A social media calendar template that actually works (Google Sheets)

Why a spreadsheet, not a tool?

Many agencies want to go straight to a specific tool like Notion or Senly. Start with a spreadsheet. Reason: spreadsheets force you to think about structure. Only once you have that, can you migrate it to a tool. With a tool first, you often import a broken structure.

The columns every content calendar must have

• Date: ISO format (2026-05-15) for sorting
• Time: HH:MM
• Platform: dropdown (Instagram / LinkedIn / TikTok / Facebook)
• Type: dropdown (Post / Carousel / Reel / Story / Video)
• Theme/campaign: tag you can later filter by
• Caption: the full text
• Media link: link to Drive file or asset
• Status: Draft / Client review / Approved / Published
• Owner: who creates it, who reviews it
• Performance notes: after publishing — what worked, what didn’t

Color codings we use

• Yellow: in draft, still to be written
• Orange: under client review
• Green: approved, ready for publishing
• Blue: published
• Red: urgent or problem

The formulas that save time

Number of posts per week: =COUNTIFS(B:B, ">="&TODAY()-WEEKDAY(TODAY())+1)

Number of pending reviews: =COUNTIF(I:I, "Klant-review")

Next post date: =MIN(IF(I:I="Goedgekeurd", B:B))

A tab per client

Not all clients in one sheet — chaos. One separate tab per client. One “Dashboard” tab at the top with aggregate numbers across all clients.

Best practices we have learned

• Plan 4 weeks ahead: not 2 weeks (too short) and not 8 (too speculative)
• Weekly client check: Monday email “these 10 posts are ready for review”
• Fill in Friday for the week ahead: prevents Monday‑morning chaos
• Reactive buffer: keep 20% of slots empty for timely/reactive content

When do you migrate to a real tool?

Three criteria: (1) more than 5 clients causing tab switching to become too slow, (2) you start regularly losing data due to simultaneous editing, (3) your reports are painfully manual. At that point a platform like Senly is the logical upgrade.