There is no shortage of content planners on the internet. There are calendars, there are lists of “30 things to post this month”, there are even templates telling you to post a Reel on Monday, a quote on Tuesday and a behind-the-scenes photo on Wednesday. Yet plenty of small business owners still sit there thinking: What am I actually supposed to say?
I really wanted to fix this because content planning is not really about filling boxes in a calendar; it starts much earlier than that.
You need to know what your business should be talking about, and you need to know who you are talking to. You need to know where those people are, and you need to decide how you want your business to sound. Only then does it make sense to start deciding what you are going to post.
That is why I created a practical content system for small businesses: The Actually Useful Content Planner.
Start with the foundations
The planner begins by helping you understand the difference between content pillars and content themes.
Your pillars are the bigger subjects your brand is known for, while your themes are the smaller topics that sit underneath them and give you actual things to talk about. Once you understand that distinction, content suddenly becomes much easier to plan because you are no longer inventing random posts from scratch every day.
Choose the right platforms
You do not need to be everywhere at once. But you do need clarity on exactly where your customers are.
The planner includes a simple guide to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube and email, with space to work out which channels make the most sense for your business, which means you can stop trying to maintain six platforms just because somebody told you that you should.
Work out how you want to sound
One of the biggest problems I see with small-business content is that it often stops sounding like the actual business. Suddenly perfectly normal people start writing things like:
“We are delighted to announce…”
when they would never say that out loud. So the planner includes a simple tone-of-voice exercise to help you decide how you want your business to come across and, just as importantly, how you do not want it to sound. Actually Useful Content Planner…
Pick the right format
Not every idea needs to be a Reel; sometimes a single image is enough. Other times, a carousel makes more sense. Then there are moments which lend themselves perfectly to a Story, while other times you will want to write something with more purpose, such as an email or a longer article.
The planner includes a quick guide to different content formats and what they are useful for, along with practical tools and image sizes to make creating them easier.
Stop reinventing the wheel
One of my favourite pages is One Idea, Five Formats, because one good idea does not need to disappear after one post. A useful idea can become a social post, a carousel, a short video, an email and a blog or LinkedIn article. That means less pressure to constantly come up with something new, and a lot more value from the ideas you already have.
Make the post actually do something
The planner also includes a very simple structure for writing social posts:
Hook
Problem or context
Solution or value
How to buy or where to go
Call to action
Hashtags and keywords
Because content should not just sit there looking pretty, it should help somebody understand something, trust you, enquire, click, book or buy.
Plan, then pay attention
There is a monthly calendar.
There is a weekly planner.
There are 30 content prompts.
There is an ideas bank.
And at the end, there is a review section to help you think about what actually generated useful engagement, enquiries, bookings or sales. Likes are lovely, but they are not the whole point.
Keep it simple
That is really my philosophy behind the whole thing.
You do not need to be everywhere.
You do not need to post every day.
You do not need to create something brand new every time you open Instagram.
You DO need to understand your audience, create useful content and pay attention to what works and then do a whole load more of that.
The Actually Useful Content Planner is available now as an instant digital download for £5.
Buy it, download it and make your content planning a whole lot easier.
Leave a Reply