify your social media publishing processes by tweaking your content for every platform. This saves time crafting clients' posts and is ideal for agencies who represent other brands.

Planable – A top tool for any marketing team that needs to track approval and maintain collaboration. Planable has a free trial period where you can create 50 posts.

Using calendars to create a cohesive social media marketing campaign

The point of a content calendar isn't to simply schedule your posts and walk away. It's about developing a unified social media strategy that links your posts to larger marketing goals.

Smart planning helps you share content that fits your brand and engages followers across platforms.

Do it right and you'll free up more time to analyze your campaigns and make changes to your overall strategy.

Seamlessly integrating with marketing campaigns

Social media accounts are integral to marketing campaigns. It's therefore important that your content matches your wider marketing efforts. Your calendar gives you full oversight of all social posts and means you can predict how a campaign will look before it launches.

Your calendar allows you to look at all upcoming social media posts and spot if they are aligned with your wider campaign. If you see problems – such as imagery not being right, or inconsistent captions – then you can make changes ahead of time.

You can also use data from earlier posts to feed into your campaign and make additional tweaks.

For example, if you're launching a new product, share sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes content on social media. This way you can start to understand what your audience is responding to, and plan your full launch based on those responses.

It's important to use consistent messaging and visuals across all channels as this helps build brand recognition. Stay consistent and your target audience will start to relate to what you're doing.

Organizing themed content and promotions

Your calendar also allows you to easily group content together. Doing this means you can launch subsets of your overall marketing campaign at different times.

For example, you might plan to post about product tips one week, then switch to customer stories the next. This variety keeps your feed fresh and engaging, while the calendar means you have control of your output.

Brands use thematic content all the time to keep their target audiences happy. You don't need to have a new product to post a "Tuesday Tip" each week, or start each day with an inspirational quote.

Success with your day-to-day social media presence relies on you being consistent in what you do, rather than trying to go viral with every post.

Building your social media calendar

A well-planned social media calendar helps you stay organized and consistent with your content. That's obvious, but what it doesn't do is take all jobs off your plate. You still have to do some of the hard work to build a calendar that works correctly across your social media channels. However, a calendar helps you put more time into the creativity – and less into the planning.

Below is a three step approach beneficial for every brand to follow when building a social media content calendar. Miss one of these steps and you might struggle to reach your marketing goals.

1. Define your content strategy

It's important to outline how you intend to create and publish content that supports your overarching strategy.

Start by identifying your target audience and look at what content they are likely to enjoy. Then set clear goals for your social media efforts. Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or boost sales? Perhaps you want to be part of the industry conversation, or go viral as much as possible?

Your goals will shape your content strategy.

Once you have this, you can think about the types of content you need: photos, videos, infographics, texts, etc. How will you create this content? Will you pay an external business to take photos and create graphics? Or do you need to train up?

These are all questions that you need to answer before you move forward.

2. Choose the right social media calendar tool

Once you know your strategy, you can select a tool that fits your needs. Options range from simple spreadsheets to advanced social media management platforms.

For small teams, a free tool like Google Sheets or Trello might work well. These allow you to collaborate and visualize your content plan.

Larger teams may benefit from paid tools like Brandwatch. These offer features like content scheduling, team collaboration, and analytics.

You can also create your own content within these tools, so you don't necessarily need to hire a photographer, graphic designer, or video editor to do the work.

Whatever tool you choose, it needs to integrate with your social platforms. This makes it easier to schedule posts and track performance. Some tools also suggest optimal posting times based on your audience data.

3. Map out your posting schedule

So, you've got your content strategy and have signed up to a tool. You've created your content (images, videos, etc.) and now it's time to map out your posts.

If you're starting from scratch, it's worth doing some competitor analysis at this point to see how regularly other brands post content. See what works well and what doesn't, and align your schedule accordingly.

Then use any audience data you might have to schedule posts for optimal times. This might be posting a video on Saturday morning, in the hope it goes viral over the weekend.

Use your calendar tool to schedule your posts before stepping back to look at everything in one place. Does the content flow mirror your overall strategy? If not, you can make changes before the posts go live.

Tailoring content and team collaboration

A social media calendar is useless unless everyone who needs to see it can access it. Businesses with larger marketing teams can struggle to achieve brand cohesion if you don't know what's scheduled to go out on social media.

Creating effective social media content requires tailoring your approach to different platforms and fostering collaboration within your team. Let's explore how to optimize your efforts across channels and work together efficiently.

