15 Best Content Calendar Templates in 2024: Free for Social Media and Web
Every marketer knows the pain of getting social media marketing right. It’s like trying to catch a wild beast. The more you work toward nailing it, the more things become unpredictable. Trends change every day, customers’ demands evolve with every passing second, and there are so many challenges along the way that it’s easy to lose count.
No matter how hard marketers try, they can’t indulge the ever-shifting urges of their audiences. According to recent stats, 93% of business owners struggle to overcome common social media obstacles.
You must ask yourself: “How do I conquer so many obstacles and deliver the desired results?”
Well, the answer is quite simple – use a social media content calendar. Social media calendars can help you organize your upcoming posts in advance, schedule marketing campaigns, and create content to keep your target audience engaged across all social media platforms.
Let’s delve deeper into what a content calendar is and how it can help your team and social media managers develop a successful and effective social media strategy.
What is a content calendar?
A content or social media content calendar is an essential marketing tool that helps business organizations and social media managers organize their social media efforts.
Marketers can use a content calendar to create top-class, captivating, relevant content to fuel social media posts and drive results across different platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
A content calendar allows you to establish a consistent brand presence across multiple social media channels and get ahead of creating, planning, and publishing content regularly. It helps you plan your campaigns ahead of schedule for each social channel and approach your audience in a personalized way by presenting the types of content they want to see.
More importantly, you can use a social media calendar tool to tap into different content calendar templates and create evergreen content for each social media channel according to the needs of your active audience.
Instead of killing yourself over hitting that post button over and over again, you can finally sit back, relax, take a nice sip of coffee and watch as your newly launched social strategy conquers your competitors and leaves them face down in the dirt.
What is a content calendar template?
A content calendar template is a planning tool and a secret weapon in your arsenal that allows you to organize and schedule your content and social media posts in advance and according to your campaign needs.
It allows you to measure your performance by tracking content creation and the results your posts achieve on target social networks. The insights you gather can help identify areas of improvement, find gaps, and improve your efficiency by accomplishing specific goals.
Download the free social media calendar template to get familiar with its magic and learn to use it to your advantage to improve your social media posting schedule.
Why to use a content calendar?
A content calendar is a vital tool for social media managers since it helps organize the marketing content and ensure all posts are published at the appropriate time and on the right social media platforms.
Consistent publishing is among the biggest challenges for modern-day marketers. Whether they lack engaging content ideas for creating captivating social posts and social media campaigns or struggle with content production and planning, a content calendar can help them solve these problems by helping to organize blog posts and marketing content in advance.
Marketers have an assortment of content scheduling and publication tools at their disposal, such as Ayanza, Excel, and Google Sheets. These project management software tools provide ready-to-use templates for diverse business needs, including team collaboration spaces for organizing social media teams according to their specific objectives.
Whether you need to plan for your upcoming posts or improve consistency by posting as many posts per week as possible, a calendar template can help you improve your publishing schedule and engage your entire team to drive better performance and results.
Content calendars are vital to developing the most efficient publishing framework for the content your marketing teams plan to promote on popular platforms to improve audience engagement.
A well-designed and organized social media calendar can help you outline your publishing dates and publishing times and define the most effective posting frequency for the most consistent posting schedule.
A customizable content calendar template is all you need to develop the result-driving publishing cadence. Armed with such a tool, you will easily conquer every social media channel with the most engaging social campaigns and effective, long-term content strategy. To learn more, test Ayanaza’s free social media content calendar by filling out the form to get your free planning template.
What are the benefits of social media content calendar templates for businesses?
Everyone working on social media campaigns can benefit from social media content calendar templates, including marketers, sales, social media managers, and cross-functional teams.
They can use content calendar templates to gather user feedback, improve collaboration with other teams, develop more effective business strategies, and prepare engaging materials for social media posting.
Calendar templates allow you to plan publishing schedules weeks or even months in advance, save time, and focus on other important matters, like coming up with innovative content ideas for attracting an active audience.
Different calendar templates serve different purposes and goals. They take team collaboration to the next level, unify all teams, and align their efforts with common goals. Every team member gets access to precise guidelines, the latest updates, and shared objectives, including the accomplishments of other colleagues.
In addition, the main benefits of content calendar templates include improved posting consistency, a smarter sharing schedule, more effective social media campaigns, the creation of top-quality content ideas, and long-term success.
What does the social media content calendar include?
The template is the most critical part of the social media content calendar. Different templates allow you to accomplish specific goals. Thankfully, we have the web to thank for being an abundant source of high-quality content calendar templates.
