Whether you’re creating content for your own personal Instagram or you’re a full-fledged social media manager for a company brand, you need a plan. Creating content can take a lot of time and energy and having a plan helps you stay the course when things go wild. 

As a social media manager, managing my marketing calendar using my Passion Planner has made me better at my job. I don’t have to worry about other people coming in and changing content dates, I can integrate my own working schedule into my social content calendar, and I can easily customize it without having to learn an entire new tech tool. 

How to make a social media calendar

The best plans have deadlines and dates built in to hold you accountable and keep your content flowing. Social media planning calendars can take many shapes and are completely customizable for whatever you want your content to be about.

Here’s a simple social media calendar example: Start by looking about a week to a month from now. Make note of any non-negotiable dates–these could be major holidays or milestones. From there, add in any content deadlines when you want to expect content to go live. Once these dates are added, it’s easier to reverse engineer the process from there to set your working deadlines. 

Creating a social media calendar doesn’t have to be complex.

There are plenty of digital tools to help you manage, work on, and schedule content. But honestly, sometimes when you spend your entire day online creating, having an offline physical social media planner can be the real productivity hack you need. Passion Planner offers a great amount of flexibility and structure to help you organize more than just your everyday schedule and tasks.

Here are 4 tips on how to organize your content in your Passion Planner. 

1. Plan out your content calendar in your monthly spread

Above: Passion Planner Digital

A traditional content calendar makes it easy for you to plan out which content you’re going to publish each month. You’ll map out your pieces of content with specific dates to post them on various channels. You can make this content calendar as simple or as detailed as you’d like!

Before each month starts, I usually curate content ideas in a spreadsheet. Once I have my ideas collected into this spreadsheet backlog, I turn them into real pieces of content and schedule them in my Passion Planner. 

I personally post content on my blog, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, so, each one gets scheduled into my monthly Passion Planner calendar with a note of where I’m going to post it. 

Different colored Passion Markers or pens can help define where you’re going to put each piece of content. The opportunities are endless, but the point is to make sure you know when you’re going to post each piece of content on the respective channel.

2. Schedule content work sessions in your weekly spread

Above: Passion Planner Digital

In order to have content to post, you have to take time to create the content. Once you have your content ideas and goal publish dates, reverse engineering the process can help you identify when you need to work on different parts of the content creation and set microdeadlines.

For example, let’s say I want to publish my new blog post on Wednesday. Before I publish my post, I need to write a first draft, send the draft to my editors, update the piece after edits, create the social promotional content, and so on. Each of those steps requires dates which can be determined by working backwards from the publish date.

There’s a lot to keep track of, but scheduling these microdeadlines and content working sessions in my Passion Planner keeps it all in check. It’s helpful to know if the same day that you’re publishing a big blog post, you also have to post twice on Twitter and film an Instagram Reel.

When you schedule all your content actions together in your Passion Planner, you’re able to monitor it all in one place, be realistic about your deadlines, and stress less about missing something important.

3. Make note of hashtag holidays and other relevant dates

Above: Passion Planner Digital, Yearly Overview (Free PDF Download)

Hashtag holidays provide endless content! These are holidays like International Pet Day or National Coffee Day where everyone joins in the fun conversation by posting related content. These days are always scattered around the year, but it’s easy to keep track of them by noting them in your Passion Planner.

Passion Planner also comes with some US/religious holidays built into the calendar. If you’re in another country or working on a global project, it might be useful to make note of other relevant holidays in your planner.

Pro Tip: While it’s fun to fill your calendar with holidays to celebrate with brand posts, try to stick with holidays that make the most sense for your brand to celebrate. 

If you’re a restaurant, it might be a little confusing to your followers to see a post about National Bubble Bath Day.

4. Monitor analytics and sentiment in your dotted pages

Above: Passion Planner Digital

Whether you’re using the Weekly or Daily Passion Planner, take advantage of the dotted pages and map out an analysis of your content after it’s been posted!

Keeping track of how your content has performed and what’s resonating with your audience is the easiest way to make sure you’re using your time wisely. There’s nothing worse than spending tons of time creating a piece of content only for it to flop. Take note of things like reactions, comments, and shares to figure out what’s doing well and how to keep that success going.

Content creation doesn’t have to be stressful, messy, or confusing. By thoughtfully planning out your content workflow in your Passion Planner, your process will become simplified and strategic, allowing you more time to connect with your audience, grow your business, and enjoy the process along the way.

How does your Passion Planner help with your social media content planning? Let us know in the comments!

Author Bio

Nicole Tabak is a full-time social media strategist and part-time writer. She talks about self-care for content creators and marketers on Twitter, Instagram, and in her weekly newsletter, Your Social Media Detox. She also blogs about life, marketing, and her rescue pup at nicoletabak.com.