Hello! My identify is Trish Riswick, I’m a Crew Lead on our Social crew right here at Hootsuite, and I’m right here to inform you precisely how you can construct a social media calendar that may assist your objectives and maintain you organized.
Our social media calendar is the spine behind all of the content material advertising and marketing you see on Hootsuite’s channels. I hate to interrupt the spell of real-time spontaneity, however each put up is meticulously deliberate in our social media content material calendar earlier than it’s even created.
I’d be mendacity if I stated planning a content material calendar for our viewers of over 9 million (!!!) individuals throughout eight social media platforms is straightforward. However it’s necessary, and might even be enjoyable.
I’ll take you thru how we plan our content material calendar at Hootsuite and share some suggestions for fulfillment. Our course of isn’t the one technique to make a social calendar, however I hope seeing it conjures up you to create one which works for you.
PS: Should you’re simply right here for the free template, you’ll be able to seize it right here. No electronic mail required!
Key Takeaways
- A social media calendar is your roadmap for planning and organizing all upcoming content material, together with put up dates, occasions, hashtags, photographs, and hyperlinks. It might probably take any format that works on your advertising and marketing crew: a doc, an Excel spreadsheet, or dashboard in your mission administration software.
- A calendar brings construction to your content material technique, helps you keep aligned with bigger advertising and marketing objectives, and might draw your consideration to content material gaps. No extra last-minute scrambles for content material or speeding the design crew for graphics—you’re ready!
- When constructing a social media calendar, begin with a strong technique, then plan your posting schedule (we advocate a weekly planning cadence). Use social media scheduling instruments like Hootsuite, Wrike, and Miro for brainstorming, creating, and scheduling content material.
A social media calendar is a strategic plan of all upcoming content material, together with the date and time posts will exit and supporting data, comparable to hyperlinks, hashtags, photographs or movies, mentions, Reels audio, or different platform-specific options.
A social media calendar could be a doc, a spreadsheet (we’ve a free social media calendar template for you right here!), or a part of your mission administration app—no matter works on your crew.
Organizes your work
A social media calendar allows you to streamline the visible construction of your content material. At a look, you get a fowl’s eye view to make sure you’re sticking to a constant publishing schedule.
Aligns content material with strategic objectives
With out a social media calendar to check with, you danger creating content material final minute that will not align together with your model or your advertising and marketing technique objectives.
At Hootsuite, we’re not making content material for the sake of constructing content material. We’re making content material that aligns with our technique and is strong but additionally has fluidity with totally different codecs. We’re continuously leveling as much as what the corporate is needing from our social media channels.
Identifies gaps
Having all of your social media posts deliberate in a single house permits you to simply spot the place you’re both lacking a put up fully, or simply sure sorts of posts.
This additionally applies to every piece of content material. Do scheduled posts have all of the belongings they want? Are we lacking any graphics or captions for product launches? Having a social media calendar means you aren’t operating round on the final second begging the design crew for an pressing graphic (or bribing them with iced espresso…).
I’ll go into extra element on how we determine content material gaps within the steps beneath.
That is our social media calendar course of right here at Hootsuite. Be happy to repeat it or adapt components of it as wanted to swimsuit to your personal social media presence.
1. Begin with a social media technique
The most important lesson I’ve discovered as a crew lead at Hootsuite is understanding there’s a variety of technique that goes into constructing a very good content material calendar. Earlier than you can also make a calendar, you want a robust social media technique that withstands the adjustments of algorithms and traits.
Your social media technique is why you’re on social and your social media calendar is what and when you’re posting.
To create that technique, you need to do the much less thrilling issues first—pulling analytics utilizing social media analytics instruments, determining content material pillars, and analyzing put up efficiency—earlier than you are able to do the enjoyable issues: put up concepts, content material creation and testing.
Your social media technique ought to embrace:
The North Star for lots of social media managers is crossposting (sharing the identical content material throughout a number of platforms). Nevertheless, we’ve discovered over the previous couple of years it’s not a superb technique.
Every social community is so totally different in the best way it prioritizes content material and folks use these networks in a different way. We discovered quite a bit about this in our shopper traits report. How we present up on every community must be totally different to match the viewers’s expectations.