For example, the Ayanaza AI project management tool offers a bunch of unique templates, such as meeting agenda templates. All these templates serve different purposes. Since templates can be shared and edited by your team, you can include your entire team in content creation by opting for a suitable Ayanaza calendar template.
In addition, Ayanza also provides an extensive library of capacity planning templates to provide your organization with accurate insights into available resources for creating and launching social media content.
You can gather their comments, ideas, and opinions and allow them to edit the sheet according to their needs. You pick a template that fits your specific goals, choose social channels for publishing, find the topic, and opt for the content type your target audience prefers.
Select the time and date for publishing, and monitor the posting schedule to measure performance and identify the things that need improvement.
The process of creating a social media content calendar
Here, we’ll share the most effective steps to create a social media calendar that matches your short-term/long-term content creation needs. It can help you improve your overall social media effort and achieve your content production, social strategy, and marketing goals.
Assess your social media brand presence
Ascertain your brand position and presence by running a social media audit to assess things like audience engagement, your accounts on different platforms, and more. The audit will provide valuable insights into the things that give results and areas where you could do better.
Many marketers make a mistake by repeating strategies that gave results in the past. However, things can change rapidly on social media, and what worked yesterday won’t work today.
Create top content and select social channels for posting
Once you have ascertained which platforms your target audience uses and the kind of content they want to see, select the proper channels for sharing your content. Focus on the preferred content type for each social media network.
For example, reels and stories are trending on Instagram right now. Facebook is all about images and short videos, while people use Twitter to get answers to their questions. Adjust your content type to the network preferences to yield the best results from the content strategy.
Include the essentials in your calendar
You should tailor your social media calendar according to your marketing needs. Fortunately, you have an array of calendar templates with all the information included to help you accomplish your goals.
Here’s what a social media marketer’s calendar template should include:
Social channels you want to post on;
Publishing time and date;
Content copies, videos, graphics, visuals, and images;
Network-specific content such as shoppable posts, polls, TikTok Live, Reels, Stories, etc.;
Geo-targeting specifics;
Contests, promotions, product launches, and more.
Now that we have the essentials down, let’s move on to feedback.
Collect feedback
Gathering user feedback is crucial for getting your social media marketing right. Once you have everything on your calendar, share it with your business owner, team members, and stakeholders to get their opinion. You should also collect feedback from your audience to see what you can improve or expand upon.
Thankfully, you can tick all these little but important boxes by harnessing the power of a social media content calendar. Choose the matching social media content calendar template and spend your time elsewhere while letting automation do all the hard work for you.
How to use Ayanza’s social media content calendar template
If you have no previous experience with social media content calendar templates, Ayanaza offers premade downloadable templates that you can use to plan your social media activity in advance. Let’s say you want to improve engagement with your social media posts.
Visit Ayanza, head to the Resources tab, then select the Templates option. Find social media posts template and use it to prepare content for posting across social channels where your audience resides. The template allows you to determine what you want to do and when.
Create a schedule with the following elements:
Posting date;
Social media channel;
Status (backlog, in progress, ready for posting, to prepare, in review, etc.;
Post type (video content, image, GIF, etc.);
Campaign (recruitment, CTAs, events, etc.).
The best part is that you can download Ayanza’s free social media content calendar and use it as storage for the best content ideas.
In addition, you can also get useful guidelines on the best template-using practices and what works best on specific social channels.
An editorial calendar template can help you create an editorial calendar and content plan for turning your social media content strategy into revenue.
15 Content calendar templates
1. Ayanza content calendar template
Ayanza content calendar is customizable for any type of social project and gives you features relevant to your marketing goals and audience. The fully customizable, ready-to-use, and downloadable content calendar template allows you to manage all your needs in one place.
You can create the most effective content workflow for collaborating on projects, organizing your materials, and social media content planning. In addition, you’ll be able to track your progress at all times, add/remove attachments and comments, change the content theme, and more.
No matter what use cases or teams your business organization uses, the Ayanza content calendar template is the ultimate content planning tool, designed to help you organize and post content more effectively.
Download the Ayanza content calendar template for free.
2. Ayanza social media content calendar template
Ayanza calendar template for social media is a work of art. It’s so user-friendly that dragging and dropping files takes mere seconds. Process tracking is a breeze, and the template gives you access to your content progress at all times.
The social media content calendar template is ideal for organizing content, planning social media posts, checking publishing time, date, status, and so much more.
It allows you to monitor and cope with the latest social media trends, strategize your campaigns accordingly, prioritize posts, gather valuable user insights, and take your social media marketing sky-high.
Download the Ayanza social media content calendar template for free.
