We asked social media planner creators Ema Pirciu, Mike Allton, and Janet Murray some questions about how they came up with their planners and what’s been most useful about them.
Check out what other planners your fellow Social Media Pulse community members are using in this thread!
What is your planner called?
Ema Pirciu
My snazzy 90-day paper planner is called My Daily Planner for Business Growth.
Mike Allton
I have two planners available, the Social Media Planner and the Ultimate Blogging Planner.
Janet Murray
The Courageous Content Planner & Content Kit. It’s not just a physical planner; it also contains a digital training, EBook and resources for content strategy design and implementation including 1000+ fill-in-the-gaps templates for social media posts, blogs, newsletters and other essential business content. The kit also contains a digital version of a planner (for use on tablet/mobile phone).
Why is a planner a good idea for social media managers to use?
Ema Pirciu
Besides keeping us organized, planners give us insights into how we spend our working hours over time. If you finally decide to turn off notifications for half a day and evaluate your working habits, you can do it—provided that you keep honest records. When everything is documented, you start seeing some patterns.
My planner also has a dedicated section that reminds you to work on your business, not just your client’s accounts. That’s important, too.
Mike Allton
Having a plan for your social media means that you’ve given thought to what your overall strategy and goals are going to be, and put together a structured approach to achieve those goals. Planners give social media managers the outline and prompts to assemble that structure.
It’s like the instruction book for a new LEGO set: you have all the pieces and you can put random ones together if you want to, but it won’t look as good, and you’ll leave valuable pieces on the table. With an instruction book in hand, you’ll be guided through the process of building something great.
Janet Murray
A planner is essential for anyone who has to create content for a business or brand. But even more so for social media managers—who may be managing the content strategy for multiple businesses/brands.
Planning more strategically—and further ahead—makes it easier to ensure content is tied to key business objectives (which typically means better better results for the client). PLUS it makes it easier to create a content workflow that makes the most of every piece of content you create (including repurposing).
Why did you decide to make your own planner instead of using one already on the market? What makes yours unique?
Ema Pirciu
I make my planner unique. (Kidding. Or maybe not.)
I wanted the ugly truth: how much I was working on things I liked vs. things that were draining me and how often I would stop to work on my personal brand and business. I also created my planner because I love watching Reels that show beautiful planners, but I have no talent for this activity. I wanted something pretty that didn’t require daily coloring and drawing.
Mike Allton
When I first assembled my blogging planner years ago, there was virtually nothing like it available. The only blog or content planners that existed then were rudimentary and little more than formatted spreadsheets. I wanted my audience to take that structured approach to creating content—and then later a similarly structured approach to mapping out their social media strategy—and putting that into a downloadable document made a lot of sense.
In the years since, I’ve added additional sections and features to the planners, updated them with new ideas, and made them even more accessible. The blogging planner can now be purchased as a printed planner via Amazon for those who prefer to write their ideas out, and comes with a digital version for folks like who prefer to do everything on computer.
Janet Murray
While there are many “good looking” content planners on the market, they’re typically focused on planning and creating content—without seeing the bigger picture, i.e. the content strategy. But if you’re planning and publishing content that isn’t closely tied to commercial goals (either for yourself or a client), you almost certainly won’t get the results you want.
Most people can create a content plan—few manage to stick to it and/or get the results they need. I wanted to create something that actually made an impact on the bottom line of the business.
What elements were crucial for you to include in your planner, and why did you decide those elements were so important?
Ema Pirciu
The checkboxes (because I’m a Millennial and need validation), the motivational quotes (because I needed something cheesy in my life), and the weekly section dedicated to celebrating the small wins (because I deserved to do more of it).
I wanted to create a planner that would encourage me to slowly change my mindset.
Mike Allton
For both the blogging planner and the social media planner, the critical part for me was getting folks to think about their long term strategy.
It’s just not enough to publish a blog post every week or share a tweet every day—there has to be an underlying strategy that connects that content with everything you’re doing, which in turn supports actual business goals. So I created worksheets to help folks brainstorm themes and goals, and then turn those ideas into content structures for the blog and monthly content themes for social media.
As a result, my planner users spend time up front thinking about what they want to accomplish in the coming year, and are then able to map it out in a way that not only makes sense, but is achievable. If I tell you that you need to create 13 pieces of content in order to achieve the search engine ranking you want for a particular keyword in your industry, that’s likely to be an overwhelming task. But when you can see that spread out over several months, and envision how your social media, email marketing, influencer marketing and events can all collaborate to achieve that goal—now it’s doable, and exciting!
