Social media marketing is tough. There are plenty of roadblocks that could stop you from delivering the results you want to see.
The seemingly simple processes of planning and posting content are the biggest challenges. Indeed, one in eight social media marketers at small businesses say they struggle to post content consistently, while one in nine find it hard to create the content they need.
If planning is a problem for your team, it’s time you start using a content calendar for social media. That way, you’ll never be desperately scratching around for last-minute content ideas.
With that in mind, we’ve rounded up an extensive list of free content calendar templates you can start using straight away. Happy planning!
1. HootSuite’s Social Media Content Calendar
First up is a social media content calendar template from HootSuite, which incorporates five popular platforms:
- TikTok
Image sourceBecause it’s a Google Sheet, it’s fully customizable. So if some (or all) of those platforms aren’t relevant to your audience or goals, you can easily switch them out.
This free content calendar template has many useful features, but one of our favorites is the evergreen content library tab. Use it to paste links to blog posts and other resources that work well on social at any time of year.
2. HootSuite’s Social Media Editorial Calendar
Another social media content calendar template from HootSuite, this one is a simpler version that helps with planning individual content assets. Create a new monthly tab, then schedule your social calendar weekly.
Image sourceAs standard, the calendar includes space for the following information:
- Title
- Author
- Topic
- Deadline
- Published
- Time
- Notes
But if you want to add other stuff — like links to graphics or details of the type of content you’re sharing — just create a new column or two.
3. Content Cal’s Customized Content Calendar
Content Cal has added an element of automation to its social media content calendar template. Answer questions about your objectives, channels and content types to create a customized calendar spanning 12 months of content.
Image sourceYou’ll still have to draft and post the actual posts. But this calendar still saves you a lot of time by helping you define the type of content you should include in your social media strategy, and it also ensures your social plans align with your broader marketing goals.
4. HubSpot’s Social Media Content Calendar
Next is this social media content calendar example from HubSpot, allowing you to plan your posting strategy from a single spreadsheet.
Image sourceIt contains tabs for different elements of your social strategy, from daily posting to overarching monthly campaigns. You’ll also find dedicated sections for each social platform.
5. Social Media Examiner’s Social Media Calendar Template
Social Media Examiner has created a content calendar template in Google Sheets.
Image sourceIt might not have some of the fancy formatting of the other spreadsheet-based calendars in this roundup, but it’s packed with plenty of detail. The day-by-day multiplatform view makes it a strong choice for social media teams that post high volumes of content.
6. Small Business Trends Social Media Calendar Template for Small Businesses
Unsurprisingly, Small Business Trends has created a free content calendar with small businesses in mind.
The company based this template on the same calendar used by their marketing team. Given that the publishers have 160,000+ followers on Twitter and 85,000 on Facebook, it’s fair to say they know what they’re doing.
Image sourceDownload the template as a PDF, spreadsheet, or Word document. It includes sections for multiple platforms across each day of the (working) week, plus lots of helpful prompts to help you develop content ideas.
7. Backlinko’s Content Calendar Template
Backlinko’s free content calendar template can either be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet or a Google Sheet. It’s split into two tabs:
- A standard month-and-year calendar view
- A content list and workflow
Image sourceThe calendar element is a little basic, containing nothing more than a box for each day of the month.
However, the workflow sheet is pretty detailed and gives you an off-the-shelf process for bringing together all the elements required to create high-quality social media content.
8. Moisson Marketing’s Social Media Marketing Trello Template
South African agency Moisson Marketing has created a Trello-based social media marketing planner that you can duplicate and share across your team.
Image sourceAs well as a space to plan all your posts, it incorporates various Trello lists for:
- Saving helpful marketing resources
- Adding potential content ideas that marketers can work up into draft posts
- Tracking work in progress
- Sharing monthly social media progress reports
That makes it one of the most comprehensive resources we’ve found. The only downside, of course, is that you’ll probably need to pay for a Trello subscription if you’re going to use it for multiple projects or across a large team.
9. Smartsheet’s Social Media Content Calendar Template for Google Sheets
Our following social media content calendar example, courtesy of the team at Smartsheet, is the perfect choice for organizations that need a detailed, daily breakdown of their social media content planning.
Image sourceIt has space for five social platforms — Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Instagram — plus an “Other” section for other social networks.
As standard, every section includes a slot for six daily posts, with predefined time slots for each post. You’ll want to edit these based on your posting frequency. Beyond this, there’s room for:
- Social copy
- Images
- Links
- Data on click engagement (you’ll have to add this data yourself once each post has gone live)
10. Asana’s Social Media Calendar
If you’re an individual or a small social media team with a limited number of projects, you can use Asana free of charge. Otherwise, you’ll need to pay for its Premium or Business plans.
Either way, once you’ve created an Asana account, you can start using this fantastic social media calendar.
Image sourceBecause it’s a collaborative project management tool, it offers a bunch of functionality you don’t get with a simple spreadsheet-based content calendar.
For instance, it allows users to drag and drop tasks straight into the necessary date slot and add custom fields to define which platform you’ll be posting on.
