The content calendar that actually gets used
A free content calendar for Australian small business, with a filled-in fortnight you can copy. Plan two weeks at a time and stop...
Two weeks at a time, nine posts, and a plan you can keep. Copy ours.
Most small business social accounts do not fail because the posts were bad. They fail because somewhere in week three there was nothing planned, so nothing went out, and then the account went quiet for a month. The algorithm forgets you and so does everybody else.
A content calendar fixes that, and it does not need to be complicated. Ours is a table. That is genuinely it.
Why a fortnight, not a month
A month is too far ahead to guess what will matter, and a week is not far enough to stop you scrambling. Two weeks is the sweet spot: long enough that you are never posting in a panic, short enough that you can still react to something that happens.
Plan on a Friday afternoon for the next fortnight. Half an hour, once, and then the hard thinking is done.
The five things to rotate through
The reason most calendars collapse is that every slot says "post something". Give each slot a job instead, and rotate:
- Teach one thing. Something you know that your customers do not. It can be small.
- Show the work. A job in progress, a before and after, the van loaded at 6am.
- Proof. A result, a review, a kind word, with the customer's say-so.
- The honest correction. A common myth in your trade, and the truth. People remember these.
- You. Who is behind the business. This is the one everybody skips and it is usually the one that gets replies.
Five jobs, ten weekday slots in a fortnight, so each one comes round twice. Nothing repeats closely enough to feel stale.
A filled-in fortnight you can copy
This is a real plan for a made-up business, a mobile mechanic in regional New South Wales. Swap the specifics for yours and the shape still works.
| Day | Job | The post | Ready when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | Teach | The one dashboard light you should never drive on | Photo of the light, caption explains why |
| Tue | Show the work | Brake pads at 8am in someone's driveway | Two photos, before and after |
| Wed | Proof | A review from last week, screenshot with permission | Ask the customer first |
| Thu | Honest correction | You do not need a service every 10,000km any more | Check your own manual, cite it |
| Fri | You | Why you went mobile instead of taking a workshop | Just write it, no photo needed |
| Mon | Teach | What that grinding noise probably is, and what it is not | Voice note typed up |
| Tue | Show the work | The tool that saves you an hour on every job | One photo |
| Wed | Proof | Number of cars back on the road this month | Count them Friday |
| Thu | Honest correction | Why the cheapest quote often is not | Explain what gets left out |
| Fri | You | The dog that comes on every job | Everybody's favourite post, use it |
Notice how little of that needs a camera crew, a designer, or a good hair day. Nine of the ten are a phone photo and a couple of honest sentences.
The Australian bits worth building in
A calendar written for anywhere misses the things that actually move a local business here:
- Your Google Business Profile posts count. Anything you write for Facebook can go there too, and it feeds local search in a way a Facebook post never will. Free, and most people ignore it.
- Plan around the real calendar. School holidays by state, the June 30 end of financial year, long weekends that differ between states. If you are quoting tradies, the week before Christmas is a different world to February.
- If you mention a price or a claim, you are bound by Australian Consumer Law. "From $99" needs the "from" to be true and available. Put the real number in your calendar so you are not making it up on the day.
- Reviews cannot be bought. The ACCC has been penalising it. Build "ask for a review" into the calendar as a habit instead, at the moment the customer is happy.
Where to keep it
Wherever you will actually open it. A spreadsheet, a notes app, a whiteboard in the shed. The tool does not matter and anyone selling you a $40 a month platform for this is having a lend of you.
Two columns do matter: the job for that slot, and ready when, so you know what has to exist before it can go out. That second column is the one that stops the calendar becoming a wish list.
What to do when you miss a day
You will. Skip it and carry on. Do not post two the next day to catch up, and do not start again from scratch. A fortnight with eight posts out of ten is a good fortnight. Eleven posts in one week followed by silence for a month is how you got here.
Start with one fortnight
Copy the table above, change the ten posts to yours, and put half an hour in your diary for Friday afternoon. That is the whole system.
If you would rather hand it over, that is what we do, and everything stays in your name and your accounts either way. If you would rather do it yourself, the honest playbook and our free guides will get you the rest of the way, no email required.
CTA: Ready to hand over the marketing? Tell us about your business and we'll come back with a free, no-obligation quote, usually within a day.