Janet Murray
Stylish design is important. If you’re going to use it for a year, it needs to look pretty (IMHO, anyway). We publish four cover designs each year—and actually get our customers to vote on their favorite design as part of our product design/marketing.
We’ve made updates on the page design, year on year (based on customer feedback)—so it’s changed quite a bit since it was first published in 2017. But having space for “big picture” planning—i.e. annual, quarterly, monthly, daily & weekly—is vital I think, as one of the reasons people struggle to stick to content plans is trying to get too detailed too soon.
Taking time to think “bigger” and further ahead is crucial for an effective content strategy. It was important to me to include a ‘‘week per view" and “month for view” section (with awareness days and key dates to help spark content ideas).
Which elements do customers frequently tell you are the most helpful?
Ema Pirciu
The undated pages. If the user takes a break from writing to-do lists and goes with the flow, they can do it without guilt. No page gets lost.
Mike Allton
The brainstorming worksheets by far have gotten the most positive feedback. Not only do they prompt planner users to come up with ideas and themes, they do so in a structured way which makes it easier.
Rather than you staring at a blank Google Doc and trying to come up with a content plan for the year, the planner has you break the year down into monthly themes and content pyramids. As you map out those months and content needs, ideas for specific blog posts and articles spring to mind easily, filling up your calendar.
Folks love the fact that by using the planner, they’re able to finish their planning session with a full 52 weeks of content ideas scheduled.
Janet Murray
People love the strategy templates, content ideas, and of course the 1000+ fill-in-the-gaps content templates for social media posts, blogs, email newsletters, and other essential business content.
Have you altered any particular elements of your planner in subsequent editions (as a result of feedback, or of using it yourself and finding something missing, or seeing a useful feature somewhere else, etc.)?
Ema Pirciu
No, but it’s on my list. A second edition with a mental health section is necessary. I’m just waiting for more feedback before making the change.
Mike Allton
I have definitely made updates and changes. Probably the most impactful was to stop customizing each monthly calendar for that month. Instead of a January 2023 calendar page that has that month’s specific dates defined, I shifted to undated month sheets, which resulted in more space. I could omit the dates and days of the week and let users write whatever they needed on each calendar. For many, the actual date for a given Monday was irrelevant—all they needed was to be able to visualize weeks and months for planning purposes.
Janet Murray
I’ve added more strategy training & resources over the years. I used to do a free online masterclass but adding the audio training/eBook that helps planner & kit owners understand the link between content strategy and commercial goals has been the game changer. Plus people love the content ideas and fill-in-the-gaps templates. Even for social media managers who use it—because they’ve typically all experienced That Client who hires them to do content then fires them because they’re “apparently” not getting results. Giving them training in content strategy helps a lot—because it gives them the confidence to tell clients that this is a must before they agree to manage their content.
Please share a story from your “planner maker/seller” journey.
Ema Pirciu
Just a fun fact: I learned how to turn my planner into a reality from another freelancer who sells planners.
Mike Allton
One of the best ideas I’d had initially for marketing and promoting my planners was to share initial copies with key influencers in the marketing space and get their feedback and endorsements. I’ve been able to use and leverage those quotes and reviews for years! That element of social proof has been critical in ensuring ongoing sales.
Janet Murray
Something I never expected to come out of publishing a content planner…is teaching other people to launch one. But I found I was being asked about it SO much…I now have a digital training and content kit on how to launch your own planner.
But the one thing I will never reveal is who prints my planner (for important reasons you can find out if you purchase the training & content kit—and it’s not ‘cos I’m a selfish meanie!).
Where can people buy your planner?
Ema Pirciu
My Daily Planner for Business Growth
Mike Allton
Social Media Planner
Ultimate Blogging Planner
Janet Murray
The Courageous Content Planner & Content Kit
Ema Pirciu
I’m a freelance content marketer and strategist. I’m also the author of a snazzy paper planner that helps me and other freelancers keep track of my work and small wins.
Mike Allton @mike.allton
Social Media Advisory Board Member
Mike is an award-winning blogger, speaker, and author at The Social Media Hat, and Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse where he strengthens relationships with influencers and brand partners.
Janet Murray
Content Strategist helping businesses and brands create engaging thought leadership content| Creator: Courageous Content Planner & Content Kits| Host: Courageous Content Podcast