How to Run a Social Media Calendar With a Marketer and an Assistant

Three people, one post

Kristin runs a business with an executive assistant and a marketer, and already plans the week in xTiles. The next step was getting the team into it: the assistant's daily, weekly and monthly tasks in one place, and a pipeline for social media where everyone can see what's in progress.

A single post passes through three pairs of hands. Kristin writes it, the marketer makes it look good, and the assistant posts it. A to-do list can't show that kind of handoff. A content calendar with statuses can.

Step 1: give the team a shared space

Keep your own planner as it is, and put everything you do together into a shared space. Anything created inside it is shared with the members automatically, and it sits in everyone's sidebar, so nobody has to dig for a link in a chat.

Inside the space, make one project for the assistant's routine and one for the content calendar. Spaces work like folders, so later you can add one for clients without mixing it into the team's work.

Step 2: the assistant's routine as dated tasks

In the assistant's project, add the daily, weekly and monthly duties as tasks, assign them to your assistant and give them a date. A task with an assignee and a date appears in that person's own planner, next to everything else on their day. Make the repeating ones recurring so you set them up only once.

When you want to check progress, open the project instead of your own planner. Your day stays yours, and the assistant's list is one click away.

Step 3: start the content calendar from the template

In the content project, search the templates for social media calendar. The Social Media Calendar template is a collection, a page that works like a database, with sample posts, platforms, dates and statuses already set up. Replace the sample posts with your own and delete the columns you don't need.

Then adjust the statuses to match your handoff. Add Review between Draft and Planned, so the pipeline reads Draft → Review → Planned → Posted.

Step 4: one collection, three views

• Board by status. Add a new view, choose board and group it by status. Each post is a card you drag from Draft to Posted, which is the pipeline Kristin asked for.
• Calendar. See the month at a glance and drag a post to a new day to change its publish date. You can also create a post right in the calendar, for a holiday for example.
• Table. The full list with every property. Group it by status or by platform, and add a filter that hides Posted, so the table shows only what still needs work.

All three views show the same posts. Move a card on the board and the table and the calendar update too.

I like pretty, that's why I like xTiles over the other options. Kristin

Step 5: turn each handoff into a task

Statuses show where a post is. Tasks make sure someone moves it. Open a post and add two tasks inside it: review and design for the marketer, publish for the assistant, each with a date. Both land in the right person's planner, so the next step is waiting for them on the day it matters.

If you want the calendar in another project you open every day, copy the page and paste it there as a linked page. It stays in sync with the original, so a change in one place shows in both.

Solo calendar vs team calendar

If you create content alone, the question is mostly how to capture ideas and keep the calendar light; here's a content calendar built for a solo creator. With a team, the question is who does the next step, and that's what statuses, views and handoff tasks are for.