Monthly content plan template and 30 post ideas for small business

A simple content plan template, a way to fill a whole month in one hour and 30 post ideas by pillar, with tips for a café, a salon, an online store and B2B.

A content plan saves you from staring at a blank screen every morning. When the topic, the format and the first line are decided in advance, a post takes minutes, not an evening. Below: a spreadsheet template, a one-hour method for the whole month and 30 ideas for almost any small business.

The content plan template: six columns

Use Google Sheets, Excel or a notes app. Six columns, each answering one question.

• Date: the day and time, in your business's time zone.
• Pillar: useful, behind the scenes, trust, engagement or selling, so the month doesn't turn into one long ad.
• Topic: one specific idea. Not “about coffee” but “how to choose beans for a French press”.
• Format: photo, carousel, short video, story or a text post.
• Hook: the first line of the caption or of the video, the part people see before “more”.
• Call to action: one action, such as save, send a DM, book or tap the link.

Two filled-in rows, as an example (swap in your own):

• Week 1, Tue, 7 pm — Useful — Choosing beans for a French press — Carousel — Hook: if your French press coffee is bitter, the press isn't the problem — CTA: save it for later.
• Week 1, Fri, 12 pm — Selling — Weekend coffee kit — Photo — Hook: café-style coffee on Saturday morning without leaving home — CTA: DM us “kit” and we'll hold one until Saturday.

If several people work on the posts, add a “Status” column and a “What to shoot” column (more on that below).

How to make a monthly content plan in one hour

An hour is enough if you follow the steps. Set a timer.

• 10 minutes, raw material: new products, offers, holidays, seasonal moments, local events, plus the questions customers ask in DMs. Each question is a ready-made topic.
• 5 minutes, slots: decide how many posts a week you can keep up. Three a week is about 13 slots a month, five is about 21.
• 5 minutes, pillars: give every slot a pillar and place selling posts after useful and trust posts, not back to back.
• 20 minutes, topics: take ideas from the list below and your raw material, one line per topic.
• 15 minutes, hooks and calls to action, one line each. It's the most valuable part: with a hook in place, the post almost writes itself.
• 5 minutes, shot list: fill in “What to shoot” for the whole month and shoot it all in one go.

30 post ideas: useful and behind the scenes

Useful posts get saved and shared, and they show that you know your trade.

• Three mistakes customers make before they come to you.
• How to choose [your product or service], step by step.
• A full answer to the question you get most often in DMs.
• Myth vs fact in your field.
• How to care for a purchase so it lasts longer.
• A mini glossary: five terms from your field in plain words.

Behind-the-scenes posts show real people and the real process, which is why people trust them.

• The morning before opening.
• One order from start to finish.
• Meet the team: what one person does and enjoys about the job.
• How you choose suppliers or materials, and what you turn down.
• Your workspace up close: tools, packaging, small details.
• A mistake and what changed after it.

Post ideas: trust and engagement

Trust posts make the decision to buy easier.

• A real customer review as a screenshot, shared with their permission.
• One order explained: the customer's task, your solution, the result.
• Your guarantee and terms: what happens if something goes wrong.
• An honest answer to an awkward question, like why you cost more than the place next door.
• Your real numbers: years in business, orders shipped last month.
• Certificates, training, ingredients or origin, with photos of the documents.

Engagement posts are easy to reply to, and the replies hand you new topics.

• “This or that”: two products, colours or flavours.
• Let followers pick your next new product.
• Ask what the hardest part of [your topic] is; the answers become your next posts.
• Guess from a close-up, with the answer in the comments tomorrow.
• Then and now: the old packaging or interior next to the new one.
• Collect questions for a future Q&A post.

Post ideas: selling

Selling posts work best after useful and trust posts. Each needs a price and a clear way to buy.

• New in: what it is, who it's for, the price and how to order.
• Back in stock: the item people kept asking about has returned.
• A “goes well with” set: what people buy together and why that's handy.
• A seasonal offer: for a holiday, the cold weather or back to school.
• An honest deadline: next week's bookings close on Friday, but only if that's true.
• A pre-purchase FAQ: delivery, payment, returns and timing in one place.

Content plan ideas for a café, a beauty salon, an online store and B2B

The ideas above are a skeleton. Each niche fills it in its own way.

• Café: “one order from start to finish” is baking a croissant; “customer mistakes” is storing coffee at home; “this or that” is which seasonal drink comes back; “selling” is today's breakfast with its price and hours.
• Beauty salon: “useful” is making a treatment last at home; “trust” is instruments being sterilised; “behind the scenes” is a stylist setting up; “selling” is next week's free slots with prices. Before-and-after photos only of your own work, with consent.
• Online store: “how to choose” is a size or fit guide; “care” is washing and storage; “FAQ” is delivery and returns; “back in stock” links to the product or its Amazon or marketplace listing.
• B2B: “one order explained” becomes a case study, with the client's consent; “myth vs fact” covers buyers' misconceptions; “your numbers” are lead times and terms; the call to action is “request a quote”, not “buy”. LinkedIn and Telegram often matter more here than Instagram.

What to do at the end of the month

On the last day of the month, take half an hour. In your stats, mark the three posts with the most saves, comments or DMs, and the three weakest. Repeat the strong topics next month in a new format: a carousel becomes a video. Don't drop a weak topic at once; sometimes the hook was the problem. And this month's DM questions feed the next plan.

How VIT TEAM does it

In the social media factory, the team lead builds the content plan for free and keeps topics from repeating. The content maker writes the posts and checks each against its checklist before you see it: a hook, one idea, a call to action, no more than three emojis. The social media manager schedules them and publishes to Telegram. You approve or reject with a reason in the chat; the reason becomes a lesson, and after three approved pieces of one kind a worker writes itself a playbook of what you like.

Need only the content maker? A 24-hour shift costs $29: up to 35 tasks and 20 posts, so in one day you can have a month of texts ready at three posts a week. The whole team starts at $59 a month. You can try it free for 7 days.