3. Ayanza content calendar list template
Ayanza’s content calendar list template allows you to schedule content topics, align your materials with editorial objectives, monitor deadlines, and keep track of your progress.
The template is the perfect tool for creating an easily scannable publishing scheduler where you can create and edit content, track production processes, align activities with internal/external team members, and keep an eye on updates on your upcoming content.
Download the Ayanza content calendar list template for free.
4. Ayanza editorial content calendar template
Ayanza provides a user-friendly, ready-to-use, downloadable editorial calendar template that gives you full editing freedom.
You can adjust your content to your specific marketing needs, edit planning schedules, change content elements in each template column, and take every step necessary to get closer to accomplishing your objectives.
More importantly, Ayanza’s calendar templates allow you to personalize the calendar to meet your content creation requirements. Tag your content to keep things organized, track the progress of each posted piece of content, collaborate with team members across assignments, and handle social media publishing like a professional.
Download the Ayanza editorial content calendar template for free.
5. Instagram calendar planner template
The Instagram calendar planner template ensures your Instagram marketing efforts go to a whole new level. It helps you keep track of the most significant events of an Instagram user’s cycle.
The template gives you updates on activity spikes, seasonal trends, and other important moments. If there’s an incoming holiday, you’ll have it on your schedule.
Aside from staying up to date, the template also helps you have relevant, engaging, and well-timed content for posting while giving you a real-time view of your publishing activity and performance.
6. Influencer content calendar template
An influencer template is a strategically organized resource that helps you plan and schedule your posting efforts. The template gives you a full preview of the content, publishing dates, and posting times.
Marketers can easily personalize their content calendar according to the influencer market campaigns to optimize the content they want to publish. The influencer content calendar template includes various elements, such as photos/videos, dates, involved social media accounts, hashtags, and captions.
7. Video content calendar template
A video content calendar template allows you to create a calendar-based content plan with an outlined list of visual materials you should publish.
It serves as a blueprint for your video marketing strategy and contains video formats, concepts, publishing times, dates, and more.
Use the video template to add integral elements to your content calendar, make publishing materials available to your team, establish a workflow, and more.
8. Storytelling content calendar template
According to the Headstream study, marketing storytelling is a surefire way to put your brand in front of the target audience and improve engagement. If customers like your brand story, 15% will buy your service/product, 44% will engage with your story, and 55% will consider using your products.
The storytelling content calendar template helps you connect with your audience emotionally. It can help you grow your business, harness more revenue, drive lead generation, improve conversions, and increase engagement between consumers and your brand.
9. Multi-channel content calendar template
The multi-channel content calendar template is the ultimate tool for every social manager, marketer, and business owner. It provides all the essentials you need to keep your marketing content organized and ready for publishing on schedule and according to social channel requirements.
You should use a multi-channel content calendar for the following reasons:
Keep your content ideas in one place;
Improve posting consistency across multiple social channels;
Engage a wider pool of consumers;
Gather feedback and insights;
Capture more leads.
The template is your access to multiple marketing channels, each unique and with different benefits you can reap.
10. Content promotion calendar template
As the name suggests, this template allows you to plan your content promotion ahead of schedule. You can use it to organize your team according to your promotional needs.
The template helps you assign writers to create relevant pieces of content for promotion, choose social channels where you want to publish your content, create briefs, allow your team to fill in deadlines, and plan your social media efforts.
In addition, you can map out all the promotional activities across your business organization to keep everyone in the loop while measuring your performance.
11. Product launch content calendar template
A product launch calendar outlines the schedule for launching a new product by executing the launch, clarifying everyone’s duties, and organizing your activities.
The template allows you to develop the timeline and tasks you’ve already laid out so that you can select specific dates and times for your project.
It also allows you to consider team member assignments, dependencies, and time estimates. Thanks to the calendar template, you’ll have 24/7 access to your launching activities.
12. Google Sheets content calendar template
The Google Sheets template is one of the most effective content management solutions in modern-day digital marketing. It’s Google Sheets compatible and allows you to preview content, create a publishing schedule, gather top ideas in one place, and track your performance along the way. The template is customizable and can fit any project and content goal with consistency.
13. Excel content calendar template
Although many avoid Excel, it’s still a widely used spreadsheet program in the digital business landscape. If you’re an avid Excel user, this template is all you could ever wish for and then some.
Aside from making tracking the performance of your content a breeze, the Excel template excels in helping you accomplish your content goals.
It’s also equipped with all kinds of features and can be easily customized to meet your requirements better. Personalize the calendar by adding columns and rows, highlighting cells, changing fonts and colors, and more.
