Social media is a game-changer for businesses, but without a clear plan, it’s easy to get lost in the noise.
Enter your social media plan.
A social media plan outlines your goals, content strategy, and how to engage with your audience, ensuring every post works toward achieving your business objectives.
In this guide, we'll show you how to create a plan that saves you time, maximises engagement, and delivers real results.
A social media plan is your roadmap for showing up online with purpose. It gives you structure and outlines what you’ll post, where you’ll post it, and why.
A good social media plan usually includes:
Having a clear plan gives your efforts direction. It helps you focus on what matters instead of chasing likes or scrambling for last-minute content. More importantly, it ties your social activity back to your actual business goals—whether that’s growing your audience, driving traffic to your website, or boosting sales.
Here’s why a social media plan isn’t just nice to have, but essential:
On the flip side, winging it without a plan often leads to inconsistent messaging, wasted time, and missed opportunities. You might post too often, not enough, or on the wrong platforms altogether. And without clear goals or metrics, it’s hard to know if your efforts are even making a difference. In the end, guesswork rarely leads to growth.
Before you dive into content ideas or platforms, start with the big picture: What do you actually want to achieve on social media? Your goals should guide everything you do—from the kind of content you create to how you measure success.
Think about how social media fits into your wider business or marketing objectives. Are you trying to:
Once your goals are clear, define the KPIs (key performance indicators) that will help you track progress. These are the numbers that tell you if your strategy is working. For example:
✅If your goal is awareness, track metrics like reach, impressions, or follower growth.
✅If it’s engagement, focus on likes, comments, shares, and saves.
✅For sales or leads, look at click-through rates, conversions, or sign-ups from social media.
You can create the best content in the world. But if it’s not speaking to the right people, it won’t get you very far.
Understanding your audience is key to creating content that connects, converts, and keeps people coming back. This means going beyond basic demographics and getting to know what makes your audience tick.
Start by asking:
This step is crucial because different audiences hang out on different platforms and engage with content in various ways. A Gen Z audience might love TikTok and memes, while B2B decision-makers prefer insightful LinkedIn posts or YouTube videos.
Not every social media platform is right for every business—and that’s totally okay. The key is to focus your energy where it counts. It’s better to show up consistently on one or two platforms than to spread yourself thin trying to be everywhere at once.
Start by looking at where your audience is already spending their time and what kind of content performs well there.
Also, consider the types of content you enjoy creating and can commit to consistently. Some platforms favour short-form video, while others work best with images, articles, or conversations.
Here are a few tips to help you choose the right platform(s):
Once you’ve picked your platforms, decide which content formats you'll focus on, like videos, graphics, carousels, stories, or live streams. Think about what your audience enjoys and what you can realistically maintain.
Once you know your goals, audience, and platforms, it’s time to get organised. That’s where a social media content calendar comes in.
A content calendar is simply a plan for what you’ll post and when. It helps you stay consistent, avoid last-minute stress, and keep your messaging aligned across all platforms. No more scrambling to come up with ideas or forgetting to post for days at a time!
Start by mapping out:
💡Key dates. Think holidays, seasonal events, product launches, or industry milestones.
💡Content themes. For example, tips on Mondays, behind-the-scenes on Wednesdays, and customer stories on Fridays.
💡Formats. Mix it up with videos, images, carousels, Reels, Stories, or polls—whatever suits your strategy and audience.
💡Captions and hashtags. Plan your messaging so your posts stay on-brand and purposeful.
You don’t need fancy tools to start. Google Sheets works just fine. Then just upload your content to tools like Sendible, which has a post scheduler, a content management tool to help with planning, and a Smart Queues feature that identifies evergreen content you can repurpose forever.
And remember: your calendar isn’t set in stone. Keep it flexible so you can respond to trends, real-time events, or spontaneous ideas when they pop up.
Creating and sharing content is only half the job. If you want your social media plan to actually work, you need to track your results. That’s where reporting comes in.
Setting up regular reporting helps you understand what’s performing well, what’s falling flat, and where you can tweak your strategy for better outcomes. Without it, you're basically flying blind.
Start by revisiting the goals and KPIs you set back in Step 1. Then choose a few key metrics to monitor on a regular basis—weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, depending on how active you are. These might include:
✅Follower growth
✅Engagement rate (likes, comments, shares, saves)
✅Reach and impressions
✅Click-through rates
✅Website traffic from social
✅Leads or conversions from specific posts or campaigns
Most platforms have built-in analytics tools, like Instagram Insights, LinkedIn Analytics, and Facebook Business Suite. You can also use third-party tools like Sendible to set up personalised reporting.
Keep your reports actionable and straightforward. Look for patterns—what content formats get the most engagement? What topics spark conversation? What times or days work best for your audience?
And don’t forget: the goal isn’t just to gather data, but to use it. Regular reporting helps you make smarter decisions, optimise your content, and ultimately get more value out of your social media efforts.
Creating a social media plan is just the start. Keeping it effective means staying flexible and regularly refining your approach.
A social media plan should include:
I recommend planning social media content at least 1-2 weeks in advance to ensure consistency and avoid last-minute stress. For larger campaigns or seasonal content, planning 1-3 months ahead gives you ample time to fine-tune and stay organised.
Flexibility is key, though. Leave room for spontaneous posts and adjustments based on real-time events or trends.
A social media strategy is the overall approach to achieving your business goals through social media, outlining your long-term vision, target audience, and key objectives.
A social media plan is a detailed, actionable roadmap that outlines the specific steps, content, and schedule you’ll follow to execute that strategy.
Essentially, the strategy is the "what" and "why," while the plan is the "how" and "when."
A well-crafted social media plan is essential for driving meaningful results and staying organised in the fast-paced world of social media.
By following these tips, you’ll be able to create a strategy that works for your business and delivers long-term success.
And to make things better, you can use Sendible to visually plan your content, label with campaigns (or content pillars) to track performance, access data in one click, and automate your reporting.