How to Set Up a Social Media Content Schedule: A Guide

If you’re a business that’s trying to grow your brand and build up your online presence, a social media content schedule is a must-have tool for your arsenal.

Creating a content schedule helps you to stay organized and on top of everything you’re posting. Not only that, it can also make it easier for you to see the bigger picture and create a digital marketing strategy for your business.

In short, if your business is online, it’s something you should definitely have. So, how can you create one?

This guide will tell you everything you need to know. Read on to learn how you can build your very own social media schedule.

What Is a Social Content Schedule?

Before we talk about how you can create your social media content calendar, let’s get into what this is exactly. As the name suggests, a social content schedule is a written out plan of all of the content you’re going to post within a given period. Many companies make these for several months in the future.

Your social calendar is really what you make of it. You can have separate calendars for each platform you’re on, or have one master calendar that includes absolutely everything. Your content schedule should include the days and times you’re going to post, as well as what you’ll be posting.

How to Create Your Content Schedule

The first thing you’ll need to decide is how you’re going to lay out your content calendar. Will you be using a Google Doc, a spreadsheet, or a ready-made template? Choose whatever you’re most comfortable with.

When you’re creating your calendar, it can be a good idea to make use of social media scheduling tools. These will help you to navigate the ins and outs of what makes a good content calendar and help you to stay organized.

Start by going through each of your platforms and deciding what you’d like to post in the coming weeks. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you can start small, by planning only one or two weeks ahead. When you get the hang of things you can build it out further.

When you’re creating your posting schedule, consider what works best for each platform. For example, on Instagram, two posts a week and two Stories per day is the best practice. Meanwhile, on Tiktok you should be posting at least once a day.

The great thing about creating content schedules is that it allows you to tie content to specific days. For example, you can plan to make a punny vegetable post on World Vegan Day or a Star Wars reference on the 4th of May.

Of course, it’s also necessary to be able to react to the internet in real-time. So while your content calendar is a great help, you’ll need to constantly be monitoring online trends as well.

Start Your Social Media Content Schedule Today

Creating a social media content schedule can be as easy or hard as you like. Keep it simple, or create something more elaborate—the choice is yours. Now that you’ve got the fundamentals down, you can customize your content calendar to suit your brand as well as your business goals.

A new business startup can use all the help it can get! If you’d like more digital marketing tips, check out the rest of our content now.