How to plan a LinkedIn content calendar for a month

A LinkedIn content calendar is a plan that says which kind of post goes out on which day, and what it is about. To build one for a month, pick four themes, give each posting day a job, write the posts in one weekly session, and keep two weeks of finished posts ahead of today. The rest of this guide goes through each step and what to do when the plan meets real life.

The point of a calendar is to remove the Monday morning decision. When you know Tuesday is a receipt about pricing, you spend the time finding the number instead of staring at a blank draft.

Start with four themes

Themes are the subjects you are allowed to post about. Four is enough to keep a feed varied and few enough that a reader can say what you are known for. A fractional finance lead might pick cash forecasting, first funding rounds, pricing and its effect on cash, and finance tools for founders. Write each as one line and keep the list where you plan.

Give each weekday a job

A slot is a day plus a kind of post. Kinds give each day a shape before you know the topic. Here is a five day pattern for someone posting every weekday:

• Monday: framework. A method with named steps, from something you have done more than once.
• Tuesday: receipt. One number from your own business and what caused it.
• Wednesday: data. One public figure, named source, what it means for your reader.
• Thursday: framework or receipt, whichever you have material for.
• Friday: finding. Something you found out this week that surprised you.

If you post three times a week, keep Monday, Wednesday and Friday and rotate the kinds between weeks. Fewer slots you keep beats more slots you skip.

What a month looks like on paper

Put the themes down the side and the weeks across the top, then rotate so no theme takes two slots in a row. For a three post week and four themes, a month reads like this:

• Week 1: Monday, framework on cash forecasting. Wednesday, data on funding rounds. Friday, finding on pricing.
• Week 2: Monday, receipt on finance tools. Wednesday, framework on pricing. Friday, finding on cash forecasting.
• Week 3: Monday, framework on funding rounds. Wednesday, receipt on cash forecasting. Friday, data on finance tools.
• Week 4: Monday, receipt on pricing. Wednesday, framework on finance tools. Friday, finding on funding rounds.

Each theme gets three posts a month, each in a different shape. That is the whole calendar. A spreadsheet with four rows and twelve cells does the job; a dedicated tool is optional.

Batch the writing once a week

1. Block the same 90 minutes every week. Friday afternoon works for many people, because the week's material is still fresh.
2. Read your running note of ideas from the week and match each one to an open slot.
3. Collect any number or source a post needs before you start writing it.
4. Draft all the week's posts in one sitting.
5. Read them again the next morning, cut the weakest lines, and schedule them.

Writing in a batch is faster than writing daily, because you only have to get into the right frame of mind once. It also means a busy Tuesday does not cost you Tuesday's post.

How far ahead to plan

Keep two weeks of finished posts scheduled ahead of today, and a rough plan for the two weeks after that. Two weeks absorbs a sick week or a client deadline without a gap in the feed. Planning further than a month in detail tends to go stale, because the best material comes from what happens during the month.

• Under three days of posts ready: write today, before anything else slips.
• Two weeks ready: the normal state. Batch once a week to stay there.
• More than four weeks ready: fine, but read the oldest posts again before they go out. Some will have aged.

What to do when news breaks

A calendar is a default. When something big happens in your industry, or in the world, look at what is scheduled for the next few days.

1. Read the next three scheduled posts as if you were a stranger reading them today. If any would sound careless next to the news, pull it and move it to a later week.
2. If the news touches one of your themes and you have something specific to add, write it and put it in the next slot. The planned post moves back a day.
3. If you have nothing specific to add, do not post about it. A general reaction adds nothing to a feed full of them.
4. Once the week is over, go back to the plan.

Check the month against what you posted before

Before you fill a new month, look at what you posted in the last few. If one theme has had twice the posts of the others, or you keep returning to the same example, balance it in the new plan. LinkedIn does not let apps read your post history, but you can download it yourself: Settings, Data privacy, Get a copy of your data. Your posts are in a file called Shares.csv, with the date and the text of each one.

How GoodSocials handles this

GoodSocials has a calendar view of the board. Set a cadence from one to seven posts a week, and every post goes out at 09:00 in your timezone, one per day per profile. Drag a ready card onto a day to schedule it, or drag a scheduled post back to the rail to take it out of the queue when news changes the week. When fewer than three days of posts are scheduled, the board warns you and the agent writes more ideas.

If you import your Shares.csv, your past posts appear on the same calendar as background, so you can see what you covered before GoodSocials without any of it being posted again.