Tailoring content for different social media platforms

Each social media platform has its own unique features and audience preferences.

On Instagram, it's important to focus on eye-catching visuals and short, engaging captions. For X, you'll need to craft concise messages that spark conversation. LinkedIn, meanwhile, calls for professional, industry-focused content.

Your team will need to figure out how to create tailored content across your social media channels, who posts it, and who analyzes reactions.

It might be that social media managers split duties across their team, so everyone is in charge of a single platform, or a single piece of replicable content.

Efficient collaboration among your team

Good teamwork is vital for successful social media management – and this is where a good tool becomes invaluable.

Using your software, set up a shared content calendar where team members can see upcoming posts and deadlines. This helps avoid duplication and ensures a consistent posting schedule.

Use project management tools to assign tasks and track progress. Tools like Trello or Asana can help your team stay organized and on top of their responsibilities.

You also need to think about teamwork and colleague happiness. A tool can help you delegate tasks to employees but you need to set aside time for brainstorming ideas and discussing strategy.

Make sure you conduct performance reviews, share insights, and plan future content as a team. This way you get better buy-in from your coworkers. Encourage open communication within your team. Create a space where team members can easily share ideas, ask questions, and offer feedback.

This collaborative environment will lead to more creative and effective social media content.

Analyzing and improving your strategy

Using a social media content calendar isn't just about looking forward. It also helps you look back at your published content and see how you can improve next time.

Tools like Brandwatch combine their social media calendar with deep analytics abilities, meaning you get full insight into the success of each post.

Any good social media strategy goes through three stages: write, review, refine. By examining your efforts and adjusting your approach, you can boost your online presence and engagement next time.

To do this, you first need to track the engagement of your social media posts and collect relevant data. Then you can run an audit based on the results from your editorial calendar template and what's already been posted. From there, you can start creating content armed with your fresh insights.

Here's how it's done:

1. Tracking and measuring engagement

If you're ever going to improve your social media content then you need to know what's working and what's not.

To do this, you can use the built-in analytics tools available on each social platform to see what posts are successful. Or you can use the data harvesting capabilities of a paid tool like Brandwatch to obtain a deeper understanding of your social media activity.

Don't just focus on numbers – look at the quality of engagement too. Look at what people are saying about your brand across various social media platforms and understand user sentiment better.

Are people leaving meaningful comments? Are they sharing your content with their networks? Are they talking about you with others but not directly linking to your social media accounts? Gather all this data and then begin your audit.

2. Conducting a social media audit

A social media audit helps you assess your current performance – but it also provides the backbone to your future strategies.

Start by listing all your active platforms and their key metrics. Assess the data you've obtained and match that up with your social media KPIs. Are you hitting your goals?

Next, compare your profiles to those of your competitors. Are there platforms where you're falling behind? Identify gaps in your content or areas where you can improve.

Then review your posting schedule and content mix. Are you sharing a good balance of different post types?

Finally, a big part of the audit requires you to check if your branding is consistent across all channels. Are you hitting the brand objectives set in your strategy?

3. Refining your content strategy based on analytics

Now you've done your audit and have the data in front of you, it's time to think forward toward a new social media strategy. You might need to totally rewrite your strategy, or you might only need to tweak small aspects.

Either way, using a social media content calendar tool means you'll be able to implement the fresh strategy as soon as you refine it.

If videos get more engagement than images, create more video content. If your audience is most active in the evenings, adjust your posting times.

You could choose to experiment with various headlines, images, or calls-to-action. Keep what works and ditch what doesn't.

Remember, if you decide to experiment then you'll effectively be testing content in the public realm. This could affect your brand consistency if you start throwing out different types of content ideas.

So, be sure to do it with confidence and don't rush into anything. Audiences notice if you're trying too hard and throwing too much content onto your social media platforms at once.

Content creation tips and tricks

Creating great social media content takes skill and strategy. Your social media calendar is where you'll place all your content once it's ready – but actually making the content is the hard part. Below are three tips that will help you come up with ideas, design eye-catching posts, and streamline your workflow.

Remember, an all-in-one social media tool like Brandwatch gives you the freedom to create content and map it out in a social media calendar.

1. How to generate content ideas

Coming up with great, innovative content ideas starts with knowing your audience. What do they care about? Use social listening tools to spot trending topics and understand how your audience relates to your brand.