Perhaps its best feature is the ability to assign tasks to other team members. Once you’ve come up with a post theme, you can hand it over to the copywriter, then add a graphic designer to create visual elements. Once they’ve finished, they can submit the task to you for approval and scheduling.
11. SocialBee’s Social Media Calendar Template
SocialBee has created weekly social media content calendars for each month of the year, with prebuilt sections for seven of the most popular social platforms:
- Google My Business
- TikTok
Image sourceEach section contains multiple fields, allowing you to add all the necessary details about each post. For instance, you can include ideas for hashtags, assign a due date, and paste links to visual elements to accompany your post copy.
As with any spreadsheet template, it’s easy to customize any of these elements to better suit your social media marketing requirements.
12. Vertex24’s Content Calendar Template
Vertex24’s free calendar template is designed for planning and tracking the progress of tasks related to social media content creation.
Image sourceAs well as a standard monthly calendar view, it includes a helpful Gantt chart that provides a visual breakdown of each post.
Another nice feature: the calendar is pre-populated with some of the biggest US holidays and events, offering helpful hints for timely social media content ideas.
13. Template.net’s Social Media Editorial Calendar
Template.net is home to hundreds of thousands of easily editable templates covering countless tasks, including social media planning.
Image sourceThis ready-to-use calendar can be downloaded for Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Apple Pages, or PDF, depending on your team’s requirements. Just edit the content in each column for a simple, shareable view of your content strategy across multiple platforms.
14. ClickUp’s Social Media Content Calendar
Like Asana and Trello, ClickUp is a project management tool with a library of useful templates. Again, you’ll need to create a ClickUp account before using them. You can start with a free plan, but you’ll need to upgrade once you hit your 100 MB file storage limit.
Image sourceThis easy-to-use content calendar template offers multiple views, allowing social media marketing teams to:
- Plan and organize content by platform and publication status
- Store ideas for future social media posts
- Prioritize posts based on marketing goals and external trends
15. Hallam’s Social Media Content Calendar
Marketing agency Hallam Internet has created a downloadable, spreadsheet-based social media content calendar with many helpful features.
Image sourceFor instance, it has a built-in character counter to ensure your tweets don’t exceed Twitter’s character limit. It also includes a column full of key marketing-friendly dates (like National Bloody Mary Day), alongside official hashtags where relevant.
16. CoSchedule’s Social Media Content Calendar Template
Editorial calendars are CoSchedule’s whole business, but it’s been generous enough to give some of its templates away free of charge — including this social media content calendar spreadsheet, which helps you plan daily posts across multiple platforms:
Image sourceThis template includes a bunch of helpful features, including the ability to:
- Schedule posts by channel, day, and time
- Filter daily posts by channel
- Color-code posts by category
- Add monthly notes to highlight important topics
- Identify gaps in your posting schedule by looking at a monthly view
17. CoSchedule’s Basic Blog Content Calendar Template Spreadsheet
Up to this point, most of the free content calendars we’ve shared are geared toward social planning, but this next one — again from CoSchedule — is designed to support your blog content strategy.
Image sourceAlthough it’s pretty basic, this content calendar still offers plenty of helpful functionality, allowing you to:
- Organize blog posts by headline, keyword, and author
- Monitor blog post performance throughout the year
- Add links to image files and CMS posts
- Arrange posts by month to get a top-level overview of your blogging strategy
18. Jotform’s Social Media Calendar
Jotform is an online form-builder rather than a dedicated content planning tool, but its library of “marketing sheets” features 20 different templates, including this useful social media calendar.
Image sourceOne small catch: you’ll need a Jotform account to use it. But you can create up to five forms for free.
Fill out the form with information about each post, assign the relevant social media channel and content type, then input the planned publishing date and time. Jotform does everything else, sorting each post into a color-coded spreadsheet that can be viewed as a calendar across multiple device types and shared with other team members.
19. Firefly’s Social Media Content Calendar Template
Firefly Marketing hasn’t just taken the time to build a free social media content calendar template for Google Sheets — it’s also created an explainer video on how to use it.
Image sourceHelpfully, Firefly has added all the year’s major holidays and hashtag days (like #nationalpizzaday) to ensure you don’t miss out on any opportunities for engagement. And it’s even included a cover sheet detailing the best times to post across different platforms, tailored to specific industries.
Firefly also regularly adds new features to its template. For instance, it recently incorporated a “budget” column to help plan your social ads spend and a “goals” row to help keep your posts aligned with your overarching marketing strategy.
20. Iconosquare’s Quarterly Social Media Content Calendar
Add to Notion or Google Calendar here
Social media management and analytics platform Iconosquare has created a quarterly social media content calendar for Notion and Google Calendar.
Image sourceFully editable and exportable, the calendar is packed with events, hashtags, holidays, and other special days. To use it, simply duplicate the Notion template, add it to your Google Calendar, or download it as a PDF, HTML file, or Markdown.
The only downside is that Iconosquare only publishes the next three months of dates and events toward the end of the current quarter, limiting your ability to plan in advance. But you can unlock the full 12-month calendar by signing up for a (paid) Iconosquare account.
