Keeping track of your social media presence can be arduous without a calendar. You could use plenty of fancy apps to do this. But why spend all that money when you can build a social media calendar in Google Sheets yourself?
Social media editorial calendars are for different purposes, from marketing to tracking engagement and even content planning.
We’ll show you how to make a social media calendar template for Google Sheets in a few simple steps, or you can skip the lesson and download one of our ready-made templates:
- Weekly-Monthly-Yearly Google Sheets Social Media Calendar
- Daily Google Sheets Social Media Content Calendar Template
Table of Contents
What Is a Social Media Calendar?
A social media calendar gets an overview and plans social media posts by date. Spreadsheets are a great way to help run your social media campaigns, as they are highly customizable.
Although you can customize the spreadsheet calendar based on your needs, they often have these elements:
- The time and date a post will be made
- The network and the account where you will upload the post
- Links to the assets required to make the post, including the videos, pictures, and audio you’ll use
- Tags and links are usually also included
These elements depend on what your calendar is for; for example, a calendar for social media marketing would have different things compared to one for content creation.
Why You Should Build a Social Media Calendar Template for Google Sheets
Creating and using a social media calendar is a must-have tool. Here are a few reasons to build a social media content calendar.
A Google Sheets Social Media Calendar Helps You Stay Productive
Having a social media calendar makes it extremely easy to see your planned content in a single place. You won’t need to switch between many tabs and windows just to plan your content. Everything you’re going to need will be there in your media calendar.
Many people are unaware that a simple Instagram post can take so much work. It involves writing the content, editing, and polishing the post to stand out from the competition.
When you jump from one task to another and switch multiple windows, it can feel extraordinarily jarring and take you out of your groove. Creating batches of work is a highly beneficial strategy that you can use to avoid situations like these. A social media post schedule template will make things so much easier and more convenient when scheduling your content.
Keeps You Consistent
Whether you publish content on social media every day or once a week, having a calendar lets you see an overview of your social media schedule, which helps you stay on track. A social media content calendar template in Google Sheets lets you be more consistent as you won’t miss the deadlines and become more accountable. Perfect for helping you manage your project effectively.
Consistent social media content creation also ensures that you build a strong readership. It makes your readers know that you’re serious about creating the content for them.
Helps You Organize
Keeping all your data in one space helps you stay organized, as you don’t have to go to different apps and websites just to find the small details of the previously uploaded content. All you have to do is open your Google Sheet social media calendar, and you will find everything you need neatly organized.
With a dashboard template, you can also keep track of all your social media platforms in one sheet!
Generally speaking, staying organized will help your brand to grow faster. Using this method, you can easily link back to your older content. This way, improving SEO becomes extremely easy, and you can attract more viewers to your posts.
Allows You to Strategize
A social media calendar allows you to be more strategic with your approach and social media marketing efforts. You can easily compare the content to see what’s working and what isn’t. This way, understanding audience engagement with your posts allows you to improve them and ensure that you avoid the same mistakes in the future. You can also share your social media strategy with your marketing team.
The spreadsheet will also update you and allow you to plan for upcoming events you may need to plan to post about. Scheduling the content before time helps you keep track, and you will be less likely to forget about working on it in time to make the post. It’s even easier when you have a social media posting schedule template since all you need to do is fill in the data straight away.
A Social Media Tracking Spreadsheet Makes Collaboration Easier
Managing social media accounts can be challenging, and working with a team will make it more difficult. Having a social media calendar makes it much easier to collaborate with other content production team members.
Using social media editorial calendar templates, everyone will be aware of their job and the task list they are supposed to be doing. There will be less room for making mistakes, and the process will be smoother.
How to Make a Google Sheets Social Media Scheduling Template
Creating a social media content calendar template in Google Sheets is a relatively open-ended process, as creating a personalized calendar is based solely on your requirements. Feel free to deviate from the steps and customize the one you are making based on your needs. For example, you may want to add extra columns to make a social media analytics spreadsheet.
While you could just type dates manually, you’d have to continue to do it every time you make a new page. Instead, we are going to set the template up so it will automatically change the rest of the dates when you make one change. That way, it’s easier to customize your template for new periods.
Here are the steps you need to follow to create a social media calendar on Google Sheets:
- Open a new spreadsheet by going to Google Sheets and clicking Blank under the Start a new spreadsheet tab.
