How to use the social media planner effectively

Keeping track of your content across multiple platforms can get overwhelming, especially when you’re managing posts, campaigns, labels, and reminders all at once. ContentStudio’s Planner solves this by giving you a centralized, customizable calendar where you can view, manage, and organize all your scheduled, published, and draft posts in one place.

In this tutorial, we’ll take a deep dive into how the Planner works, explore its different views, filters, and features, and show you how to make the most of this powerful content calendar.

Accessing the Planner

You’ll find the Planner inside the Publisher. By default, it opens in Calendar View, which shows you a monthly layout of your scheduled posts. If you want a more detailed breakdown, you can switch to Weekly View from the toggle on the top right.

This flexibility allows you to zoom in for day-to-day planning or zoom out to see your entire content pipeline at a glance.

Different Views in the Planner

The Planner offers multiple viewing modes so you can manage your workflow in the way that suits you best:

• Feed View – Displays your posts as they would appear on the platform.
• List View – A structured list with details of each post.
• Compact List View – A condensed version of the list view, showing fewer details for a cleaner look.
• Instagram and TikTok Grids – Lets you preview how your grid will look before publishing. Draft posts can be dragged and rearranged to perfect your feed aesthetics.

This variety of views ensures that you can visualize your schedule and grid layout exactly the way you want.

Customizing Calendar Settings

In the Calendar View, a settings menu at the top right provides even more customization:

• Compact View – A bird’s-eye overview showing how many posts are scheduled per day.
• Labels – Colored tags (e.g., green for scheduled, yellow for drafts, gray for published) make it easy to identify post statuses at a glance.
• Media Thumbnails – Toggle on or off to show or hide post previews in the calendar.
• Holidays – Add holidays from specific countries, which will then appear in your calendar across weeks or months, helping you plan timely and relevant content.

These settings make it easy to balance clarity with detail depending on your needs.

Planner Notes for Reminders

Planner Notes act like reminders inside your calendar. You can create notes with a title, description, and start and end dates, similar to how Google Calendar reminders work. Notes can be set to “Only Me” for personal use or “Everyone” to make them visible to your entire team.

You can even assign colors for easy categorization and set notes to repeat weekly, monthly, or at custom intervals, ensuring recurring tasks don’t slip through the cracks. And just like posts, notes can be dragged and dropped across the calendar to adjust their timing.

Filtering and Sorting Your Posts

On the left-hand side of the Planner, you’ll find Filters that allow you to refine your view:

• Status – Filter by scheduled, draft, or published posts.
• Assigned To / Created By – See posts assigned to a specific team member.
• Labels, Campaigns, and Categories – Narrow down your calendar by campaigns or content categories.
• Accounts / Platforms – Focus only on selected accounts (e.g., see just your Instagram or LinkedIn content).

There’s also a search bar that lets you find posts by keywords in their captions, for example, quickly locating your “Labor Day” campaign post.

Drag and Drop Functionality

One of the most convenient features of the Planner is its drag-and-drop scheduling. If a post is in drafts but needs to be moved to another day, simply pick it up and drop it on the new date. The same works for Planner Notes, making adjustments quick and intuitive without needing to open multiple settings menus.

Why the Planner Matters

The Planner isn’t just a calendar; it’s a strategic content management hub. It gives you:

• A visual overview of your monthly and weekly publishing schedule.
• The ability to preview your Instagram and TikTok grids before posts go live.
• Tools to track, organize, and reschedule posts with ease.
• Filters to refine your view by campaign, status, account, or keyword.
• Notes and reminders to keep your team aligned on key dates.

This makes the Planner one of the most powerful tools in ContentStudio for marketers, agencies, and creators who want full control and visibility over their content strategy.

Final Thoughts

The Planner in ContentStudio transforms content scheduling into a seamless, visual process. Whether you’re managing a single brand or multiple clients, it gives you everything you need to plan, track, and adjust your publishing calendar without the chaos. With customizable views, notes, filters, and drag-and-drop functionality, it’s built to keep your workflow structured and stress-free.