The week-three problem
Every new social plan has a good first fortnight. Then the obvious ideas are used up, a busy week arrives, and the calendar fills with national days and reposts. We call it the week-three problem, and nearly every audit we run finds it.
The cause is usually pillars that are written as topics: product, team, tips. A topic tells you what to talk about. It does not tell you what to make on a wet Tuesday.
Write pillars as jobs
A useful pillar says what the content does for the viewer. Teach something. Show how it is made. Prove it works. Make an offer. Each job attracts a different kind of response, and a healthy month has all of them.
Three to five pillars is enough. More than that and nobody on the team can remember them without opening a document.
Attach formats to each pillar
This is the step most plans skip. For every pillar, write three repeatable series.
- Teach something: one question from the comments, answered in under thirty seconds.
- Behind the scenes: one process filmed in a single take, same framing every week.
- Proof: a customer in their own words, with a still and a pull quote.
- Offers: a countdown story sequence with the same three frames each time.
Balance the month
Once pillars have formats, planning a month is arithmetic. Decide how many pieces you can make, split them across formats, and rotate the pillars so the same job never appears twice in a row.
Our content mix planner does this sum for you and shows the production hours behind it, which is usually the moment a team decides whether the plan is realistic.
Pillars are jobs, not topics. Give each one three repeatable formats and the calendar fills itself.
Try the content mix planner, free and with no sign-up.
