19+ FREE Social Media Content Calendar Templates & Examples

Social media marketing is one of the most common types of marketing nowadays. With the increased use of social media and the availability of different types of social media platforms, content creators and businesses of all types prefer to have their social presence. This way, they tend to grow their business and maximize their brand reach.

To keep their presence consistent while growing their business, companies, marketing agencies, or content creators use social media content calendars. These calendars help content creators to manage and organize their content in accordance with the nature of their business. In this article, we have some free social media content calendar templates and examples available here for you. These free social media calendar templates will help you create a handy content schedule sheet for your business or brand with minimal effort.

What is a Social Media Content Calendar?

A social media content calendar is a schedule or a planner used by companies or marketing agencies to plan out their social media content in advance. Most commonly, a social media calendar is prepared for a month however, many businesses or digital marketing agencies even use yearly social media content calendars. Such a calendar always proves to be of great help in planning and scheduling the social media content of your brand or business on multiple social media planners.

A social media content calendar can be designed manually on paper, in the form of a spreadsheet, or on any tool or app. Planning and organizing your social media content is quite important. With a proper plan, you can get maximum reach for your brand on social media platforms. A pre-formatted social media content calendar template comes in handy as it enables you to schedule your social media content for all the platforms. This way, you will be easily able to organize your content by deciding what to post and when.

Check Out the Social Media Content Calendar Templates in EXCEL

Social Media Content Calendar Example

Social Media Content Schedule Template

Weekly Social Media Content Calendar Template

Brand Social Media Content Calendar Template EXCEL

Special Social Media Calendar Dashboard Template

Annual Social Media Content Calendar Excel Template

Simple Social Media Content Calendar Template

Sample Social Media Yearly Calendar Overview

Social Media Editorial Calendar Template in XLSX Format

Importance of a Social Media Content Calendar

In modern times, people are selling their products and services online using different social media platforms. From small-scale local businesses to large-scale multinational companies, every business has its social media presence and following. This type of following helps a business in getting more customers, thus resulting in more revenue and profit. Moreover, these social media pages and accounts are also used to inform the target audience of any latest updates or offers.

Everyone has an equal opportunity to take benefit from these social media platforms. However, only a few businesses or content creators are seen growing and becoming more and more successful day by day. One of the biggest reasons for the success of some businesses or content creators is that they properly plan and organize their social media content. Again, effective planning and organization of content can be made with the help of social media content calendars.

Some other benefits of using a social media content calendar are listed below that will further help you understand its importance and significance:

• Whether you are creating social media content for your business or you are a social media marketing agency, a social media content calendar keeps you and your team organized and on schedule.
• It helps you maintain consistency in posting content for your brand or business on different social media platforms.
• Some calendars also record the response rate, engagement rate, and many other matrices on your social media posts. On the basis of these insights, you can easily understand what’s working for your business or brand and what’s not.
• By analyzing the response to your content for a week, a month, or so, you will be easily able to plan the social media content for the future. This plan is usually on the basis of what had already worked best for your business.
• Such a tool also enables you to brainstorm and research content ideas and trending topics relevant to your niche or industry rather than blindly posting on social media without any clear goal or objective.
• The presence of a social media content calendar makes the workflow efficient and easily manageable.
• A social media calendar also helps you create more content for the future without any deadline or pressure.
• With a social media content calendar in hand, you can easily make necessary alterations and changes to the scheduled content.

Check Out the Social Media Content Calendar Templates in WORD

Quarterly Social Media Content Planning Calendar

Small Business Social Media Calendar Template

Monthly Social Media Content Planning Calendar Sample

Weekly Social Media Content Calendar Sheet

Basic Social Media Editorial Calendar Template WORD

Yearly Social Media Content Calendar Sample DOC

Social Media Content Tracking Calendar Example

Simple Social Media Content Calendar Template in MS WORD

Blank Social Media Content Calendar Word Template

Social Media Editorial Calendar Example WORD

Sample Social Media Content Calendar Template

How to Create a Social Media Content Calendar?

Now that you know what is a social media content calendar and why it is important, you must also know how to create one. If you want to create a social media calendar quickly, you can do so by using the social media content calendar templates and examples given here on this page. All these templates are available in an editable format so that one can easily download, customize, and use the template of their choice.

However, in order to create a social media content calendar from scratch, you must keep in mind the following simple steps:

1- Goals and Objectives:

Just like making any other plan, it is also important to set your goals and objectives before creating the social media content calendar. It is always better to set more short-term and easily achievable goals in order to reach the long-term goals with ease. Usually, the goals and objectives include the type of content you want to post, identification of your target audience or potential target audience, how often you post, your content creation process, and the social media platforms that you will use.

2- Content Ideas:

If you are stuck on what type of content you should create, the following are some easiest and simplest ways to generate great content ideas:

• You can simply visit the social media pages of your competitors to get an idea of what type of content actually works. However, make sure not to steal or copy the same thing to your social media pages. Instead, just take an idea and create your own piece of content similar to that.
• Make use of Google Trends and Google Autocomplete Search feature to note the most relevant keywords in your industry that your potential target audience search.
• Analyze the insights of your most popular posts to get an idea of what your audience actually likes.
• You can also ask the opinions of your audience (followers or subscribers) through questions or polls on different social media platforms.

3- Post Types and Formats:

Decide what type and format of posts you will be using for the social media content. Whether it be images, videos, short videos (reels or YouTube shorts), etc. Most brands actually plan and use a mixture of all the post types and formats which works pretty well. Again, this depends upon the type and nature of your industry. You can also decide this by test posting and analyzing what works for you.

4- Audit of Social Media Accounts and Pages:

Properly audit your social media accounts and pages and optimize them before planning your posts or content. Make sure to deeply analyze your:

• Relevant social media profiles
• Top performing posts
• Activity of your target audience
• Poorly performing content
• Performances of the relevant social media ad campaigns
• Different metrics for reach, engagement, and conversions

5- Posting Frequency:

This is the schedule of posting your social media content i.e., the frequency or prevalence of posting on your social media accounts or pages. Regarding how often you should post on your social media accounts, here is a list that will help you easily understand the posting criteria:

• Facebook Posts: 3 to 5 posts a week
• Facebook Reels: 5 to 7 reels a week
• Pinterest Posts: 3 to 5 posts a day
• LinkedIn Posts: 3 to 5 posts a week
• Instagram Posts: 3 to 5 posts a week
• Instagram Reels: 5 to 7 reels a week
• TikTok: 5 to 7 TikTok videos a week

Tip: In the case of Instagram reels, Facebook reels, and TikTok videos, since they are created in the same vertical format, you can simply create a single video and post it across all these three platforms.

6- Scheduling the Content:

In your social media content calendar, schedule your content by deciding the dates on which you plan to post on a particular platform. You can select different colors for different social media platforms and highlight a specific date with the color of the relevant social media platform on which you plan to post content. This way you can organize your content smartly and efficiently. It is always recommended to experiment with your posting schedule and make necessary changes to your social media calendar.

7- Sharing the Calendar with Team:

Once you are done with your social media calendar, share it with your marketing and content management team. Make sure to be collaborative, receive feedback, and make necessary changes to your schedule and content depending upon the situation.

8- Analyze your Content:

After you start posting regularly on all the social media platforms, make sure to analyze the insights of your content on a regular basis. With regular scheduling and posting the content for a month or so, you will be able to easily track the performance of your content. With the help of these insights and analysis, you will easily be able to make necessary changes to your content strategies.