14. Blank social media calendar template
If you prefer starting from scratch, the fill-in-the-blank social media calendar template is the best option. It provides a user-friendly layout with transparent features to simplify planning and scheduling.
Incorporate your ideas with ongoing plans, manage your content, set weekly posting goals, switch seamlessly between platforms, etc.
15. Annual social media calendar template
This template is among the essential content management tools for long-term planning. It keeps all your annual posting needs in check and is an irreplaceable scheduler for social media managers who manage multiple campaigns.
You can create an annual publishing plan, change settings on the go, update daily, weekly, and monthly tasks, and oversee your efforts. Use it to create the most engaging content for tackling the most important dates, events, and beyond.
5 Content calendar template examples
Here are the top five examples of content calendar templates.
CoSchedule’s social media content calendar
CoSchedule is an ideal content calendar solution for people who run blogs on WordPress. It’s a powerful scheduling tool that allows freelancers, influencers, and individual bloggers to upgrade their content marketing game.
Aside from being user-friendly, CoSchedule’s content calendar allows you to establish an authoritative brand presence across WordPress, Twitter, Instagram, MailChimp, Facebook, etc.
Loaded with top-grade features, CoSchedule’s customizable content calendar is perfect for accomplishing your goals and providing the target audience with relevant content that drives real value.
Jotform social media calendar
Jotform excels when it comes to reliability, functionality, and visual appeal. The company provides a comprehensive content calendar that allows you to keep tabs on everything you do on social media, regardless of your chosen channel.
This template keeps your social media efforts well-organized and aligned with your marketing goals at all times. Use it to monitor virtual events, exchange notes with team members, and execute your strategies in a timely manner.
Airtable social media marketing content calendar
Airtable offers an extensive, all-encompassing template for developing a successful, consistent, and well-organized social media strategy. This content calendar is a weekly, monthly, and annual scheduler.
If you’re tired of CSV, Excel, and Google Sheets files and you are ready to move to a modern-day solution, The Airtable application would be an excellent choice.
Save time and effort with email and Slack automation solutions and plan your publishing efforts and social media posts in advance using multiview options for changing the view to calendar, kanban, or grid form.
The template includes all the essentials to help you get ahead of team collaboration, content deadlines, publishing schedule, and advanced blog post assigning by Image, Status, Due Date, Writer, and Title.
Trello social media editorial calendar
Trello gives you a free content calendar template that simplifies your social media and project management strategies. If you’re running a massive team of social media managers on Confluence, Jira, or Agile framework, Trello is an ideal content calendar solution for you.
The drag-and-drop option makes using the calendar as easy as possible, and you can assign tasks to individual teammates, receive their feedback, attach edits and revisions, set due dates, and more.
Loomly social media content calendar
If you’re looking for an easily customizable content calendar template, look no more. Loomly has everything you need and more. It’s ideal for creative thinkers, social media managers, and team leaders.
Their content calendar covers all critical areas of promoting your brand online, from social media planning and sales to product launching, marketing, and more. However, what makes it unique is its ability to create quick draft posts automatically.
It can also tap into your RSS feeds and visualize your post ideas. Perhaps that’s why leading brands in the arts, travel, beauty, and fashion industries use Loomly.
Make your content calendar a breeze with helpful templates
Templates can be extremely helpful if you have never used a content calendar before. Aside from getting you started, they are premade, downloadable, and free.
In other words, you can download ready-to-use templates, test their features, and see how they suit different use cases and your specific social media planning and publishing needs.
Thankfully, Ayanza offers a wide selection of ready-to-use content calendar templates. Simply choose a downloadable content calendar template and share content according to your business goals.
FAQ
What is the best social media calendar template?
The best social media calendar template is one that addresses all your social media needs while keeping you organized. It should help streamline content creation and publishing processes, save you time, and make changes on the go.
What app can I use to create a content calendar?
Although there are too many tools for creating a content calendar, you can try Ayanza, Excel, Google Drive, Template(dot)net, Jotfire, HubSpot, ClickUp, Loomly, Trello, SproutSocial, and HootSuite.
How can I create a social media calendar in Ayanza?
Visit the Templates Ayanza section. The Templates section allows you to choose from Ayanza’s selection of template categories, such as tech, sales, product, education, company management, planning frameworks, marketing, personal, and human resources.
Choose your category and select the template that matches your calendar needs. In the case of social media, Ayanza offers the Social Media Posts template that allows you to prepare content, organize your posts, manage your social media activity, and track your performance from one place.
The template has seven tabs that allow you to track and manage your social media posts. You can add more tabs if need be.