Take the time to create or assessment your social technique earlier than leaping into making a social content material calendar. Get began or revamp your present one with our free social media technique template.
You too can get a primer from our free e-book on social media advertising and marketing fundamentals — seize it beneath. No electronic mail required!
2. Plan your content material schedule
At Hootsuite, we do content material planning weekly. Chances are you’ll resolve month-to-month or biweekly works finest on your crew, however we like weekly as a result of we will plan out bigger social media campaigns whereas nonetheless having the ability to shortly leap on traits earlier than their reputation runs out.
We put up a number of occasions a day throughout a number of platforms, however you’ll have a kind of frequent posting schedule relying in your advertising and marketing objectives.
We plan every part in Wrike after which transfer into social media scheduling instruments like Hootsuite. This makes crew collaboration easy and retains everybody on the identical web page, from designers to copywriters.
We create every put up as a process, together with particulars such because the caption, visuals, hashtags, the sound to make use of for Reels or TikTok, the publish date, and every other data. Creating it in Wrike permits us to assign the duty to the related crew member at every stage of making the put up, from writing the caption to graphic design.
Some posts are scheduled months upfront in the event that they’re half of a giant marketing campaign, comparable to our annual Social Developments report releases or promotional webinar content material. However most of our common content material is deliberate week to week.
Planning weekly provides us flexibility to behave shortly. For instance, when Instagram launches a brand new function, we will create a carousel put up or video to teach our audience.
Supply: Hootsuite on Instagram
3. Analysis and brainstorm content material
As soon as we’ve discovered what number of posts we’d like for the week forward and what content material pillar they’ll tie into, we brainstorm concepts.
We use Miro to retailer all our social content material concepts and collaborate collectively remotely. Once more, use whichever software works finest on your crew. It may be so simple as a shared spreadsheet, doc, or a be aware in your telephone.
Right here’s a peek at our Miro board, the place we brainstorm and likewise maintain beneficial suggestions we collect from social listening:
Social listening is a large a part of our brainstorming course of. It’s so useful to see how individuals are speaking about us, how they use Hootsuite, or how Hootsuite has educated them in a roundabout way.
Social listening additionally conjures up matter concepts. For instance, our Reel concerning the “80/20 rule” in content material technique: 80% of your content material must be academic/entertaining and 20% self-promotional. It’s not a brand new idea however social listening informed us a few of our viewers wasn’t certain what it was. That confirmed us the chance to create extra academic content material round that.
Once we’re going to maneuver ahead with an thought, I’ll determine if we’d like our design crew to create belongings and if that’s the case, write the temporary. Then we’ll develop the thought and write the script or caption in a separate doc.
If we will make the put up ourselves, certainly one of our crew members will try this. For instance, Paige’s “day within the lifetime of a social media supervisor” Reel started as an thought in our Miro board after which she filmed the video.
Personally, I like brainstorming as a result of there’s no such factor as a foul thought. What to you might be a foolish thought can spitball into certainly one of your finest concepts with enter from others.
A part of brainstorming is considering how we will repurpose content material throughout totally different channels, which helps us maximize attain with out at all times reinventing the wheel.
4. Make the content material
Now the enjoyable half! Our crew primarily makes use of CapCut and Canva to create high-quality content material, however once more, use whichever instruments work on your crew and the sorts of content material you’re creating.
There was a delusion circulating that Instagram Reels created with “outdoors” instruments like CapCut get much less attain vs. in the event you create them in-app with Instagram’s native instruments. To not fear—we experimented and located Instagram doesn’t penalize Reels made with CapCut (or different apps).
Typically we create and put up content material inside the similar day to benefit from a social media pattern. Different occasions, we create months upfront for big campaigns or particular initiatives, like our free academic webinars.
Eileen Kwok, who handles our TikTok technique amongst different issues, says she prefers to batch her video filming to optimize time. She will movie ten movies inside a couple of hours, which represents two to a few weeks of content material.
When creating, it helps to recollect which pillar the piece of content material you’re making belongs to. This ensures that every part from the primary draft to the ultimate put up aligns with the objectives of that pillar.
