FREE Social Media Calendar Template
Master social media calendar timelines with our intuitive social media calendar Gantt chart template.
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Why use our Social Media Calendar instead of Excel or Google Sheets?
Get started with our Social Media Calendar in seconds while skipping the hassle involved with Excel or Google Sheets.
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How to use Tom’s Planner’s social media calendar template to build and share your social media calendar.
Getting your project off the ground is as easy as 1-2-3.
Step #1
Click the 'start with template’ button to open the Social Media Calendar.
Step #2
Register for a free account and watch a short video on using Tom’s Planner. The account is free forever, with no strings attached.
Step #3
You’re all set to use the Gantt chart template. Need additional help? Our AI assistant can create a custom Gantt chart Social Media Calendar based on your project description.
What Is a Social Media Calendar?
A social media content calendar is more than just a schedule. It’s your strategy for creating and managing posts
across platforms. Learning how to create a social media content calendar keeps your efforts organized and helps you
visualize your strategy and deliver value.
What does a social media calendar look like? While every
business’s calendar will be different, yours connects your team, tracks deadlines, and gives you a clear view of
what’s happening across the channels you use.
Here’s what you need when creating a social media content
calendar:
- Post types
- Posting dates and times
- Post locations (platform/network) and cross-posting notes
- Campaigns each post is tied to
- Account name
- Text content
- Multimedia content
When done correctly, a calendar helps you keep everything moving forward.
What Role Does a Gantt Chart Play?
Wondering how to make a social media calendar? It’s all about ideas, understanding your audience, and organization.
A Gantt chart helps with all three of those. It’s also important to understand that Gantt charts offer benefits you
won’t find with other document types, like spreadsheets. So, if you’re wondering how to make a social media calendar
in Excel, or how to build a social media calendar in Google Sheets, hit pause.
Why use a Gantt chart
instead of a spreadsheet? It comes down to a few important reasons:
- Gantt charts let you build a visual chronology that you can customize to individual channels or entire campaigns.
- Gantt charts let you assign responsibilities, track resources, and keep everything moving forward.
- Gantt charts help you communicate important details to internal and external stakeholders, too.
As you can see, using something like Tom’s Planner’s offering is important for many reasons. When you learn how to make a social media content calendar, you realize t’s not just about knowing how to create a social media posting schedule. It’s about putting all the pieces together and being able to manage everything from a single location.
When to Use a Social Media Calendar
Creating a social media calendar isn’t just about staying organized. It’s about being able to adapt as things change. Without a plan, it’s easy to lose focus, post inconsistently, or miss opportunities to connect. Your social media calendar keeps your content intentional, relevant, and connected with your goals. Here’s a look at when you should use one:
Planning Social Media Content
One of the most important uses for a social media manager calendar is when you’re planning your content. Use it to create monthly social media calendar ideas across different platforms you use.
Collaborating with Team Members
You’ll also want to use a social media calendar Excel template when collaborating with team members. Or better yet, use a Gantt chart to make collaboration and content calendar planning easier.
Analyzing Performance
Finally, you’ll need to analyze how each post performed and bump that against other posts with similar types of content. Your monthly social media calendar template will help you do that.
These are just a few of the times you’ll want to use social media calendar templates. But who should use them?
Who Should Use a Social Media Calendar?
In addition to how to create a social media schedule and how to manage a social media content calendar, you’ll also need to learn who to involve. One of the primary benefits of a social media content calendar is being able to post consistently across different platforms. That’s important for:
Social Media Managers
Anyone managing social media efforts will need access to the calendar to manage their responsibilities.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders will need to use your social media calendar if posts affect them. For instance, the sales department will need to know when relevant posts will occur so they can handle an influx of emails, calls, or website visits.
Social Media Teams
Social media teams will need access to at least some parts of the social media calendar, although they may not need access to all functionalities.
Top Three Pitfalls to Avoid When Planning a Social Media Calendar?
A social media editorial calendar template is only as effective as your planning. If you want to maximize its value, avoid these three mistakes:
- Not Setting Clear Goals
Without goals, you have no way to determine if you’re making headway or not. A lack of clear goals can lead to total failure and create a disconnect with stakeholders.
