Yes, Facebook does have a content calendar that it uses to plan and schedule posts and other content across its various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. As one of the largest social media companies in the world, Facebook relies heavily on content marketing and therefore utilizes content calendars to organize and publish relevant and timely content for its billions of users.
What is a content calendar?
A content calendar is a planning tool used by social media managers, digital marketers, bloggers, and other content creators to map out content publishing schedules in advance. It acts as an editorial calendar that outlines what content will be published on which dates and on which social platforms or websites.
Content calendars help plan and schedule social media posts, blog articles, emails, and other content types. They aim to provide a consistent drumbeat of valuable, engaging content across digital channels while avoiding content gaps or oversaturation.
Benefits of content calendars include:
- Organizing upcoming content in one place for an overview of content plans
- Mapping out a schedule for when specific content will be published
- Keeping different teams and content creators aligned
- Ensuring a variety of content types and topics gets published
- Avoiding publishing dry spells or content overload
- Optimizing timing of content based on trends, events, or audience availability
Content calendars can be created in Excel, Google Sheets, project management software, or dedicated content calendar tools like CoSchedule, Kapost, or Mintent.
Why does Facebook use a content calendar?
As a social media giant active across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and more, Facebook has an enormous volume of content to create, curate, and publish. A centralized content calendar allows Facebook marketing teams to:
- Plan relevant, timely content aligned to marketing initiatives
- Ensure adequate amounts of content are produced for different platforms
- Stick to optimal publishing schedules for target audiences
- Avoid spamming followers or being inactive for long stretches
- Collaborate across global marketing teams and business units
- Analyze performance to create better content
Well-planned content is crucial for Facebook to keep users engaged across its apps. The content calendar enables the company to strategically publish entertaining, informative, or promotional posts that match user interests and reflect current events.
What does Facebook’s content calendar contain?
While the details of Facebook’s internal content calendar are not publicly known, it likely contains a few standard elements:
- Content types – The calendar separates different content formats like text, image, or video posts.
- Platforms – It plans content for each major property like Facebook, Instagram, Messenger.
- Publishing dates/times – Optimal schedules tailored to different target audiences.
- Topics and themes – Content buckets around holidays, events, awareness days, etc.
- Marketing initiatives – Content supporting product launches, campaigns, promotions.
- Creators – Teams or people responsible for producing each content item.
- Performance data – Metrics to inform better content in the future.
Facebook likely has separate but aligned content calendars for their different brands and subsidiaries around the world. However, global coordination ensures some consistent themes and initiatives across regions.
Who manages Facebook’s content calendar?
Facebook has large in-house marketing teams as well as agencies and freelancers to handle content creation. But the centralized content calendar is likely managed by a global content strategy team. They coordinate with regional content teams to plan and populate the calendar based on local insights and content performance.
Once finalized, the calendar is distributed to content creators worldwide so they can begin developing content. The central team oversees publishing based on the schedule, analyzing engagement and optimizing future plans.
What are the main content pillars on Facebook’s calendar?
Facebook’s calendar likely rotates through some broad content pillars tailored to their platforms and audiences including:
- Product features – How-tos, updates, tips to promote adoption.
- Initiatives – Cause campaigns, partnerships, activations.
- Announcements – Company news, executive messages, events.
- Entertainment – Interactive polls, quizzes, live video.
- Community – User-generated content, local events, groups.
- Education – Thought leadership, listicles, explainers.
- Current events – Trending topics, newsjacking.
Aligning content to audience interests helps Facebook foster engagement and loyalty across its apps. The calendar ensures variety and relevance.
How does Facebook use content calendars for Instagram?
As Instagram has grown into a massively popular image and video sharing platform, especially with younger demographics, Facebook ensures the content calendar fully integrates Instagram:
- Distinct Instagram content is planned, not just repurposed from Facebook
- Creative aesthetics and formats are tailored for Instagram
- Influencer marketing and user-generated content feature heavily
- Posting schedules follow when Instagram audiences are most active
- Instagram-first features like Stories, Reels are prominent
- Behind-the-scenes imagery provides unique value
Facebook can thereby provide Instagram users a more customized, visual content experience.
How does Facebook use its calendar to plan for holidays?
Major holidays and event days are mapped out well in advance on Facebook’s master calendar. This allows content teams to brainstorm fresh, relevant content and creatives to align with holidays like:
- New Year’s Eve/Day
- Valentine’s Day
- International Women’s Day
- St. Patrick’s Day
- April Fool’s Day
- Earth Day
- Mother’s Day/Father’s Day
- Pride Month
- Independence Day
- Halloween
- Thanksgiving
- Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa
- New Year’s Eve
Special hashtag campaigns, seasonal marketing promotions, and tailoring content to cultural traditions helps Facebook meaningfully engage users around holidays.
Does Facebook adjust content based on current events?
Facebook’s content teams are very agile at monitoring the news cycle and updating their calendar to quickly publish content related to major current events. Tragedies, political developments, pop culture news, celebrity gossip, viral internet stories, and meme trends are all fodder for timely content.
This lets Facebook be part of relevant cultural conversations. But they aim to do so in an empathetic manner that brings the community together during divisive moments. By responding to the zeitgeist, Facebook avoids seeming oblivious or sluggish in addressing major happenings.
Conclusion
Facebook relies heavily on content calendars to plan and schedule marketing content at massive scale across its platforms. The calendars provide an essential blueprint to publish entertaining, informative and relevant posts that engage its billions of users globally. Careful scheduling and collaboration helps the company thread the needle between oversaturation and neglect. While Facebook’s exact calendar is private, it likely outlines content types, publishing dates, marketing initiatives, and performance tracking. Content pillars like holidays, events, and product features ensure a mix of timely content aligned to audience interests. With proper planning, Facebook can continue dominating the social media landscape by consistently captivating user feeds.