5 Free Social Media Content Marketing Calendar Templates

Google Sheets allows users to create powerful calendars for tracking tasks, managing events, scheduling meetings, planning social media posts, and more.

Social media marketing can be frustrating and time-consuming if you don’t have the proper tools at your disposal.

Google Sheets is one of the most underrated tools in this regard. It is well-known as the top online spreadsheet program that almost everyone uses.

So, instead of relying on paid apps to manage social media post publishing, content marketing managers can leverage Google Sheets to create easy-to-use Social Media Content Calendar Templates.

The main benefit of using Google Sheets to create an editorial calendar is that it can be shared with unlimited users. Making it useful for both colleagues and clients!

In this article, let us discuss the best Social Media Content Calendars of 2023. We will also learn to create a social media content management calendar from scratch.

So, make sure to read the article till the end.

What are the Benefits of Creating/Using a Social Media Calendar Template in Google Sheets?

There are numerous benefits to using Google Sheets to create an editorial calendar compared to other spreadsheet programs.

Here are a few of them,

Real-time collaboration: Google Sheets calendars can be shared with unlimited users. They can update the spreadsheets in real-time. The owner is allowed to assign specific roles to everyone. Users can either edit, comment, or view the spreadsheet based on the roles assigned. All the changes made by everyone are saved. Owners and Editors can view the changes made by other users through the “Version history” feature.
Ease of use: This spreadsheet program comes with an intuitive user interface. It is the biggest rival of the popular Microsoft Excel, which is the top spreadsheet software used by billions of users. It boasts powerful functions that let users create a calendar that auto-updates based on the inputs provided by the users.
Online editor: You can edit and manage Google Sheets on any device and from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an internet connection. Both desktop and mobile devices support it. Though it would be relatively hard to manage a Google Sheets calendar using a mobile device, we will discuss a few templates in the upcoming section of this article that are specifically designed for mobile users.
Extensive formatting: Google Sheets calendars can be tailored to your specific requirements without any limitations. You can adjust colors and add logos and other branding elements to make it more personal. Additionally, you can highlight specific dates that satisfy the given criteria. It offers tens of powerful functions to analyze and organize dates.

Apart from the above, Google Sheets Calendar offers seamless task tracking and management capabilities.

Top 5 Social Media Content Calendar created using Google Sheets

Note that there are tens of calendar templates available online to plan and manage editorial content in Google Sheets.

However, not all of them are useful, and most will not meet your specific needs.

To make your life easier, our team of experts has tried a huge number of editorial calendar templates to manage and publish social media posts and blog posts.

Here are our top 5 picks for Social Media Content Marketing Calendar.

1. Basic Social Media Calendar by SoftwareAccountant

Click Here To Use The Template!

This professional Social Media Content Marketing Calendar Template by SoftwareAccountant is easy to use for beginners.

You can use this template to schedule and track posts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest.

You need to start by selecting the start day of the week and month.

It allows you to add your brand logo to make it more personal. Moreover, you can customize it as per your choice by adding rows and social media channels. It contains a table that can be used to add the post topic, content, image links, video links,

It can be shared with your colleagues and clients for collaboration. Click on the link to download this perfect template to improve the performance of your social media campaigns.

2. Social Media Calendar by Smartsheet

Click Here to Use the Template!

This social media tool by Smartsheet is at the top of our list for various reasons.

It contains an informative dashboard to track the performance of your social media campaigns. You can track posts per day and week, content type (text and images) per week, total posts per channel, and much more.

You can share it with any number of users, including your colleagues and clients.

It allows you to enter the post topic, content, hashtags, image links, video links, and more. It is a monthly calendar where the table is divided into weekdays. You have the option to track posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Pinterest, and more.

3. Social Media Content Calendar by HootSuite

If you like this social media template, you can get a copy by clicking the link below.

Click Here to Use the Template!

If you have any prior experience with social media management, then you may have heard about HootSuite, which offers an impressive tool for scheduling and tracking social media posts.

Here, let us discuss Google Sheets Calendar by HootSuite for managing social media posts.

It is divided into several spreadsheets that contain the instructions to use this template and allow you to add and track posts on a monthly and weekly basis.

You can track posts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and more.

All you need to do is edit the month or week start date to get started.

It is a highly customizable template where you can add more rows and columns to include more posts and social media channels as per your preference.

4. Annual Social Media Content Calendar by Smartsheet

Click Here to Use the Template!

This is another masterpiece template by Smartsheet. It mainly focuses on scheduling the posts on a yearly basis.

You can plan yearly posts and share them with your colleagues and clients for further approval. It allows you to add specific events throughout the year that will serve the topic for your posts.

It also contains a monthly calendar in a separate spreadsheet. You can add post topics, content, image links, video links, hashtags, call-to-actions, and much more. Additionally, if your social media team is huge, then make sure to add the specific authors to the post.

Note that the second spreadsheet to manage monthly posts has links at the top to jump to the particular month of the year. Refer to the following image.

5. Monthly Social Media Calendar by HubSpot

Click Here to Use the Template!

In contrast to the previous social media calendars, HubSpot’s calendar is pretty straightforward to use.

HubSpot Monthly Social Media Content Calendar is divided into several spreadsheets for managing posts monthly and based on channels.

The monthly calendar is intuitive. You can add main events or topics for your social media posts. It also uses a predefined color code to make your life easier.

