Templates / Social media calendar
Social media calendar template
A weekly slot structure with named post types, plus a fully written example week so you can see what fills each slot.
Posting daily is not the hard part. Deciding what to post daily is the hard part, and that decision is what people are actually avoiding when they say they do not have time for social.
This template removes the decision. Each day of the week has a fixed slot with a fixed post type, so the question changes from what should I post to what goes in the Tuesday slot.
The example week below is written out in full for a made up project management app selling to small agencies. Real posts, with placeholders where your specifics go.
How to use it
- 01Choose five slots, not seven. Two empty days built in means a busy week does not break the whole schedule.
- 02Assign a post type to each slot and leave it there for at least a month. The point is that the slot decides the type, so you never start from nothing.
- 03Fill next week on one afternoon, in one sitting. Batching beats posting daily by inspiration, which reliably becomes posting weekly by guilt.
- 04Pull three of the five posts from content you already published. Anything written from scratch every day is the schedule that collapses first.
- 05Keep a running list of ten evergreen posts you can drop into any slot when a week goes sideways.
- 06Once a month, look at which slot consistently gets replies rather than likes, and give that post type a second slot.
The template
The weekly slot structure
Five posting days, two off. Same type in the same slot every week.
Monday: the teach post. One idea from this week blog post, made useful on its own.
Tuesday: the opinion post. Something you believe that a reasonable person could disagree with.
Wednesday: off. Or reply to comments from Monday and Tuesday, which is worth more than a third post.
Thursday: the proof post. A specific example, a before and after, a screenshot, a walkthrough.
Friday: the human post. Behind the scenes, a mistake you made, what the team is arguing about.
Saturday: off.
Sunday: the resource post. A template, a checklist, a link roundup. Something they save.
Post types, defined
Shared definitions stop the calendar filling up with five versions of the same post.
Teach: one specific how to, complete in the post. If they have to click to get the value, it is a link post, not a teach post.
Opinion: a position with a reason. Not a hot take, not a platitude. The test is whether someone competent could argue the other side.
Proof: something that happened, with specifics. A number you can source, a screenshot, a customer story with permission.
Human: the people behind the thing. A decision you got wrong, a process detail, an unglamorous photo.
Resource: something they can take away. Attach it or paste it, do not gate it behind a comment for it game unless you mean it.
Do not post: a quote graphic, a national day nobody in your audience celebrates, or a link with no context.
Calendar columns
Paste as your header row if you track this in a sheet.
Date | Day slot | Post type | Platform | Hook line | Full copy | Asset needed | Source content | Owner | Status
Example week, written out
For a made up project management app sold to small agencies. Copy the shape, swap the specifics.
MONDAY, teach post, LinkedIn
Most late projects are not late on the deadline. They are late on the third Tuesday and nobody says anything.
The fix is a five question status check that takes four minutes in writing, not a meeting:
1. What did you finish since the last check?
2. What are you working on now?
3. What is blocking you, if anything?
4. Is your finish date still the same? If not, what is it now?
5. What do you need from me in the next two days?
Question four is the one that matters. It gives people a place to change the date early, which is the only time changing it is cheap.
Run it Tuesday morning, in writing, same five questions. That is it.
TUESDAY, opinion post, LinkedIn
Utilization is a terrible target for a small team.
If everyone is booked at ninety five percent, one sick day breaks three projects. There is no slack for the thing that always happens, so every surprise turns into a missed date.
We aim for something closer to eighty and treat the gap as capacity for the unplanned work, not waste to be squeezed out.
The awkward part: that only works if you say it out loud to the client too, which is the conversation most teams avoid.
What do you actually target?
THURSDAY, proof post, LinkedIn
A walkthrough of the resourcing view we shipped last month. [SCREENSHOT]
It shows one row per person and one column per week. Green means committed under their hours, amber means at the line, gray means unallocated.
The thing we got wrong in the first version: we showed percentages. Nobody could act on eighty seven percent. Now it shows hours free, which is the number you use when you decide whether to say yes to a project.
Small change, and it moved the feature from ignored to the first thing opened on Monday morning.
FRIDAY, human post, Instagram or LinkedIn
We spent forty minutes this week arguing about whether a project should be able to have two owners. [PHOTO OF THE WHITEBOARD]
Argument for: real projects do have two people responsible, and pretending otherwise makes people put a fake name in the field.
Argument against: two owners means no owner, and we have watched exactly that happen.
We went with one owner and a named backup. Not because the second argument won, but because it is the version we can reverse cheaply if we are wrong.
SUNDAY, resource post, LinkedIn
The status check template from Monday, as a doc you can copy. [LINK]
It has the five questions, a Tuesday reminder you can paste into your chat tool, and a one page version for clients that strips out the internal question.
Free, no email needed. If you use it and something is missing, tell me and I will add it.
Repurposing rules
How three of the five posts get written without writing anything new.
The Monday teach post is one H2 from this week blog post, rewritten to stand alone.
The Sunday resource post is whatever the blog post offered as a download.
The Thursday proof post is a screenshot plus the story of what you changed. Product and support teams already know these stories, so ask them.
The Tuesday opinion post is the sentence you cut from the blog post for being too strong. That sentence is usually the best social post of the week.
Wait at least six weeks before reposting anything, and rewrite the hook line when you do.
Per platform trims
One idea, three shapes. Do not paste the same block everywhere.
LinkedIn: the full version above. First two lines carry it, since everything after that sits behind a click to see more. No link in the first line.
X or short form: the hook plus the single sharpest point. Cut the numbered list to three items or turn it into a thread.
Instagram: lead with the image. Move the hook into the first caption line. The five questions become five slides.
Facebook groups: drop the hook line, open with the context, and answer the question the group actually asked.
Newsletter: the Monday teach post becomes the one useful thing section. No rewriting required.
The emergency ten
Write these once, keep them in a doc, drop one in when a week falls apart.
The single question you ask on every kickoff call, and why.
A tool you use that is not yours and not sponsored.
The most common mistake you see in [YOUR CATEGORY], and the fix.
A thing you believed two years ago that turned out to be wrong.
The one page checklist you use internally, posted as is.
A customer question from this month, answered in public with names removed.
The part of your process that is boring and works.
What you would do differently if you were starting today with no budget.
A short walkthrough of one screen or one step, with a screenshot.
The thing everyone in your industry says that you think is nonsense, plus what you do instead.
Where this usually goes wrong
- Planning seven slots a week. The first busy week breaks it, and a broken calendar gets abandoned rather than trimmed. Start at five.
- Filling every slot with promotion. The teach, human and opinion slots are what make the proof and resource slots land at all.
- Writing every post from scratch. If a post is not cut from something you already made, it is the post that does not get written on a busy week.
- Scheduling everything and never returning. Replies in the first hour are the difference between a post being seen and a post being filed.
- Copying the identical block to five platforms. Reach goes up slightly and credibility goes down a lot, because a post shaped for one place reads wrong in the others.
Common questions
How many times a week should I post on social media?
Five is a good target for one person doing this alongside other work, and three is fine if three is sustainable. What matters more than count is that the posts are different types rather than five versions of the same announcement.
How far ahead should the social calendar be filled?
One to two weeks. Further ahead and you lose the ability to react to anything happening now, which is where the better posts come from.
Should I schedule posts or post live?
Schedule the writing, show up live for the replies. Batching the drafting on one afternoon is what makes the schedule survivable. Ignoring the comments is what makes it pointless.
How do I know which slot is working?
Look at replies and saves before likes. A post that gets ten thoughtful replies is doing more for you than one with two hundred likes and no conversation, and the slot that produces replies is the one to give more room.
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