The most popular reason people want to plan their social media using a calendar view is to streamline their social media strategy by using a scheduling tool like Hopper HQ.

Hopper HQ allows you to create and plan your posts in advance, so that whilst you work, sleep, eat and play, Hopper HQ will be publishing your flawless content automatically ✨

One of the main benefits of scheduling content in advance is that it saves time, so you can get back to creating new content and engaging with your followers to build brand loyalty.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how you can use the Calendar view to plan your content weeks, months and even years in advance!

We’ve already mentioned the time you’ll save by planning your feed content ahead of time, so that you can focus your efforts on building relationships with your followers and creating more, engaging posts. But by scheduling your feed content in advance, you’ll also be able to engage with your audience more authentically by sharing ‘behind-the-scenes’ content using Stories and Reels.

Not only that, you can bid farewell to relying on stock images to make sure you’re not missing an important social media holiday or event. Having an overview of your content for the next month, quarter or year will give you plenty of time to create content that perfectly reflects your brand and allow you to take advantage of these opportunities to reach an even wider audience.

As Instagram’s algorithm is no longer set to display content chronologically, publishing content when your followers are most engaged and consistently (we recommend daily) is essential to ensure that your content is being seen by your audience, as well as increase the likelihood of your posts being featured on the Explore page - a great way to reach new followers.

Here’s how to use your Calendar view to keep track of your scheduled content and make sure you’re posting regularly…

When interviewing marketers for our 'Top Social Media Marketing Tips' article, the importance of planning ahead and committing to your content calendar came up repeatedly.

According to Cory Herring, senior social media manager at Giant Noise, “nothing is worse than visiting a business’ social channels and seeing that they aren’t committed to posting regularly or promoting themselves.” Inactivity on social media can create a ‘red flag’ in the mind of your customers, so it’s essential you’re posting regularly.

To avoid falling into this trap, follow these steps to plan your content monthly…

What if your strategy requires you to publish multiple times daily? Follow these steps to make sure your content is staggered each week…

Depending on your team’s structure, you may want to set certain teammates up with Drafting permissions, so they can create posts ready for an account manager (or Admin) to approve.

→ Find out more about post approvals

Automating your scheduled dates and times

Looking to speed up the scheduling process and don’t want to have to manually input your best times to post?

You can preset your scheduled times by day in your Time Settings. These times will then be automatically suggested to you when you create a new post, or can be used by pressing the ‘Use My Post Schedule Time’ underneath your current post time.

Find out more about presetting your posting schedule and our free best time to post feature here, or let our support team know if you have any questions.

When we spoke to Vicky Hockley, an account manager at Digirank, she highlighted the importance of repurposing content:

“So much time is dedicated to creating engaging, search-driven blog content. Give older content a new lease of life by reframing the piece for social and pushing it out on your social accounts multiple times. This gives you lots of great content to post but also builds exposure as more of your target audience see it.”

Repurposing Instagram content from your calendar view couldn’t be easier, simply select the publishing post you wish to reschedule - it’ll look like this:

Make sure you refresh your caption to ensure it is relevant to your audience and give your first comment a bit of TLC by adding new hashtags, as these will help you to reach a wider audience. When you’re happy with the new post, hit the ✓ Create New Post button to save.

Remember: You can drag and drop content around your monthly and weekly view(s) to reorganise your content to factor in any ad-hoc changes.