Facebook Content Planner is a useful tool that helps Facebook page owners plan and schedule their content in advance. It allows you to organize your posts, get insights into what works best for your audience, and streamline your content creation process.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to get started with Facebook Content Planner, including:
- What Facebook Content Planner is
- The benefits of using Content Planner
- Who can access Content Planner
- How to find Content Planner in Facebook
- An overview of the Content Planner interface
- How to use Content Planner to plan and schedule posts
- Tips for getting the most out of Content Planner
Whether you manage a Facebook Page for a business, brand, or as a content creator, read on to learn how this free planning tool can save you time, organize your strategy, and help grow your audience on Facebook.
What is Facebook Content Planner?
Facebook Content Planner is a built-in feature for Facebook Pages that helps you strategically plan, organize, and schedule social media content.
It provides an editorial calendar interface where you can map out posts in advance, get suggestions for what content resonates best with your fans, and schedule content to automatically publish at optimal times.
Key features of Facebook Content Planner include:
- An editorial calendar to visualize your posting schedule
- Insights into your top-performing post types and times
- Ability to schedule posts and series in advance
- Suggestions for content that aligns with your followers’ interests
- A unified workflow for collaborating with others
The goal of the tool is to save you time planning your content and make it easy to create a consistent presence on Facebook. Maintaining regular posting is key to reaching and engaging your target audience.
Benefits of Using Content Planner
Here are some of the main reasons to use Facebook Content Planner for your Page:
- Saves time – Content Planner provides an efficient system for organizing upcoming content in one place. You can draft posts when you have free time instead of rushing to create last-minute.
- Increases consistency – With posts scheduled in advance, you can maintain a steady cadence of updates to keep your audience engaged.
- Optimizes timing – Use the best posting times suggested by Content Planner to maximize reach and engagement.
- Enables collaboration – Easily collaborate with teammates by sharing contributor access to the Content Planner workspace.
- Improves strategy – See analytics insights about your top-performing content types and formats to inform what works best.
- Centralizes ideas – Use the Idea Board to collect creative inspiration for future content in one visual space.
- Saves drafts – The working drafts section stores post drafts and ideas in progress for future use.
Whether you manage content solo or with a team, taking an organized approach will lead to greater efficiency and less scramble.
Who Can Access Content Planner?
The following Facebook users have access to Content Planner for their Pages:
- Page admins and editors
- Page moderators
- Page contributors, if provided access by admins/editors
If you hold one of these Page roles, you can start using Content Planner to better plan, collaborate on, and schedule content.
Page viewers and other profile roles do not have access to Content Planner. Only designated individuals who help manage content publishing can use the planning features.
To check your role:
- Go to your Page
- Click “Settings” from the top menu
- Select “Page roles” from the left sidebar
- You should see your permissions listed (Admin, Editor, Moderator, etc)
If you don’t currently have a Page role with access, speak with an admin about being added as an Editor or Contributor so you can start strategically planning content.
How to Find Content Planner
Here are simple steps to find and open Content Planner for your Facebook Page:
- Go to your Facebook Page
- Click on the “Publishing Tools” menu from the top navigation
- Select “Content Planner” from the drop-down options
- The Content Planner workspace will open up
This will bring you to the main Content Planner dashboard. You’ll see sections for an editorial calendar, drafts, insights about your followers, and more.
The intuitive interface makes it easy to navigate and start planning out social media content optimized for your audience.
Content Planner Interface Overview
Now that you’re inside Content Planner, here is an overview of what you’ll see:
Top bar – Manage account settings and access help/support.
Left sidebar – Switch between the Overview, Calendar, Idea Board, and Working Drafts sections.
Main content area – The different sections will display here when selected in the left sidebar.
Overview – See analytics insights, suggested content, and a content ideas board.
Calendar – An editorial calendar to visualize and schedule upcoming posts.
Idea Board – A space to collect and organize creative content ideas.
Working Drafts – Store draft posts to edit and publish later.
Team Members – Manage access for contributors and writers.
Settings – Adjust preferences for your workflow and notifications.
Navigating between these sections and features allows you to optimize the entire content planning and scheduling process.
How to Plan and Schedule Posts
Here is a step-by-step walkthrough to start planning and scheduling content using the Content Planner calendar:
- Go to the Content Planner calendar – From the left sidebar, click on “Calendar.”
- Choose your date range – At the top, select a date range to populate the calendar with. For example, the next 1-2 weeks or month.
- Add new posts – Click on any date to open a window where you can set the posting details. Give the post a title and description that your audience will see.
- Refine the post details – From the side panel, choose additional options like preferred publishing time and potential tags.
- Consider suggestions – Content Planner may suggest helpful hashtags and emojis to include based on your audience interests.
- Add a visual – Upload images or videos that will catch your followers’ attention.
- Confirm the post – Finish by clicking “Schedule Post” to add it to your calendar.
- Repeat the process – Continue adding and scheduling more posts on different dates.
- Edit existing posts – Click on a scheduled post to adjust the content or reschedule the date/time.
Get in a routine of carving out time each week to populate your calendar with high-quality, engaging posts optimized for your target audience.
Tips for Using Content Planner
Here are some tips to help you make the most of Facebook’s Content Planner for your Page:
- Schedule 1-2 weeks of posts at a time for the best balance of planning ahead while still being agile.
- Take advantage of the suggested posts and hashtags based on your followers’ interests.
- Use the Idea Board to collect inspiration for future post themes and creative content.
- Try different posting cadences and times suggested by Content Planner analytics to see what resonates best.
- Store drafts of work-in-progress posts to finish and schedule later.
- Collaborate with others by adding Page Contributors to help brainstorm and plan content.
- Check back on your scheduled posts each week to make edits or refresh as needed.
- Use the Calendar view to visually map out and balance your mix of post types and topics.
Put these tips into practice to create an effective content calendar that drives results for your Facebook presence.
Conclusion
Facebook Content Planner provides a robust set of planning features to streamline how you organize, collaborate on, and schedule social media content for your Page.
With an intuitive calendar interface, idea organization tools, audience insights, and the ability to easily plan posts in advance, Content Planner saves time and leads to greater consistency in engaging your target audience.
As a Page admin or contributor, take advantage of this built-in resource to work smarter. Optimize your content workflow so you can focus on creating high-quality posts tailored for your community.
Consistency and quality are key to success on social media. With Facebook Content Planner as part of your process, you’ll be well on your way to taking your Page to the next level.