Social Media Content Calendar (AU)

When to use

Triggers:

• "Build a social media calendar for [month / quarter]"
• "What should I post this week?" / "Weekly content plan"
• "Social media strategy for [business]" (calendar is one piece; skill may route elsewhere)
• "Plan content around [event / launch / EOFY / holiday period]"

Don't fire for:

• Individual post writing (use linkedin-content-creator for LinkedIn, or per-platform copy skill)
• Paid ad creative (different skill)
• Influencer or UGC campaign planning (different workflow)

The 5-category content mix

Calendars fall over when 80% of posts are "look at our product / service". The consistent-growth pattern uses 5 categories in rough proportion:

| Category | Ratio | Purpose | |---|---|---| | Educational | 40% | Teaches your audience something useful. Builds authority. | | Behind-the-scenes | 20% | Humanises the business. Team, workspace, process. | | Customer / social proof | 15% | Reviews, case studies, testimonials, user-generated. | | Point-of-view / commentary | 15% | Your take on industry events, news, norms. Builds differentiation. | | Promotional | 10% | Product, offer, event, booking. Direct asks. |

Hit those ratios across 4 weeks and you have a calendar that grows an audience rather than burning one out.

Platform-by-platform constraints

LinkedIn

• Native text posts up to ~3000 chars; first 3 lines show before "…see more"
• Images, carousels, and documents all work; external links get punished in reach
• Best times (AU): Tue/Thu 9–11am AEST
• 2–3 posts per week is enough; don't exceed 5 or you look spammy
• Audience: professional network, decision makers, B2B buyers

Facebook

• Text + image / video / link preview; longer text is fine but <100 words usually converts better
• Best times (AU): late morning + early evening weekdays; weekends work for B2C
• 3–5 posts per week for active business pages
• Audience: older skew (35–65+); local community; B2C retail and services strong

Instagram

• Image / reel / carousel; text is secondary to the visual
• Reels > static posts by reach (~2024 onward)
• Hashtags: 3–5 specific > 30 generic
• Best times (AU): 11am, 2pm, 5pm AEST weekdays
• Audience: 18–45; visual industries (hospitality, retail, health/wellness, creative)

TikTok (if relevant)

• Video-only, 15–60s ideal
• Voiceover + on-screen text
• Consistency > perfection; post daily or 3×/week
• Best times (AU): early evening + late evening
• Audience: 18–35 primarily but rapidly widening
• Don't recreate Instagram reels for TikTok — different voice, different editing rhythm

X (Twitter)

• 280 chars; threads for long content
• Fast-moving, news-driven
• Usually niche for AU SME — B2B tech, media, politics. Retail / trades / local businesses rarely need X.

YouTube Shorts (growth-worth-watching)

• 60s vertical video
• Discovery via search + algorithm (more searchable than TikTok long-term)
• Worth testing if you already have talking-head or tutorial content

Pick 2–3 platforms max for an AU SME under 50 staff. More platforms means thinner content.

AU-specific seasonal anchors

Layer your calendar over these anchors:

Financial calendar

• EOFY (June 30) — huge for accounting, tax, business services, retail sales
• July 1 — new FY starts — plan-for-the-year content
• Pre-Christmas Nov-Dec — retail peak, hospitality bookings peak
• January dead zone (Dec 20 – Jan 15) — most B2B shuts; use for low-effort posts or schedule in advance

School holidays (AU, rough — varies by state)

• Term 1 break: April
• Term 2 break: late June / early July
• Term 3 break: late Sept / early Oct
• Term 4 break (Christmas): mid-Dec through late Jan

Family audiences shift; B2B audiences quiet. Plan content accordingly.

Public holidays and events

• Australia Day (Jan 26)
• Anzac Day (Apr 25) — careful tone; not promotional
• Labour Day (state-specific dates)
• Easter long weekend
• King's Birthday (state-specific)
• Grand Finals — AFL (late Sept), NRL (early Oct) drive massive hospitality + retail moments
• Melbourne Cup (first Tue Nov)
• Footy finals period (Sept–Oct) — regional variance
• NYE / NYD

Industry-specific anchors

• Construction: plan around builder shutdown periods
• Hospitality: Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's, Christmas week, Melbourne Cup lunch
• Retail: Click Frenzy, Afterpay Day, EOFY sale, Black Friday / Cyber Monday
• Education: school year start / end
• Health: R U OK Day (mid-Sept), various awareness months

Mark these on the calendar, then decide which to post around and which to skip.