Solution: Set clearly defined goals during your planning process and make sure they’re highlighted on your Gantt chart.
- Not Analyzing Data
As you post, you’ll gather data, like who’s responding, who you’re reaching, and more. Not analyzing that data can mean focusing on the wrong audience or even the wrong platform, wasting time and money.
Solution: Analyze data as you post and use it to inform future social media-related decisions.
- Not Engaging
If there’s one mistake that’s common across brands and industries, it’s not engaging with the audience. Social media is designed for you to be social and if your audience sees that you’re not, they’ll ignore you.
Solution: Be social. Engage with your followers and fans. Reply to comments and answer questions.
What Does a Social Media Calendar Include?
What should a content calendar include? Creating a social media calendar template is like designing an ecosystem. It needs the right elements for growth and development. If any one thing is lacking, the ecosystem collapses. Here are some important ones to include:
- What Will You Measure?
Wondering how to make a social media schedule? Start with clear intentions set during your initial planning process. Do you want to grow engagement, drive traffic, or generate leads? What is it that you want your audience to do? What do you want to see out of your efforts? Define these goals upfront and decide how you’ll monitor them.
- Use Your Business’s Data
Not sure how to make a social media schedule? Understanding your audience is more than a little important. This understanding should be at the core of everything you do. Include audience insights, how they prefer to communicate, and where they hang out online. Then create content that they actually want to engage with. This way, you’re not just posting. You’re connecting.
- Posting Frequency for Each Platform
Not all platforms are created equal and it’s important to know content calendar best practices for each. Your calendar should outline how often to post on each channel, whether it’s daily tweets or weekly LinkedIn updates. It’s about being consistent without burning out. Of course, you’ll also need to decide which platforms are right for you. Where does your audience spend the most time, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bluesky, Instagram?
- Content Themes and Types
Map out your content categories—educational posts, promotional campaigns, user-generated content, or behind-the-scenes stories. A good mix keeps your audience informed and coming back for more. Too much of any one thing will start to get stale and they’ll gravitate toward a competitor.
- Approval Workflows
If you’re working with a team, include a section for approvals. A clear workflow keeps everyone on the same page and makes sure your content meets brand standards before it goes live. It’s the difference between publishing content that engages and content that drives people away.
Four tips on how to make sure you reach your deadlines
Hitting your deadlines for social media marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Follow the steps below to create a calendar that works:
Define Your Audience
Before you start posting, get to know your audience. Who are they? What do they care about? Dive into your data and audience research to create personas and develop content based on their needs. This should inform your initial planning, as well as your ongoing strategy development. Remember that they’re the heroes in the story. Your brand is the guide or advisor.
Audit Your Social Channels
Take a close look at your current channels and content. What’s working? What’s not? This audit will highlight gaps and opportunities, helping you plan better. With the right planning and the right tools (hint: use a Gantt chart), you can double down on what really works and avoid anything that doesn’t.
Choose Your Goals and Objectives
Decide what you want to achieve—brand awareness, engagement, conversions? Use these goals to guide your strategy and structure your calendar. For instance, what does a social media calendar look like if you want to drive engagement? You’ll post content that piques interest, but also encourage your audience to chime in on their own.
Choose Your Content Mix
Decide on the types of content you’ll post. Again, this should be a central part of your planning. Will it be evergreen blog posts, industry news, or creative social media updates? Use different content types so there’s something for everyone.
Gantt charts in Tom's Planner vs in Excel
| Excel | Tom's Planner | |
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| Cost | License required | Free version available |
| Learning curve | Hours | Minutes |
| Create your first Gantt chart | Hours | Minutes |
| Making an update in your chart | Several minutes | Seconds (drag & drop) |
| Sharing charts with others | At some point you will save and email a file titled: version_4_def_usethisversion_reallyfinal.xlsx | Online, one source of truth, always up to date, with no confusion |
| Look & Feel | Messy | Clean, polished and professional |
| Dependencies | 
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| Filtering | 
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| Zoom in/out |
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| Automatic Legend |
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| AI-assist |
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Let our AI assist do the work for you |
| Export to image or pdf | Requires workarounds to export | One mouse click |
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