Marketers take note: If you want to execute a strong, seamless content strategy, you need a content calendar.
Content calendars aren’t just about organizing your upcoming posts; they also help ensure that your content aligns with your strategic goals and maximizes your resources efficiently.
What Is A Content Calendar?
Content Calendar: What Is It? Let’s start with the fundamentals before moving on to the best content calendar templates. A content calendar is essentially a kind of time-tracking software designed specifically for content production. By breaking down your workflow into digestible weekly or daily chunks it helps you continue to produce content methodically and transparently.
Additionally, it provides you with an overview of your content strategy enabling you to see what you have planned and when and where it will be published. In this manner you can coordinate your content with forthcoming occasions advertising campaigns new product launches etc., and make sure every piece of content fulfills its intended purpose and reaches your audience where they are. For bloggers freelancers social media marketers and content producers a content calendar is an essential tool.
You can reliably create excellent content with a content calendar which is essential for developing a vibrant community. Even though some people would rather use specialized software you can start with something as basic as an Excel sheet for your content calendar needs. Here are some fresh content calendar templates that you can use right away and customize to suit the requirements of your brand.
Why Should We Use A Content Calendar?
Whether you’re the only content specialist in your in-house e-commerce company or an agency social media manager, a content calendar makes you better organized with your campaigns.
It’s also a helpful tool for collaborating with multiple teammates, as it can help inform them of what’s needed and when.
Why? At a glance, it’s easy to understand what went live, along with the copy and asset used. Sort your posts by social platform and assign some color coding. Usually, each tab is marked by month. Because you can see the bigger picture (at least a month in advance), you can map out themes and daily social posts ahead of schedule, plan well-researched infographics with your designer, and track how your posts are doing.
You’re better equipped to craft your message to your target audience, keeping their wants and needs in mind when the seasonal trends come and go. You can plan around holidays and significant world events, from Valentine’s Day to Pride Month or any national event relevant to your brand values.
(Not to toot our own horn, but we have our marketing calendar to help you with just that!)
Plus, by planning, you’re less likely to commit a faux pas – as the content will be brainstormed, briefed, approved, and published before crunch time. It’s a protective measure.
Without further ado, here are our picks (most of them are free!)
Top 9 Content Calendar Templates For 2024
1. CoSchedule Marketing Calendar Template
It truly shines in content marketing with its user-friendly interface and AI-driven features, such as the AI Social Assistant, which can help you draft social messages to enhance engagement and save time.
The intuitive calendar is easy to use. It has 15 seamless integrations, including WordPress, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Mailchimp, and more.
The Bluesky and Google Business Profile integrations can help streamline your content management across different platforms, while functionalities like the TikTok Slideshow Scheduling feature allow for dynamic content creation directly from your calendar interface.
- Cost: A social calendar with up to three users and two social profiles is available with the free plan. For extra users social media profiles and more sophisticated features, there are paid options starting at $19/month.
2. Content Calendar Template for Airtable
Airtable is a fantastic option if you’re looking to upgrade and are currently managing a content calendar in Google Sheets Excel or CSV files. With its powerful automation features for task tracking and reminders Airtable streamlines content management. These features are ideal for people who would rather not deal with intricate spreadsheet formulas.
The platform is easy to customize to meet your unique workflow needs. It supports a number of data fields for important content management including Title Writer Due Date Status and Image. You can manage everything with Airtable’s simple content calendar template including blog posts and social media content. It gives you a clear picture of author’s workload ideas in the works and important outcomes crucial for any content strategy. Assisting in keeping everyone on track you can assign tasks monitor due dates with various calendar views (such as a grid kanban or calendar format) and send reminders via integrated alerts.
- Cost: A free version is available; more advanced features are included in the paid plans, which are tailored to team size and specific needs
3. HubSpot Content Calendar Template for Social Media
Excel experts rejoice! It is fairly flexible to use HubSpots free Social Media Content Calendar. To customize the template to your brand simply enter the month and year into the Monthly Planning Calendar tab. The template is set up with multiple tabs for different social media platforms such as Facebook LinkedIn Instagram X (Twitter) and Pinterest so you can accurately manage updates on all of your channels. With carefully considered design every tab offers suggestions for the most effective ways to interact with your audience on various media.
For the purpose of organizing and repurposing your current content, there is also a Content Repository tab that can assist you in keeping track of all the content you are creating. To help you maximize the template potential a thorough beginner guide in PDF format is also included. We suggest this one for social media specialists in startups and internal social media managers for e-commerce brands because it’s more suited for social media than blog posts though it could be customized to meet a range of requirements.
- Cost: Free – just download the template
4. The Trello template for the editorial content calendar
For large teams already using Jira Confluence and other comparable products and adhering to an Agile framework Trello is a popular project management tool that functions well as a content calendar.).
Each Trello card assigned to a particular piece of content can have drafts managed illustrations coordinated and required assets directly attached. By allowing you to add editors designers and social media managers to cards the template improves team collaboration by making sure that all stakeholders are informed.
