How do you build a social media content plan?

The common problem with corporate accounts isn’t a lack of content, it’s irregularity. One month brings a burst of posts, then the account goes quiet for weeks. A monthly content plan breaks this cycle: it gathers the goal, topics, formats and publishing dates in one document and ties shooting, design and approval to the calendar in advance.

1. Write the account’s goal in one sentence

The plan starts with why the account exists. Finding new customers, informing a dealer network, recruiting or maintaining relationships with existing customers each call for different content. Writing the goal in one sentence makes every later decision easier. Example goals:

• “Showing buyers abroad our production capacity”
• “Introducing our facility to technical job applicants in the region”
• “Keeping our dealers informed about new products and campaigns”

If there is more than one goal, they are ranked. The metric to track for each goal is also chosen at this stage; the end-of-month review is based on these metrics.

2. Define your content pillars

Content pillars are the main topics an account talks about regularly. For corporate accounts, four pillars are often enough:

• Work and product: shots from production, completed projects, places where the product is used
• Team and culture: employees, training and day-to-day work inside the facility
• Information: short answers to customers’ frequent questions and technical explanations
• Announcements: trade-fair participation, new products, certificates and press coverage

The weight of each pillar during the month changes with the goal. For an account with a recruitment goal, the team and culture pillar comes forward; for an account with an export goal, the work and product and information pillars gain weight.

3. Choose a posting rhythm you can keep up

Posting frequency depends on the account’s goal and how much content can be produced regularly. Keeping up a few posts a week for months is worth more than starting strong in the first month and then stopping. When setting the pace, these questions are answered:

• How much footage and how many topics can be produced each month, and for how many posts?
• Who will write the copy, and who will do the designs?
• Who in the company will approve posts, and how long will approval take?

If the chosen pace can be kept up without a hitch for two months, increasing the number of posts can be considered.

4. Produce a month of content in one shooting day

Shooting separately for every post is inefficient in both time and budget. With one shoot day a month, photos, short videos, interviews and team footage are all captured on the same day, and content is drawn from that archive throughout the month.

Before the shoot day, that month’s content list is prepared. For each post it states the footage needed, where it will be shot and who will appear in it. That way the crew knows what to shoot on site and employees are informed in advance. Shooting both vertical and horizontal on the same day makes adapting to different platforms easier.

Unplanned opportunities on the shoot day are taken too: a new machine being commissioned, a shipment being loaded or a training session. This footage goes into the archive and is used in later months’ plans.

5. Adapt content to each platform

The same topic is told differently on each platform. Putting content everywhere with the same text and format lowers reach and engagement.

• LinkedIn: sector information, trade-fair and project announcements, recruitment; longer, more explanatory text
• Instagram: visual posts, short vertical videos, team and production footage
• Facebook: local announcements, events and community communication
• YouTube: promotional films, product explainers and long interviews

Each platform expects different dimensions and lengths. If square, vertical and horizontal versions are prepared together during design and editing, adapting them doesn’t add extra work.

6. Measure and review at the end of the month

The plan is completed with an end-of-month review. Metrics tied to the goal are chosen and tracked the same way every month:

• Reach and impressions: how many people the content reached
• Profile visits and clicks to the website
• Enquiries arriving by form, email or WhatsApp
• Applications received, if there’s a recruitment goal

Once it’s clear which pillars and formats contribute most to the goal, their share is increased in the following month’s plan. Follower count alone shouldn’t be used as a measure of success; metrics tied directly to the goal give a more accurate picture.

Which fields should the content plan document have?

The plan lets the team and the approvers work from the same document. A simple spreadsheet or shared calendar is enough; what matters is that the same information is written for every post:

• Publishing date and time
• Content pillar and topic
• Format: photo, carousel, short video or text
• Platforms and dimensions for each
• Post copy and text on the image
• The footage needed and its place on the shoot day
• Approval status and approver

Once these fields are filled in, the plan stops being just a list of ideas and becomes a working document used to track daily work. The end-of-month review is noted in the same document.

Example monthly plan: an industrial company

The example below was prepared for a manufacturer whose goals are to show capacity to buyers abroad and to find technical staff. It is based on two posts a week.

All the footage in this plan can be produced in a single shooting day. At the end of the month, the posts that brought profile visits and enquiries are reviewed, and the next month’s plan is adjusted accordingly.

Don’t: habits that weaken a content plan

• Pushing a sales message in every post: viewers expect information and footage, and constant sales talk erodes interest.
• Setting an unsustainably busy calendar: the plan slips in the second month and the account goes quiet again.
• Not defining the approval process: posts without a clear owner miss their publishing date.
• Changing content types without measuring: this decision should be made based on end-of-month data.
• Posting the same content unchanged on every platform: each platform has its own language and format.
• Leaving comments and messages unanswered: a user asking a question may be a potential customer or job applicant.

If you’d like one team to run your monthly content plan, shoot day and reporting, see the scope of the service on our social media management page.