Let’s face it, we all want to get our work done fast.
The key is to find a way to still produce high-quality work that meets your standards.
Because if you’re not producing good work and your only focus is to be quick, you’re even wasting that time you spend on mediocre work.
When it comes to planning social media content, you will find that it can be quite repetitive.
Chances are you’re ticking off the same tasks every week: plan content, write captions, research hashtags, create graphics, film videos, schedule content, etc.
I’ve found that this repetitiveness is actually key to helping you plan and execute your content quicker.
The repetitiveness of the tasks allows you to optimize your workflow and really narrow down the tasks to be more time-efficient.
How to optimize your content planning workflow
There are a few steps I like to take to ensure I’m planning great content while working time-efficient.
Have a straight-forward social media calendar
This is one of the most underrated tips in my opinion.
A good social media calendar truly is the foundation of your content planning, and setting it up in a way that makes sense for you will save you a lot of time later down the road.
I’ve tried a lot of different methods over the years, but I keep coming back to Google Sheets for its simplicity and versatility.
A lot of social media calendars have tons of options and features and (in my opinion) only clutter your calendar and take extra time to tend to every month/week.
The perfect social media calendar setup is a simple spreadsheet including dates, graphics or video screenshots, captions including hashtags, and a link to your graphic/video.
On a separate sheet, I like to have a “content brain dump” where I save any and all ideas for new content that comes to mind. This is essential, we’ll come back to this later!
In my opinion, a simple, straightforward social media calendar lets you focus with few distractions, meaning you can get your work done efficiently.
If you’re interested in checking out the exact social media planner I use (and have used for clients for years), you can find it here.
Have a content brain dump
I can’t stress enough how many times my content brain dump has saved me.
There’s simply nothing worse than staring at your content calendar and struggling to come up with ideas. Once I start feeling that pressure, all creativity usually leaves my body and I can’t come up with good ideas.
And that’s what you need: good, creative content ideas.
So, my solution is to keep a running list of ideas. Sometimes I sit down with the task of researching keywords and drawing inspiration for content ideas from that research, sometimes an idea pops into my head.
No matter whether I’m intentionally generating new ideas or just letting them flow into my brain, I note them down in the content brain dump.
Depending on the complexity of a client’s niche, I sometimes like to break the content idea dump down into different categories or content pillars to keep the ideas neatly organized.
Once it’s time to sit down and actually plan out content for the month, I never have to stare at an empty calendar because I already have all my ideas noted down in one place.
Trust me, this will save you hours of unproductively scrolling social media trying to get inspired about what to post.
Be clear on your strategy
Being extremely clear on your goals for social media and having a plan in place for how to reach them is absolutely essential.
Your strategy is your road map, and if you use it as such, it will help you plan content very efficiently.
If you’re looking for guidance on how to create a social media strategy, I’ve taken a deep dive into all things strategy here.
Focus on one task at a time
When I first started working in social media, I would plan one post from start to finish, before moving on to the next. This would include coming up with a post idea, writing a caption, designing a graphic, researching hashtags, etc.
While this approach absolutely works, I quickly realized that it wasn’t the most efficient way to plan content.
I was constantly hopping around different tabs and forcing my brain to focus on one task, for example, copywriting, for a few minutes, before jumping to the next task, say, graphic design.
Essentially, I wasn’t allowing my brain the time to truly focus on one task and immerse myself in it.
I have since changed my approach and focus on one thing at a time, spread out over a few hours or even days.
Not only am I working more time-efficient this way, but I’m also producing better work because my brain gets the chance to get into the flow and focus its energy on one task at a time.
My exact formula for planning 1 month of content in 4 hours
I should probably preface this by saying that the time you spend on your content calendar will depend on a variety of factors: are you posting every day, or 3 times a week? Are you designing graphics or filming original videos? Do you favor lengthy captions with tons of information, or do you tend to keep them short?
Lots of factors go into the amount of time it will take you to plan your content and I can’t promise you it will be 4 hours. I can, however, confidently say that you will see a spike in productivity and efficiency by following this approach.
1. Distribute your content ideas for the month
Now, let’s say you have a functional social media calendar and have been collecting content ideas in your content brain dump.
The first step you take when you sit down to plan your content for a month is to take those ideas and copy/paste them into your social media calendar.
If you’ve organized your ideas by content pillars, it will be very easy to pop them into your calendar and ensure you’re posting a variety of content according to your content pillars.
2. Write captions
Now that you know the topics you’re posting about each day, it’s time to write the captions.
Depending on your niche, these can be long or short, detailed or witty.
Take your time writing captions and follow best practices for captions that actually get read. (Read up on how to write captions here.
3. Add hashtags
Next, you’ll add relevant hashtags to each caption.
Don’t skip this step as it helps the algorithm categorize your content.
I recommend using a variety of different hashtags, from niche to broad hashtags, and of course, don’t forget local hashtags if you’re trying to attract local followers.
4. Design graphics
Your captions are done and the next big step is to design your graphics. If you’re filming videos, you would do this at this time, too.
When you design your graphics, keep in mind to always stay within your branding, make text legible, and use high-quality photos.
5. Double-check your work
And just like this, you’ve planned and created content for a whole month! Wuhu! But you’re not quite done yet.
Always ensure your content is factually correct, doesn’t have misspelled words, etc. It only takes a few minutes to review your content, but it is essential to guarantee your content is good.
6. Brainstorm new content ideas
You might think you’re done now (and you’re close, I promise) but there’s one last step.
Remember how in the beginning we started on the content brain dump and were able to quickly add all our amazing ideas to the content calendar?
Well, you need to set yourself up for success for next month.
So, before you call it a day, spend some time brainstorming new content ideas and adding to your content idea dump.
7. Sit back and relax
And that concludes my guide on how I plan 1 month of content in 4 hours.
Having a fully filled-out social media calendar for the month is incredible and will help you stay on track, so I highly recommend you give this method a try!
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