For instance, right here’s what our content material pillars seemed like during the last yr:
5. Schedule content material
Each Friday, our social media crew meets to undergo the content material calendar for the week forward and schedule every part. We could reorganize beforehand deliberate content material if a brand new pattern pops off. Social adjustments quick so you need to be prepared to leap on alternatives.
One perk of doing this weekly? If a scorching pattern pops up, we will shift issues shortly and keep away from any delays in posting resulting from approval or misalignment with ongoing advertising and marketing campaigns.
A giant a part of scheduling content material is ensuring we not solely have sufficient posts for the week, however sufficient of the appropriate sorts of posts. In different phrases, sufficient of every of our pillars: consciousness, consideration, and retention/conversion.
Once we plan our social media content material calendar in Wrike, we coloration code the put up certainly one of three colours to align with these three pillars. That method, we will simply see at a look if we’ve a superb mixture of content material varieties for the upcoming week.
Moreover, taking a look at all our posts for the week forward can determine gaps or alternatives to diversify our content material. For instance, we’d discover we solely have a couple of movies deliberate and select to create extra, or add a PDF obtain or one thing academic if we’re missing within the consideration pillar.
As soon as we determine what we’d like, our crew both brainstorms collectively or works independently to complete up any final particulars earlier than we schedule every put up in (clearly) Hootsuite!
With Hootsuite, you’ll be able to schedule content material throughout all of your social platforms in a single place, and…
- Mechanically put up at one of the best occasions on your viewers to see your content material.
- Save time with AI put up creation and automations.
- Reply to messages and feedback in a single inbox for all social media profiles.
- Monitor your social media ROI with easy-to-understand insights.
- Know what your viewers needs with built-in social listening.
- Handle paid advert campaigns alongside natural content material.
- Plus worker advocacy applications, opinions, influencer administration, approval workflows, and extra.
Save over 130 hours per yr (and your sanity as a social media supervisor) with Hootsuite. Seize a free trial and check out it for your self.
Need to see every part Hootsuite can do tremendous fast? See it in motion in beneath 2 minutes:
6. Analyze efficiency
Monitoring your efficiency is greater than charting views, followers, or engagement charges for self-importance causes. Analytics inform you what sorts of content material your viewers needs so you are able to do extra of that, and fewer of what isn’t working. (And it permits you to replace your supervisor and different stakeholders on what is working.)
For instance, we not too long ago experimented with movies on LinkedIn—a rising pattern. We discovered our LinkedIn viewers loves academic movies, however most of our “TikTok-style” meme movies didn’t carry out effectively on LinkedIn.
The other was true on TikTok: humorous, relatable movies utilizing trending sounds have been the preferred, whereas our instructional or product movies have been the least widespread. Analytics additionally informed us each sorts of movies carried out effectively on Instagram.
With out analytics stories, we could have guessed this data, however we wouldn’t have identified for certain or been in a position to measure the distinction attempting new methods made.
My favourite function in Hootsuite Analytics is the power to tag every put up with a customized label. We tag our posts in accordance with which of our three pillars they belong to, then pull analytics stories for every of these tags. That permits us to trace efficiency by pillar and purpose, in addition to all the general, built-in stories in Hootsuite Analytics.
I maintain observe of our metrics in a spreadsheet so your entire crew can simply see how new methods are impacting outcomes.
Need this spreadsheet? Obtain our free social media audit template.
Should you’re not seeing measurable outcomes from social media planning but, don’t fear. As my colleague Eileen Kwok factors out:
Social media’s important objective is as an consciousness channel. Sure, we use it to herald conversions however our bigger purpose is at all times ensuring we’re spreading consciousness of the corporate. We try this by being a neighborhood for social media managers first, and presenting our software as an answer second.
Don’t be discouraged in case your social media isn’t bringing in leads straight away. That comes from probably years of nurturing your viewers.
7. Often replace your content material technique
Whereas this will likely sound like extra of the “boring” stuff I discussed earlier, setting a daily schedule for auditing your social media accounts is so essential.
With out these insights, you received’t know what to check subsequent, or what might be your subsequent “go viral” second.
Final yr, we accomplished an in depth, per-post assessment which was effectively definitely worth the time spent. We discovered what works and what doesn’t by sorting posts into low, mid, and excessive performing classes. From there we have been in a position to decide that for us animated infographics have been a prime performer, whereas animated product movies weren’t, amongst different insights.
