How To Create a Content Calendar

Key takeaways:

A social media content calendar helps you stay organized and consistent.
Planning your content reduces stress and prevents missed opportunities.
Mixing new and evergreen content keeps your feed fresh and consistent without constantly starting from scratch.

Confused of what to post next on your social media platforms? You’re not alone. Publishing content can be overwhelming. Consider also the decision-making process of which social media platform to post and when to post it. Fortunately, content calendars exist.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the basics why you need a content calendar and how to create one for your small business.

What is a content calendar?

A content calendar or social media calendar is a tool for organizing and scheduling content. It shows what you’ll post, when you’ll post, and which social media platform you’ll post it on.

Social media calendars often include details such as:

Post titles
Content types
Social media platforms
Notes or links

Some people use paper planners or spreadsheets like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, while others use tools like Google Calendar, Trello, or Notion. Many website builders now also include built-in features that let you schedule blog posts, emails, and social media content, so you can manage everything in one place.

The main goal is to keep all your content plans in one place, so you always know what’s coming up.

What are the benefits of using a content calendar?

Using a content calendar is beneficial, especially for social media managers who want to ensure consistency with their social media posting cadence across different social media platforms.

Here are the main advantages:

Consistency. It helps you post and engage with your audience regularly.
Collaboration. It keeps you and the marketing team on the same page.
Efficiency. It saves time by planning content.
Quality control. It allows you to review and improve content before publishing.
Strategic alignment. It keeps you aligned with your marketing goals.
Optimized for performance. It makes tracking what needs improvement easier.

The point is that a content calendar gives you control by organizing posts by status, target audience, and content type. This approach helps you reduce the possibility of missing opportunities and improves your overall content marketing strategy.

To create a social media content calendar, consider the following steps:

Define your goals.
Choose your channels.
Decide publishing frequency.
Create a social media calendar template.
Map out major events of the year.
Add other engaging content.
Schedule creation process.

These steps will help you turn scattered ideas into a focused plan. A well-built social media calendar makes it easier to ensure a consistent posting schedule and support your overall marketing efforts.

Let’s go through each step to help you build your social media calendar from scratch.

Step 1: Define your goals

Before creating any content, be clear about what you want to achieve. This will guide you with content planning, from the type of content you’ll create to where you need to post it.

Consider asking yourself with questions like:

Are you trying to increase brand awareness?
Do you want to drive more traffic to your website?
Do you want to promote specific products?

Whether you’re aiming for long-term brand building or short-term conversions, defining your goals ensures an effective social media calendar.

Step 2: Choose your channels

Identify the social media platforms you’ll use for your overall content marketing strategy. This will help you plan the right type of content for each platform.

Each channel has its own strengths and audience behavior. For example, short-form video content may work well on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Written content, on the other hand, may perform better on Facebook and Reddit.

Step 3: Decide publishing frequency

Choose a publishing schedule that works for your team and aligns with your goals. There’s no one-size-fits-all rule here, but consistency is key.

Start with a manageable frequency and adjust as needed. Ensure it’s intentional and consider your team’s capacity. Too frequent may lead to burnout, and too seldom may result in lost opportunity.

The ideal posting frequency depends on:

The social media channels you’re using
The type of content you plan to share
Your overall content strategy
The size and workflow of your social media team

Now that you know your goals and channels, it’s time to set up a template to organize everything.

You can build a custom layout using tools like Google Sheets, Notion, or Trello. For beginners, try using a free content calendar template to save time and get ideas for what to include.

Your social media content calendar template should include details like:

Publish date
Social media channel
Product or pages to promote
Content format
The media file
Status (draft, scheduled, published)

The goal is to create a system you can easily follow.

Step 5: Map out major events of the year

Start filling in your calendar by marking important dates that matter to your business and audience. These can include:

Holidays (including shopping holidays like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc.)
Product launches
Seasonal campaigns (e.g. winter sale)
Company milestones

Planning around key dates helps you align your content with what people are already talking about. This brings structure to your content strategy and ensures your social media marketing efforts support larger business goals throughout the year.

Step 6: Add other engaging content

Once you’ve mapped out major events, start filling in the gaps.

Think about content that sparks conversation or provides value between big campaigns. This can include:

Quick tips or how-tos
Behind-the-scenes content
Timely memes or relatable trends
Interactive stories or polls

Balance your calendar with a mix of new and reusable content. Post new content to keep your feed fresh and reuse evergreen posts like FAQs and brand stories to maintain consistency and save time by bypassing starting from scratch constantly.

Step 7: Schedule content creation process

Planning out the process of creating content is as important as scheduling social media content. Content creation takes time. From writing captions to designing visuals, each piece goes through several steps before it’s publish-ready.

Assign realistic deadlines to each task. This ensures the social media team has enough time to produce high-quality content.

Now that you’ve filled in your calendar and the content is ready, it’s time to bring your plan to life. Schedule your posts across your social media accounts so they consistently go out at the right time.

Scheduling your social media posts in advance helps you publish content without logging in every day. You can use (and pay for) standalone social media scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite to queue your posts.

If you’re on select Network Solutions AI-powered Website Builder packages, you already have social media (and even email!) scheduler tool built into for a more streamlined experience:

Network Solutions' Content Calendar: Social Booster

Our Social Booster is an intuitive tool to help you manage your content across your social media platform and website at once (without having to use a separate tool). Read our complete guide on how to schedule and post your content using Social Booster.

Building a content calendar doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With a clear process, you can achieve a structured plan that supports your overall social media strategy. Using a social media calendar lets you save time, stay consistent, and never miss a chance to promote your website content on social media.

Don’t have a website yet? Try our AI-powered Website Builder, which comes with ‘Social Booster’ scheduling tool on the Website + Marketing and ECOMMERCE plans. It’s perfect for managing content in one place.

How To Create a Content Calendar