You will find a separate spreadsheet for each social media channel, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Each spreadsheet contains a table divided into the weekdays.

It allows you to add date, time, topic, message, image links, and campaign type for your social media posts.

Moreover, the example content and links will help you quickly learn this template.

How to create a Social Media Content Marketing Calendar in Google Sheets

Let’s learn to create a calendar in Google Sheets. We will recreate a Social Media Calendar as below.

STEP #1 – Create the header for the Title

This is the top section of our calendar, where we will put our brand details along with the main header.

Open a new Google Sheet by clicking here
Select the first row and increase its width as shown below
Change the background color of the first row to light gray (Hex Code – #f3f3f3)
Click on the cell “A1”
Hover to the main menu and click on “Insert” tab
Choose “Image” from the popup
Next, click on the “Insert image over cells” option
A new dialog box will open. Click on the “Browse” button and upload your brand logo
Resize the logo to fit the width of the first row
Select the cell “F1”
Type “Social Media Calendar 2023”
Change the font color to dark gray (Hex Code – #44546a)
Increase the font size to 26
Change the font alignment to the middle

After following the steps above, our calendar header should look like below,

STEP #2 – Create a monthly mini-calendar for January

Let us create a mini calendar for January 2023 that sits at the left corner of the screen.

Select the cells from A2 to G2
Hover to the toolbar section and click on the “Merge cells” icon
Type the date “1/1/2023”
Hover to the main menu and click on the “Format” tab
Select the “Number” from the popup
Click on “Custom date and time”
A new popup will be displayed as shown below,
Click on the Editor section and delete all the entries using the “Delete” button on your keyboard
Click on the Dropdown icon as shown below,
Select the “Month” option from the popup
A “Month (8)” button will be inserted in the Editor section of the Custom date and time popup
Click on it and select the “Month as full name (August)” option from the popup
Press the “Apply” button at the top
Now, let’s change the merged cells background color to dark orange (Hex Code – #eb6101)
Change the font color to white
Increase the font size to 12
Click on the cell “A3”
Type “S” which will serve as the abbreviation for Sunday
Next, for the remaining weekdays, type the abbreviations displayed below
Select all the cells from A3 to G3
Change the cell background color to light yellow (Hex Code – #ffe599)
Make the font bold
Change the text alignment to the middle
Put the first date for the January month in the cell “A4” as “1”

(Note that our first day for the January month starts on Sunday.)
Complete the mini-monthly calendar as shown below
Finally, after following the steps above, make sure to reduce the width of the columns from A to G as shown below

STEP #3 – Add a Separator

As shown in the following image, our calendar consists of two main sections. The first one is a mini calendar, and the second one is a table holding the post details.

You will notice that both of these sections are separated using a thick line with dark gray color.

Select the column H and reduce its size to almost 15% of its original size. Then, change the background color to dark gray (Hex Code – #999999).

STEP #4 – Create a Table

This is the main section of our social media calendar. It holds all the details of our future posts.

We will start with the table header.

Click on the cell “I2”
Type “Day”
Then, select the cell “J2” and type “Date”
Repeat the above steps and complete the header as shown below

(Note that our header contains Day, Date, Time, Topic, Content, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Image Link, Video Link, Hashtags, and Notes)
Select the entire header and change the cell background color to green (Hex Code – #00ac47)
Change the font color to white
Change the text alignment to the middle
Increase the font size to 12

The header for our table will look like below,

Now, let us create the week’s title.

Select all the cells below the table header
Hover to the main menu and click on “Merge cells” icon
Type “Week 1”
Change the merged cell background color to light green (Hex Code – #d9ead3)
Change the font alignment to the middle
Make the font bold

Next, we will fill in the weekdays and dates. Also, insert the checkbox for each social media channel, which will represent the post-publishing status.

First, we will insert the date by clicking on the cell “J4”
Put the formula “=A2”
Now, click on the cell “J5”
Put the formula “=J4+1”
Repeat the previous step and enter the formulas as shown in the following image
After entering the formulas, if you need to change the date format
Select all the cells from J4 to J10, then hover to the main menu and click on the “Format” tab
Select the “Number” from the popup
Click on “Date”
Next, click on the cell “I4”
Put the formula “=J4”
Click on the cell “I5”
Put the formula “=J5”
Repeat the previous step and enter the formulas as shown below,
Now, one more time, we need to change the date formatting for Day column
Select all the cells from I4 to I10, then hover to the main menu and click on the “Format” tab
Choose the “Number” option
Select the option, “Custom date and time”
A new popup will be displayed as shown below,
Click on the Editor section and delete all the entries using the “Delete” button on your keyboard
Click on the Dropdown icon as shown below,
Select the “Day” option from the popup
A “Month (8)” button will be inserted in the Editor section of the Custom date and time popup
Click on it and select the “Day as full name (Tuesday)” option from the popup
Press the “Apply” button at the top
Now, let’s create the checkboxes for Facebook. As we can see, Facebook is in the column “N”. You need to select the cell “N4”
Hover to the main menu and click on “Insert” tab
Select the “Checkbox” option from the popup
Use the Fill Handle to insert seven boxes for Facebook for the first week, as shown below. Hover to the lower-rightmost corner of the cell N4 until you see the “+” icon. Then, click on it and drag till the cell N10.
Next, insert the checkboxes for the remaining social media channels by following steps 11 to 13