Free template
Free, ready-to-use social media management SOP template for marketing teams. Plan content, schedule posts, engage audiences, and report on performance — all with a repeatable process your whole team can follow.
A Social Media Management Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) is a documented, step-by-step process that marketing teams follow to plan, create, publish, and measure content across social platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, X (Twitter), Facebook, and TikTok.
Without a clear SOP, social media work becomes reactive and inconsistent. This social media management SOP template gives your team a single source of truth—from content calendar planning through analytics reporting—so every post is on-brand, on-time, and tied to business goals. Pair it with a content publishing SOP for a complete content operations system.
Standardize how your team plans, publishes, and reports on social media across every channel
Give new hires and freelancers a clear playbook so brand voice and quality stay consistent
Onboard new client accounts quickly with a repeatable workflow and approval process
Scale social media operations without losing quality as the team and audience expand
Purpose: To ensure every social media post is planned, approved, published, and measured using a consistent, repeatable process
Scope: Marketing, social media, content, and community management staff responsible for brand social channels
Time Required: Ongoing — content calendar planned monthly, posts created and scheduled weekly, engagement and reporting daily/weekly
Tools Needed: Social media scheduling tool (e.g., Buffer, Hootsuite, Sprout Social), design tool (e.g., Canva, Figma), analytics dashboard, project management tool, brand style guide
Action:
Expected Outcome: A complete monthly content calendar with assigned topics, platforms, and owners ready for content creation
Action:
Expected Outcome: Approved, on-brand copy and visuals for each scheduled post, ready for scheduling
Action:
Expected Outcome: All posts are queued at the right times with correct links, tags, and formatting per platform
Action:
Expected Outcome: Active, responsive community management that builds trust and surfaces issues early
Action:
Expected Outcome: Proactive brand protection with documented trends that inform future content and strategy
Action:
Expected Outcome: Data-driven insights that guide the next content calendar cycle and prove social media ROI
Dedicate blocks of time to create content in batches rather than one post at a time. It reduces context-switching and keeps quality consistent.
Keep a living brand voice and tone guide that every team member and contractor references before writing. Update it as your brand evolves.
Capture your scheduling and publishing workflows in Folge with real screenshots so new team members can follow the exact steps without guesswork.
Define how quickly your team should reply to comments and DMs. A clear SLA prevents messages from falling through the cracks.
Don't wait until the end of the month. Weekly check-ins let you spot trends, double down on what works, and adjust underperforming content fast.
Prepare escalation steps and pre-approved response templates for negative situations so your team can act quickly without panic.
Capture your real social media workflow with screenshots. Add checklists, annotations, and export to PDF or your wiki.
A comprehensive social media SOP should cover content planning, creation and approval workflows, scheduling and publishing steps, community engagement guidelines, monitoring and moderation procedures, and analytics reporting. The template above includes all six areas with clear action items for each.
Review and update your SOP quarterly or whenever there is a major change—new platform added, tool migration, brand refresh, or team restructure. Small tweaks (posting times, hashtag lists) can be updated as needed without a full review.
Use Folge to record your screen while you walk through each step of your social media workflow—scheduling a post, pulling analytics, responding to comments. Folge captures screenshots automatically and lets you annotate each step, producing a visual SOP your team can follow without guesswork.
Yes. The template is platform-agnostic by design. Customize the content calendar step with your specific platforms and posting frequencies, and adjust visual specs in the content creation step. The engagement, moderation, and reporting steps apply across all major channels.
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