21. ClickMinded’s “Perfect” Social Media Calendar for Google Sheets
ClickMinded, an online digital marketing resource, claims to have shared the “perfect” social media content calendar. Created for Google Sheets, it was designed by Jasmine Atherton, a social media specialist who’s managed campaigns for big names like Airbnb and Delta Airlines.
Image sourceIt excludes pre-populated data (like ideal posting times or popular events). But it does feature all the obvious stuff — like publication date, content type, social channel, and post details — alongside a few more niche headings (such as a column for shortened tracked links).
22. Coda’s Blog Content Calendar Template
Coda is a tool that combines all your words, data, and teamwork into a single document. That makes it a good fit for housing your content calendar because you can plan, write, and proofread in the same place.
This template was created by Al Chen, solutions architect at Coda, who says it’s designed to be used by “agencies, in-house content teams, and solopreneurs who have made content a key component of their marketing strategy.”
Image sourceOne of the best features of this blog content calendar template is that it offers multiple viewing options, including content type, campaign, and product stage. You can also keep tabs on all your live content, making it easier to monitor performance and identify gaps in your schedule.
23. Google Sheets Geeks Social Media Editorial Calendar
You’ve probably noticed that many of these free content calendar templates are Google Sheets files. That’s not surprising because many of us use Google Drive, and it’s highly collaborative (not to mention free for individuals). So it makes sense to share a template from the fanatics at Google Sheets Geeks.
Image sourceThis template doesn’t just look superb — it’s also super simple to use. Write posts in individual cells, view the current calendar week in the mini-calendars on the right, and scroll across the rows to see which posts are due on any given date. You can also choose between monthly and yearly templates, with weeks starting on either Sunday or Monday.
(Note: The first Google Sheets Geeks editorial calendar template was published in 2021, with updates shared in 2022 and 2023, so be sure to check for the latest version — they’re usually published in November or December.)
24. ConversionMinded’s “Epic” Social Media Content Calendar Template
Next is another Google Sheets social media content calendar from online marketing strategy company ConversionMinded.
Image sourceIn keeping with ConversionMinded’s whole ethos, this template is focused on measurable results, with a tab dedicated to setting goals — including follower growth, traffic, subscribers, and sales.
Aside from that, it contains all the stuff you’d expect of a social media content calendar, from blog titles and URLs to images, notes, and “action items.”
25. Spreadsheet.com’s OpenAI-Powered Social Media Planning Template
Wouldn’t it be great if your social media planning spreadsheet could write your posts for you? Thanks to this template from Spreadsheet.com, it can do just that by leveraging the generative AI capabilities of OpenAI.
Image sourceAdd a post topic and a list of hashtags, and OpenAI will happily churn out the posts for you.
Aside from all the AI smarts, this template also features helpful Calendar and Kanban views, giving you more ways to visualize your social media schedule. You can also use the Channels and Post Statistics sheets to track performance.
26. Airtable’s Content Calendar Template
Airtable is part database, part spreadsheet, making it a good fit for planning and storing your content in a single platform.
Image sourceThis content calendar lets you view results, future content ideas, and your team members’ workloads. Use it to:
- Assign tasks and track deadlines through multiple calendar views
- Get a big-picture view of the status of different content projects
- Publish planned posts with a single click
You’ll need to sign up for Airtable to use this template, but if your team only features up to five creators or editors, you can get by with a free account.
27. Semrush’s Blog Content Calendar Template for Google Sheets
Next up is this simple (but snazzy-looking) blog content calendar from Semrush, allowing marketers to plan their blog schedule up to a year in advance.
Image sourceUnfortunately, it hasn’t been updated since 2021, so you’ll need to add this year’s dates. But it features all the essential information you need — like writer, category, and sales funnel stage — and some useful stuff around organic search, such as primary keyword, search volume, and semantically related keywords.
28. Loomly’s Social Media Calendar Template for Google Sheets
Loomly is a social media management platform that helps users plan, create, and track the performance of their social media content. And it’s also been generous enough to share its own Google Sheets-based content calendar template.
Image sourceThis simple template includes columns for your posts and media assets and has a built-in character counter. Helpfully, it also has a “comments” column, making it easier to give feedback on individual posts.
29. Miro’s Social Media Calendar Template
Miro is an online whiteboard tool, making it less restricted than some of the other marketing tools in this article — giving you greater flexibility to customize it to your team’s specific needs.
Image sourceMiro’s social media content calendar includes:
- The date, time, and timezone when each post will go live
- The social media channels on which each post will be published
- Social media copy and visuals
- Relevant links and tags
- Information on geo-targeting
- Details about whether the post is organic or paid
- Space for feedback and approvals
Unsurprisingly, you’ll need to sign up for Miro to use this template, but you can create a single workspace with three editable boards (and unlimited team members) free of charge.
Are you interested in more content like this? Make sure to sign up for one of our upcoming social media conferences.
Here are some similar articles you might enjoy:
- 9 Strategies For Creating an Effective Social Media Content Calendar
- 20 Content Ideas to add to your social media calendar
- 22 Best Places for Finding Content to Share on Social Media