Building a 4-week calendar

Process:

Step 1 — Pick the 4 weeks and their anchors

Mark each week's AU-specific anchor. "Week 1 of June: Mental Health Month kickoff + EOFY countdown 30 days". This frames everything else.

Step 2 — Category-distribute across the 4 weeks

With the 5-category ratio, across a 3-platform × 3-posts-per-week × 4-week calendar = 36 posts, that's:

• Educational: ~14
• Behind-the-scenes: ~7
• Customer / social proof: ~6
• POV / commentary: ~5
• Promotional: ~4

Step 3 — Ideate specific posts per category

Educational — what are the 14 things your audience would find useful?

• Common mistakes you see clients make
• Something you've learned
• A tool or process you've changed your mind on
• A checklist
• A step-by-step
• Jargon explained
• A "how we do X" deep-dive
• Industry news + what it means for them
• Before-and-after comparisons
• Seasonal advice (EOFY prep, winter operations)
• FAQ answers
• Common client questions
• A mini-case-study teaching a pattern
• Data from your own business

Behind-the-scenes — 7 specific moments:

• Team introduction
• Your workspace / office / vehicle
• A tool you use and why
• A process walkthrough
• A mistake you made and fixed
• What your week looks like
• Day-in-the-life of a specific team role

Customer — 6 with explicit customer permission:

• Review quote with context
• Case study with numbers
• Customer thank-you moment
• User-generated content (if you get tagged)
• Before-and-after (their results, not your work)
• "Our favourite customer moment this quarter"

POV — 5 takes:

• Your view on an industry change
• What you disagree with in conventional wisdom
• A trend you're watching
• A prediction (brave — you'll be remembered for it)
• A critique of a common practice

Promotional — 4:

• A specific offer or package
• An event or workshop
• A new service / feature
• A booking prompt with a reason to act now

Step 4 — Per-platform adaptation

Each post concept becomes 1–3 platform-specific versions:

• LinkedIn: text-heavy, educational, professional framing
• Instagram: visual-first, lighter text, story-able
• Facebook: longer text with image, community-framed

Same idea, different shape per platform.

Step 5 — Scheduling

Output a calendar with columns: date, time, platform, category, format (post/reel/article), hook, full copy, image/video brief, hashtags.

Push to your scheduler (Buffer, Later, Hootsuite, Meta Business Suite, LinkedIn native) or paste manually.

Sample 4-week calendar structure (LinkedIn + Instagram)

WEEK 1 (anchor: EOFY countdown — 30 days)
Mon   LinkedIn  Educational     "3 things to do in the next 30 days to make EOFY painless"
Tue   Instagram Behind-scenes   Workspace photo: "Setting up for EOFY sprint"
Wed   LinkedIn  POV             "Hot take: EOFY shouldn't be a surprise every year"
Thu   Instagram Educational     Carousel: 5 EOFY checklist items
Fri   LinkedIn  Customer        Review quote + context

WEEK 2 (anchor: mid-June — business-review season)
Mon   LinkedIn  Educational     Step-by-step: doing a proper quarterly review
Wed   Instagram Reel            Talking-head: "Stuff I learned running my own FY review"
Fri   LinkedIn  Promotional     "Our EOFY package — $X off until 30 June"

... etc ...

For a real calendar, 36 rows, one per post. The skill produces this as CSV.

Output format

Per calendar request:

1. CSV — 36 rows, columns: date | time | platform | category | format | hook | copy | image/video brief | hashtags
2. Per-week rationale — 2–3 sentences explaining the anchor and why this week's mix makes sense
3. Asset list — 10–15 images / videos needed, with a brief for each
4. Repurposing notes — which 2–3 posts could become an article or newsletter
5. Backup / filler content — 5–10 evergreen posts to drop in if the week goes sideways

What this skill does NOT do

• Schedule and post for you. Output goes into your scheduler or manual workflow.
• Take the photos / record the videos. Asset production is your team / freelancer / you.
• Guarantee reach. Reach depends on algorithm state, content quality, existing audience size — none of which a calendar alone controls.
• Handle paid ads. A calendar is organic. Paid media is separate.

Tier access

Base. Monthly calendar work is continuous and the discipline compounds. Pro-tier adds per-platform voice matching + asset brief coordination.

Related skills

• linkedin-content-creator — specific LinkedIn post craft
• customer-persona-builder — know who the content serves
• au-local-seo-small-business — local content ideas intersect
• ai-roi-measurement-for-sme — measure whether the posting actually drives outcomes

References

• Meta Business Suite — scheduling
• LinkedIn — Algorithm / engagement best practices
• Content calendars — Later / Buffer / Hootsuite — feature comparisons