For Social Media Coordinators ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll know how to prompt Claude Pro to generate a complete, structured 30-day content calendar — with post topics, formats, platform assignments, caption ideas, and hashtag sets — in one session. What used to take 4-6 hours will take under 45 minutes.
What you'll need
If you've set up a Claude Project for this brand (see the Level 3 Claude Project guide), open the project instead — your brand context is already loaded.
Before prompting, gather:
Use this template and fill in your brand's details:
Build a 30-day social media content calendar for [Brand Name] for [Month, Year].
Brand: [2-sentence description of the brand and audience]
Brand voice: [2-3 adjectives + one sentence describing the voice]
Content pillars: [list 4-5 pillars]
Posting schedule:
- Instagram: [X] posts per week
- LinkedIn: [X] posts per week
- Facebook: [X] posts per week
- TikTok: [X] posts per week (if applicable)
Important dates in [Month]:
- [Date]: [What's happening — product launch, holiday, event]
- [Date]: [Other date]
Content rules:
- Max [X] promotional posts per week
- [Any other rules]
Output format: A table with these columns: Date | Day | Platform | Topic/Theme | Content Type (Reel/carousel/static/text) | Caption Idea (1 sentence) | Hashtag Set (10 tags)
Fill in all [X] posting days for the month. Spread pillars evenly. Include platform-appropriate format suggestions.
Click Send.
What you should see: Claude begins generating a multi-row table. This is a large output — it may take 30-60 seconds and will be several hundred lines long. Let it complete fully before reviewing.
Troubleshooting: Claude outputs tables in markdown format (columns separated by |). If the paste doesn't create clean columns, try pasting into a text file first, then importing that file into Google Sheets (File → Import).
Go through the calendar row by row. Look for:
For any issues, go back to Claude and ask: "Adjust rows 8-12 — too many product posts in a row, replace 3 of them with customer story and behind-the-scenes content."
Once you're happy with the structure, run a follow-up prompt:
"Using the calendar above, now write full caption drafts for posts 1-10. Follow the brand voice and platform formatting: Instagram captions under 200 chars with 3 emojis max, LinkedIn under 250 chars professional tone, Facebook conversational 2 sentences."
Do this in batches of 10 posts at a time to keep the output manageable.
Basic calendar (any brand): "Build a [X]-day content calendar for [Brand] for [Month]. Pillars: [list]. Schedule: [platforms + frequency]. Key dates: [list]. Output as table: Date | Platform | Topic | Format | Caption Idea | Hashtags."
Campaign integration: "Take the calendar above and integrate a [campaign name] campaign running [start date] to [end date]. Add 8 campaign posts spread across the period. Keep all other posts as-is."
Redistribute pillars: "Review the calendar above and redistribute the content so each pillar appears equally — I'm seeing too many [pillar X] posts in weeks 2-3."
Add a special series: "Add a recurring weekly series called '[series name]' that posts every [day] on [platform]. Run it through the whole month. Topics: [list 4]."
Captions in bulk: "Write full caption drafts for posts [X] through [Y] from the calendar above. Platform rules: [describe per-platform rules]."