Large teams that are focused on meticulous content planning and execution will find it to be an effective tool because it includes checklists to make sure every step is finished filterable card labels and a calendar view to provide you with a clear picture of your publishing pipeline.
- Cost: Nothing downloads the template after registering.
5. Hootsuite Social Media Calendar Template
For Content Creation. For Instagram Facebook LinkedIn X (Twitter) and any other platform you might want to add Hootsuite offers a free Google Sheet spreadsheet that can be downloaded. It has five tabs: Instructions Strategy Monthly View Weekly View and Evergreen Content Library. The spreadsheet is similar to HubSpot template. Not every template has the weekly view which is a fairly unique feature. While the Strategy tab assists you in planning your overall strategy which includes your business goals social goals content pillars pieces and tactics the Instructions tab offers guidance on how to use the template.
You can create a library of content with Hootsuite evergreen content tab to refer to it later just like with HubSpot template. To help you stay on top of significant marketing moments it even lists key dates of interest that are available throughout the year for each month such as occasions like Black Friday and Small Business Saturday (USA). Experts in Excel who don’t want to use a premium tool and all of its extra features can use this easily customizable yet straightforward template. It’s a sensible option for teams trying to streamline their processes without shelling out for expensive tools and it works well for companies of all sizes.
- Cost: Nothing to download simply complete the lead generation form.
6. Use Adobe Express Content Scheduler.
For managing your social media planning and publishing process Adobe Express’s free content scheduler is an excellent resource. It offers a visually appealing interface with posts prominently displayed in a large format for clear image viewing and easy caption reading. In order to keep you organized it also features color-coding and labeling rows which let you classify posts and make notes about crucial campaign information or team messages.
Your social media accounts can be directly connected to the content scheduler allowing you to schedule posts ahead of time or publish them at the push of a button. Along with creating draft posts and saving ideas as unscheduled posts users can also quickly rearrange content by dragging and dropping it. To aid with content creation and editing on-platform Adobe Express also provides an abundance of templates and resources.
- Cost: Free to use but subscribers to Adobes Teams and Premium paid tiers can access more sophisticated features.
7. Small Business Trends Social Media Calendar Template
The content calendar template from Small Business Trends is tailored specifically for – you guessed it – small businesses!
It draws from the company’s effective marketing strategies to help you streamline your social media and marketing efforts. It is available for download in various formats, including Word, Excel, and PDF, making it customizable for your business’s needs.
The template itself is fairly straightforward. It features a Monday to Friday overview of content across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, and TikTok, as well as a section for “All Platforms.” It’s plug-and-play, meaning you would simply enter your plans for each channel, each day (and duplicate them week over week).
What we love about this template is that Small Business Trends offers suggestions throughout for what you might do that day. For example, “Share posts from satisfied customers” on Instagram on Wednesday, or “Have an unveiling of your latest product or service” on TikTok on Monday.
While not exhaustive, it’s a nice touch to help provide inspiration, especially for individuals and small businesses just getting started. We like this template for its simplicity and low learning curve.
- Cost: Free.
8.Backlinko Calendar Template for Content.
For those revere advance their content result efforts, Backlinko supplies a free content timetable motif namely two together flexible and valuable for limited groups and things. A basic weekly timetable view and a more inclusive content list and plan page are the two basic elements of the motif that is applicable as an Excel spreadsheet or a Google page.
The system label is particularly fashioned to walk users through each step of content production from formulating to issuing and is especially beneficial for directing diversified pieces immediately. The weekly view provides a blank art for fundamental arranging. Herein lies the valid capacity of the Backlinks template. Everyone on your crew will persist path accompanying each piece of content thanks to the system tabs gradual guide to content growth that covers entirety from email shopping to design to meta writings.
- Cost: Free.
9. Monday Dot Coms content diary design.
The content diary design is on Monday. com is a good alternative for groups the one be going to cut down the process of constructing and distributing content. By changing the instrument panel’s flexible design you can exactly couple the functional flow of your team. Every piece of content is traced and trained efficiently across programs on account of Monday. coms design that is made to shelter an excess of content types and points from the starting point of problem-solving to the last issuing stages.
It has a centralized content administration whole that lets consumers present main group appendages like writers designers and editors tasks. There are differing habits to view the dossier containing Gantt charts calendars Kanban boards and form views. Additionally, it lets you mix Dropbox Adobe Creative Cloud Google Drive, and additional programs. You can use the joined mechanization countenance for announcements and reminders to keep all on the task. This post climaxes that conceiving a content diary doesn’t should be hard or behind exceptionally because there are a heap of beneficial and smooth-to-use templates nothingness to receive you begun.
Examine our selections to visualize which individual best suits you before preparing for a favorable old age of bearing insightful content.
- Cost: A free service is available; more advanced features are included in the paid plans, which are tailored to team size and specific needs
Future thoughts :
Making certain that your commentary pieces are due far earlier is the primary objective of your content almanac. You are able to have or assert constancy and institution in your issuing schedule that way. Some trades schedule their commentary content until an old age earlier. Some free bloggers may not see their imminent posts for the next period. The ideal amount of momentary to plan out your content before an event is uncertain.