- Designate the month:
- Write the first date of the month into the cell (7/1/2022 in our example)
- Navigate to Format > Number > Custom date and time
- Select Month and Year from the options
- Highlight the first box where you entered the month and the following columns beside it. This depends on the number of boxes you need. In this example, we selected 12 boxes. Once selected, click on the top bar and then on Merge cells. Then click on Merge all.
- We need to add the data to fill the columns. You can also change the colors of the boxes and adjust the font size and style before you start adding the entries.
- If you want to divide it into weeks, you can merge the cells underneath and write the text Week 1 into the box.
- Format column B for dates by highlighting the column header and then navigating to Format > Number > Date
- Type =A1Â into the first date cell, which will pull the date from the first cell we made.
- In the cell below (B5), type the previous cell plus one (=B4+1). This will make it display the next date.
- Highlight the cell you just made the formula in, then click and drag the small blue box until the date shows in 7 cells.
- Get the days of the week in column A:
- Click the column header A
- Navigate to Format > Number > Custom date and time
- Select Day only
- Type =B4Â into cell A4
- Click and drag the fill handle to encompass all applicable cells.
- Add checkboxes to the social media channel cells:
- Highlight the cells F4:H10
- Navigate to Data > Data validation
- Under the Criteria menu, select Checkbox
- Click Save
- Repeat steps 5-11 below week 1 until you have dates for the entire month on the sheet. But instead of typing =A1Â into the first cell of the week, use the cell reference for the last date of the last week (eg. B10Â for the first cell of Week 2)
- At the bottom of the sheet, name it Month 1
- Right-click the sheet name, then click Duplicate
- Name the duplicate Month 2
- In the top cell of Month 2, type the following formula:
=EDATE(‘Month 1’!A1,1)
This tells Google Sheets to use a date that is one month later than the first cell we created. The rest of the dates on the new sheet will update automatically.
- Keep duplicating and using the EDATE formula with the previous sheet’s name as the first argument in the first cell of the new sheet each time for as many months as you want your campaign to run. For example, the formula for Month 3 would be:
=EDATE(‘Month 1’!A1,1)
- As the months are different lengths, you can go through and delete that run into the next month from the bottom of the page for applicable months.
The type of calendar you create is solely based on your requirements. The best part about using Google Sheets is that you get total freedom on what you want to do and how you want to do it. So feel free to experiment and be creative with your approach when making a Google Sheets social media calendar.
Yet, if the guide seems a little overwhelming, you could always just download a social media calendar template for Google Sheets in 2024.
Download Social Media Calendar Google Sheets Templates
To save you time and money, we have created some free social media calendar templates in Google Sheets 2024. You can make a copy and use them freely:
- Weekly-Monthly-Yearly Google Sheets Social Media Calendar
- Daily Google Sheets Social Media Content Calendar Template
Note:Â To use the Weekly-Monthly-Yearly calendar, you just have to change the initial date in cell A1, and the rest of the sheets will update automatically.
You can use either of these as a plan for your social media campaigns or retroactively as a social media report template in Google Sheets.
Related Content:Â How to Make a Schedule in Google Sheets
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Create a Social Media Calendar in Google Sheets?
Open a new spreadsheet on Sheets and type in the month. Start formatting your calendar. Execute formulas to fill in the weekdays. Add the numbers in. Then, fill in the remaining data and reformat the calendar if needed. Add creative elements like changing font style or color to customize the look.
Is There a 2024 Calendar Template in Google Sheets?
Yes, there is a calendar template in the template library for Google Sheets. Just click on the Annual template from the gallery. But there is no Google Sheets social media calendar template for 2024, but you could use the one from this guide. Plenty of other calendar templates are available online to import into your Sheets, like our content calendar.
How Do I Create a Monthly Social Media Calendar?
Creating a social media content calendar for Google Sheets requires you to add proper columns for the data you want to add to the spreadsheet. Keeping a column for the dates and days is crucial. Make sure to merge the data cells to help your publishing schedule look more cohesive. You can also color-code specific data in your spreadsheet. You can access most of these options by going to the Format option in the main toolbar. Or, you could just download our social media planning calendar template.
Smash Your Social Media Plans
Whether you build your own social media calendar template for Google SHeets or use one of our free content calendar templates for Google Sheets for your social media campaigns, we hope this guide has helped you out, and you’ll be kicking your social media goals in no time. Let us know in the comments how it’s working out for you.
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