Planning a social media content calendar — and sticking to it — is one of the best ways to see continuous growth!
Why? With a content calendar, you can stay organized, track performance, and make sure you’re meeting your marketing goals.
So, Later’s social team is breaking down how to build a successful content calendar, including our number one tool for scheduling. Keep reading.
Table of Contents
Why You Need A Social Media Content Calendar In 2024
A social media content calendar is essential for anyone working in social media or building a brand.
Here are seven reasons why you need one:
#1: Work Smarter, Not Harder
When you have a calendar, you can add content to it en masse with the upcoming week’s (or month’s) content.
By blocking out time to plan in advance, you’ll save tons of content creating (and caption writing) hours in the long-run.
#3: More Efficient Scheduling
Scheduling social posts can be a tedious task. However, a calendar makes it easy to see what’s coming up that day (or week or month).
This means you can not only feel more relaxed about your next post, but you can automate posting with pre-scheduled posts.
#4: Share More Consistently
Consistency is the name of the game in 2024, and having a content calendar will help keep you on track.
That said, you don’t have to post on social media every single day.
Define a posting cadence that’s achievable based on your bandwidth and resources, and take it from there.
#5: Repurpose Your Content Across Multiple Channels
Social media content calendars help you see what you’ve already published and spot opportunities to repurpose content across channels.
For example, if a video performed well on Instagram Reels, it’s probably worth repurposing on TikTok, Pinterest, and Youtube Shorts.
Remember: It's all about working smarter, not harder.
For more tips on repurposing content, bookmark this post: How We Plan Our Social Media Content Strategy at Later
#6: Diversify Your Content
With a content calendar, you can quite literally see the big picture.
This makes it easier to ensure you’re sharing a wide variety of content types to keep your audience engaged, across multiple platforms.
#7: Better Team Collaboration
If you’re working with a team, a social media content calendar serves as a destination everyone can access and contribute to.
Plus, with Later you get cool features like Draft Posts, Access Groups, and Calendar Notes — which lets you and your team leave comments, ideas, placeholders, and draft posts directly on your calendar.
#6: Increase Quality Control
Planning your content ahead of time gives you time and space to double-check your work and produce higher-quality content all around.
And while some content might need to be moved around to accommodate last-minute requests or pop-culture trends, having content on deck and ready-to-go can help ease the stress of the “always on” nature of social media.
FYI: Later is your one-stop shop for social media management — from scheduling tools to in-depth analytics. Sign up today — for free:
How To Create a Social Media Content Calendar in 2024
Before you jump into creating your content calendar, you’ll want to decide what the calendar should include.
Here are a few basics to help you start:
Every platform you plan to post to
Go-live dates and times (don’t forget about time zones!)
Post captions
Visual format
Links to assets
Tracking links (if used)
Next, ask yourself what your desired workflow will be — do you prefer to plan a week in advance? A month? A quarter?
For a longer lead-time you might want to use a project management tool like Asana so you can prep quarter by quarter.
But for your “always on” type of planning (think weekly or bi-weekly), you’ll want to go the spreadsheet or social management tool route.
How Do You Optimize Your Social Calendar?
Optimizing your content calendar means having the right tool for the job. You’ll want a choose a platform that not only helps you streamline content creation but also makes it easier to schedule and view analytics.
If You’re Just Starting Out
Excel or Google Sheets is a quick way to start. You can manage your content plans digitally, easily color-code, and share your calendar with your team to collaborate.
Your spreadsheet-based content calendar could look something like this:
If You’re Ready To Grow
While a spreadsheet is a great way to organize your content, when it comes to planning, scheduling, and analyzing your content, a purpose-built platform like Later will help you become way more efficient.
With Later you can:
Plan and create all your social posts from one central content calendar
Manage all of your photo and video content with the Media Library
Schedule your posts to go live, across multiple platforms
Switch between weekly and monthly views in the Calendar to see what’s coming up
Use the Visual Planner feature to make sure your feed is cohesive and on-brand
Plus, tons more!
Streamline your workflow with Later’s content calendar and social media management tools. Create an account today — for free:
How to Manage Visuals for Your Social Media Content Calendar
To streamline your content planning process, you’ll want to manage the visual assets that accompany your posts.
In the same way that you map out what platforms you’ll be posting to, you can also map out the type of content you’ll be posting.
Whether it’s videos, memes, or carousel posts, it helps to have a bank of “content types” that you can plug into your social media content calendar.
Pro tip: If you use Later, you’ll get access to our media library feature, which makes it easy to store, tag, and find all of your social media assets.
Plus, if you’re tracking the performance of your content, you’ll be able to see what visuals resonate with your audience.
For example, at Later, our audience likes to engage and share text-based carousel posts full of social media tips or news:
Knowing this, we created a social media post template for this type of content that we can customize and plug into the calendar every week.
Rinse and repeat. 🌟
Whether you’re a solopreneur or working with a large team, a social media content calendar is key to staying consistent and meeting your goals.
Plus, it gives you the flexibility to map out your social content for days, weeks, or even months in advance — hello, time-saver!
Ready to supercharge your social media marketing strategy? Download our content calendar template today — for free.
