As a social media manager, you already know how crucial it is to have a social media content calendar at your disposal. Not only does it serve as a place where you can organize your posts for the weeks or even months ahead, but it also helps you streamline information for easier and faster posting.
But how do you create a social media calendar in Google Sheets and keep it organized? In this article, we will guide you step by step on setting up your social media calendar in Google Sheets and provide you with some tips to keep things in order.
So let’s get started! Open Google Sheets and get ready to create your first content calendar.
What is Google Sheets?
For those who don’t know, Google Sheets is an easy-to-use spreadsheet creation software, similar to Microsoft Excel. When you open a blank sheet, you’ll see rows and columns where you can fill in your own information and label specific fields.
Due to its versatility, Google Sheets is used by millions of individuals and businesses for tasks such as creating lists, accounting, and client management. But you’re going to use it for a social media content calendar.
Why Create a Social Media Calendar in Google Sheets?
Google Sheets is an excellent choice for a social media calendar because of its versatility. By using specific commands and formulas, you can ask it to do almost anything. For example, you can automatically clean values with the CLEAN and TRIM commands and perform quick calculations for various fields.
However, the most useful part of Google Sheets for you will be the ability to use Google Sheets formulas to set up and prepare your calendar to be functional.
How to Create a Social Media Calendar in Google Sheets
Step 1: Open a New Spreadsheet and Designate a Month
Depending on when you’re reading this article, the starting month will change. You may want to start with the current month or plan ahead when you’ll be launching your social media in a few months. Determine the nearest date you’ll be posting on social media and use that month as your starting point. For this example, let’s start with May.
Now, begin by typing your month in the first cell of the top row in the format “Month YYYY”. By doing this, you’re indicating to Google Sheets that you’ll be working with dates, and it will better understand the commands we’ll give you later.
Step 2: Start Formatting
To begin formatting, you’ll want to select the first cell you typed and the number of columns you need. For an exact format like ours, you’ll use a total of eleven boxes. Once you’re done, you should have cells A1-L1 selected. Next, click on “Merge”.
Step 3: Fill in Your Necessary Columns
Once your month is set up, and the cells have been merged, you’ll go to row 2 and type in the cells you’ll need to organize your social media content calendar. Make sure to leave the first cell empty, or simply put “Day”.
Before you begin, add the design elements you want and easily configure your cells by highlighting them and selecting the font size, style, and color before you start typing.
We also recommend adjusting the font size of your month to be centered and easier to read.
Step 4: Stretch the Columns and Merge a New Row
Now that you’ve completed that, you’ll notice that your columns aren’t wide enough to accommodate substantial text. Change that. Go into each of your columns in row 2 and stretch them to fit your needs.
Next, we need to create space to designate each week. Add the text “Week 1” in the first cell of row 3. Then, highlight the remaining cells in that row and merge them as you did in step 2.
After formatting it similarly to your month cell, it should look like this:
Step 5: Add the Days of the Week
Now you’re ready to add your days of the week! Start with the first cell in row 4 and type in your first day. We’ll use Monday. Then, go to each subsequent row and add the remaining days.
Once you’ve completed that, add the dates to the “Date” column. Then, highlight rows 4 to 10 and stretch them to the desired height!
Step 6: Restyle If Desired
My favorite part of creating a content calendar is always the design elements! Not only can you use them to make everything more organized, but a consistent design really brings everything together.
Once I’m done setting up my first week, I usually do the following:
- Gray out every other row to make the visual aspect more appealing.
- Bold the day numbers.
- Replace the names of social media with their respective symbols.
- Gray out the row below Sunday.
Step 7: Copy for Weeks 2 to 4
Now that the first week is completed, you’re probably wondering where the other weeks are. “Am I going to have to repeat this process for each of them?” you ask.
“No!” I answer, “I would never ask you to do that!” Instead, I’ll show you an easier way.
Simply highlight the spreadsheet from the row titled “Week 1” down to the row below Sunday. Then, right-click and select “copy”. Go to the row below your Sunday cell (for me, it’s row 13) and paste! You’ll need to resize your rows vertically, replace the dates, and change “Week 1” to “Week 2”, but it’s much easier than reformatting the entire sheet.
Conclusion
Creating your own content calendar in Google Sheets is not as difficult as most people think. However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t require work!
If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, ready-to-go content calendar, ContentCory can help. Check out our recent blog article on the best free content calendar templates or take a look at our content calendar software!
With ContentCory, you can quickly create a simple and elegant content calendar.
And we can’t wait to see you do it!
For more tips and advice on Google Sheets and other tools, visit Crawlan.com.
Article inspired by bolamarketing.com