This deep dive helped us check out what we have been doing final yr and tweak our technique for the yr forward.
To make this simpler, I like to recommend monitoring key posts weekly or month-to-month fairly than having to drag analytics for a whole yr’s price of content material directly.
The weather to assessment to replace your social media technique embrace:
- Analyzing low, mid, and prime performing content material for patterns and traits.
- Analytics stories per platform and total.
- Outcomes of content material checks.
- Social listening information, together with what individuals are saying about you, model sentiment over time, and what your rivals are doing.
- Feedback and direct suggestions on posts out of your viewers.
It’s all a cycle: put up content material, see the way it performs, take a look at new concepts, analyze some extra, tweak, and repeat.
Free social media content material calendar template
Get your social calendar began immediately with our free template.
Bonus: Right here’s how typically it is best to put up to every social community for finest outcomes:
- Instagram: Publish 2 occasions per week.
- Instagram Tales: Publish 2 occasions per day.
- Fb: Publish 2 occasions per week.
- X (Twitter): Publish 2 occasions per week
- LinkedIn: Publish 2 occasions per week.
- Threads: Publish between 2 to three occasions per day.
- TikTok: Publish 14 occasions per week.
- Pinterest: Publish a minimum of 1 time per week.
1. It’s best to put up a minimum of twice per week
You don’t must put up each day. Whereas engagement vs. frequency varies by business, organizations who put up twice weekly had the best total engagement price (2.08%) on Fb:
Our Instagram analysis had related findings, with an engagement spike at two posts per week.
LinkedIn and X additionally confirmed the best engagement with two posts per week. The outlier is TikTok the place for the best engagement price, it is best to put up 14 occasions per week.
2. The perfect time to put up on Fb is 9 am
Our analysis reveals that the optimum time to put up on Fb is 9 am Monday via Saturday.
3. The perfect time to put up on Instagram is 4 pm
For non-video posts, our analysis reveals one of the best time to put up on Instagram is 4 pm Tuesday via Saturday.
4. The perfect time to put up on LinkedIn is 4-6 am
Our analysis reveals one of the best time to put up on LinkedIn is between 4-6 am on Tuesdays and 5-6 am on Fridays.
5. The perfect time to put up on TikTok is 8 am
Our analysis has discovered one of the best time to put up on TikTok is 8 am on Thursdays. Saturdays between 9 am-12 pm is the subsequent best choice.
6. The perfect time to put up on X (Twitter) is 9 am
Our analysis discovered X posts get probably the most engagement throughout enterprise hours, with a peak between 9-11am on weekdays.
Social media calendar instruments for 2025
You don’t want as many social media administration instruments as you suppose. Copy our stack beneath, or take a look at different social media calendar instruments we advocate.
Hootsuite
Yep, after all the Hootsuite crew makes use of Hootsuite for social media administration. I lined how we use it and what it may possibly do for you above, however principally, you are able to do every part it’s worthwhile to do for social media advertising and marketing for all of your platforms, together with:
- Planning, creating, and scheduling social media content material, with a straightforward calendar view that features all of your channels.
- Answering DMs and feedback from one unified inbox for all of your profiles.
- Detailed analytics that present your precise social ROI, together with for paid and natural content material collectively.
- The world’s finest social listening instruments built-in to all plans.
- AI automations to avoid wasting time with put up drafting, inspiration, and extra.
- 100+ integrations with all of your different favourite instruments.
Google Sheets
We use Google Sheets to audit and observe our efficiency. Bonus: a lot of our free social media templates are arrange for you in Google Sheets!
Wrike
We plan our social media content material calendar in Wrike earlier than scheduling posts in Hootsuite. Utilizing a devoted mission administration software for that is useful in the event you already use one to handle different work in your group.
Miro
I like Miro’s open canvases for brainstorming and having the ability to join with my crew from anyplace.
CapCut
In my view, CapCut is among the finest video modifying apps. We use it for TikTok modifying and all our different social video content material.
When you’re able to implement your social calendar, use Hootsuite for social media scheduling, viewers engagement, best-in-class social listening, and significant analytics. Get your free trial immediately.
