The social calendar
Last month's report decides next month's plan, which is the only honest answer to the question of what to post.
The short version
Is this for you? For the calendar built on guesswork and the post that exists because it is Tuesday. Here last month's report writes next month's plan, so the first plan is deliberately the least confident one you will get, and every one after it is better fed.
What leaves your plate. The plan built from the previous month's numbers rather than a date, a form that repeats while the subject changes, an idea bank kept deeper than the grid, and nothing sent to design before the facts behind it are confirmed.
What starts working. A month of content you can defend line by line, an idea bank deep enough to survive a bad week, and a plan whose reasoning is visible to everyone who has to sign it off.
The smallest way in. A free audit: three fields, and a written reading back, usually within about three working days. It commits you to nothing.
What to read next. The five levels to see where this fits, or the casework to see it done.
Where a content plan stops being a spreadsheet of dates
Planning the video channel's own content system, the formula behind the uploads and everything each one carries, is content systems and planning on the strategy line; this page is the social feed specifically, the running order across the platforms your presence posts to.
Last month's report writes it
Nothing gets scheduled because it happens to be Tuesday. The plan begins with the previous month's reporting: what was actually watched, what was saved, what earned a comment and what earned a scroll, and which cover image did the work. Planning without that is guessing with a design budget attached. It also means the first plan of a partnership is deliberately the least confident one, and everybody is told so at the time.
A shape that repeats, and a subject that changes
Formulas beat one-off ideas because an audience can learn them. Same form, same day, same hour, different topic: that is how a feed turns into an appointment. Inside a formula there is room to be strange, and a post that fails costs a slot and the strategy is untouched. The alternative, chasing whatever worked for somebody else last week, produces an account with no memory of itself.
Ideas are banked deeper than the plan
More gets written than the month needs, on purpose. Stock changes, a shoot slips, a topic becomes tasteless overnight, and none of that should leave a hole in the grid. Every idea carries the product or subject it points at, the reference that inspired it and the strategic reason it exists. The ones that ship get ticked, and the ones that are killed keep a note saying why.
Nothing goes into design before the facts are confirmed
Ideas get checked with the brand before anyone opens a design file: whether that model suits that use, whether the stock exists, whether a claim is one the brand can stand behind. It is a short message and it saves a week. The people who make the product know things about it that no brief has ever managed to contain.
How a month's grid gets filled
What a plan actually contains
Each item filed in its category with the strategic purpose written above it, the format it will take, the cover design where the format has one, and its position in the running order. The plan is presented on a call and never emailed, so the reasoning travels with it.
How the order is decided
No two of the same content type back to back, and a sequence arranged for the way attention builds across a week, which is rarely the order that suits whoever is producing it. Headlines on consecutive posts avoid reusing each other's words, so a scroll does not read as one post duplicated, unless the repetition is a deliberate series device the audience is meant to recognise.
A calendar answers when, a plan has to answer why, and the answer comes from last month's numbers rather than from this month's mood.
The first plan is the weakest, because nothing sits behind it yet, and every one after it is better fed.
What changes for you
A month of content that can be defended line by line, an idea bank deep enough to survive a bad week, and a plan whose reasoning is visible to everyone who has to approve it.
Related: Social media management · Social reporting · Multi-platform publishing · Community management · Content systems and planning
The audit reads the feed as a system: formats, cadence and how much of each filming day the channel actually uses. What we would change comes back in writing.
Request your free audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back: a fit snapshot, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step.
A person reads the channel and writes the audit by hand: a considered read typically takes three working days. That is the usual shape, not a promised turnaround. We use these details only to reply to you: no lists, no lurking.
What you will get
A fit snapshot: where your channel stands, and whether we are a match.
Two to three opportunities: specific, prioritised, yours to keep.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
The audit is free and commits you to nothing: nobody follows up with a call you did not ask for.
The casework shows all of this done.
The case studies are the same work with the numbers, the sources and the dates attached.
See the casework →