You can then list out what your audience likes and doesn't like. Do they prefer Instagram Reels to Stories? Are they willing to read long posts? Or do they want to be able to buy products on their preferred social media platform?

You can gather a lot of info from social listening, which will give you a good idea of what content to generate yourself.

But that's not all. Look at your competitors' content too. What's working for them? Put your own spin on similar ideas and get to work.

If you're working as part of a team then it's important to share your findings before you start brainstorming ideas. Otherwise your colleagues won't have a full understanding of the target audience and your desired content creation process.

2. How to design engaging social media posts

Once everyone is happy with your content ideas, it's time to get creative. You can use free tools like Canva to create eye-catching graphics. Just remember to stick to your brand colors and fonts for consistency.

You might need to hire a videographer or video editor if you're doing video content, or perhaps a graphic designer and photographer if you require top-quality social posts.

Next, think about your written content. Write clear captions and use an active voice. You could choose to ask questions to boost engagement and include a call-to-action in most posts.

Remember, you have a lot of different social media types to choose from. Photos, videos, infographics, and carousel posts all have their own value. Perhaps you don't need any of this, but simply a well-worded statement for LinkedIn.

3. Scheduling and automating your posts

Once you've designed your content, it's time to map it all out across a social media content calendar. Use a social media management tool to plan your calendar and see everything in one place. You'll be able to share the calendar with others and spread the workload.

When scheduling posts, it's good to do it in batches on your chosen tool. This way you can get through a lot of tasks quickly and effectively create a neat little package of content.

You might choose to pre-plan a week or month ahead. Or, if you have a large social media campaign then you may plan six months in advance.

It's important when scheduling to set up a content approval workflow if you have a team. This helps catch errors before posts go live.

Key metrics for measuring success and ROI

Creating your social media calendar is one thing, but you need to be able to measure your content if you are to achieve true ROI.

Tracking the right metrics and using data to refine your social media strategy is the next step in your plan. We've already spoken about this earlier in this article, but there's no harm in going over some key metrics that you'll need to be aware of.

Key metrics to watch

Below are the key social media metrics to look out for when assessing your content. A tool like Brandwatch will help take care of this analysis for you. However, if you're just starting out and aren't sure what to track, then take a look below:

Social interaction metrics

Here are the metrics you can track to gauge social interaction with your content.

Reach – Reach is the number of individuals who have seen your content. It's a very basic metric that has lots of detail hidden within.

Impressions – Impressions are the potential number of times your content was seen. It's different from the actual number of times it was seen. That's because it includes the same person seeing it twice if it reappears in their timeline/feed multiple times.

Sentiment – Social intelligence tools use natural language processing to segment negative and positive statements. That means you can track online conversations – even when people don't mention your brand directly – and understand user sentiment towards your brand or industry.

Share of voice – It's possible to understand your brand's share of voice on social media, compared to your competitors. It's the same principle as market share. The more people who talk about you and mention your brand, the bigger your share of voice.

Engagement metrics

Below are the metrics to follow in order to understand direct engagement with your posts:

Shares/reposts – Track how many times your content is shared by others. This increases your reach and means others are doing the hard work of sharing your content for you.

Mentions – How many times is your brand mentioned in other posts? This is a basic metric but is a good start to understanding your presence across social media.

Comments – Are people responding to your posts, and does this matter? A brand, for example, might launch a social media ad on X and get 1 million views, but no comments. You can gauge whether that's a good or bad thing, based on the goals within your social media strategy.

Likes – Weirdly, likes are one of the least valuable metrics. That's because people can often hit like without reading the full story or engaging with your content. Likes look good but shares and comments are generally more useful and better for algorithms.

These social media metrics form a wider data bank that brands can access with Brandwatch. This data bank encompasses everything from website visibility and click-through rates, to conversions and email interaction.

Social media calendar: Next steps

Social media planning is a hard nut to crack, but our guide maps out how it can be done.

There are plenty of steps that go into developing and implementing a social media content calendar. It's not just about throwing pictures or videos into a calendar and crossing your fingers.

Get it right and your social media calendar template can be used again and again to reach your target audience and achieve your wider goals.

Use data obtained from a social media tool like Brandwatch to fine-tune your posts and create a better content calendar.

And remember, the beauty of a calendar is you can plan each social post and edit anything before it goes live. You have more control over all your networks and can grow your social media presence in a structured, predictable, and positive way.