4 Top Free Social Media Marketing Templates for Detroit and Chicago Businesses

Social media marketing tends to only look simple. It takes compelling writing, eye-catching art and constant scheduling. Not to mention keeping up with trends and engaging with customers.

Across multiple channels, no less. 

You likely already know the struggle if you’re a small- to mid-sized business in Detroit and Chicago or beyond. Keeping up on social can feel overwhelming. But it doesn’t have to be.

Zoe Marketing & Communications, with 15+ years of experience in digital marketing, is here to help. We shed light on four of the best free sources for social media templates, including:

1. HootSuite templates for strategies and calendars
2. Canva templates to easily create visual content
3. SocialPilot templates for audits, coordination and hashtags
4. Adobe Express templates to craft even more imagery

Each offers specialized help to make your job more manageable. By exploring these template options, you’ll feel more empowered in handling your business’s social media efforts.

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1. HootSuite templates for strategies and calendars

Consider HootSuite a hub for managing multiple social media accounts. This powerful platform helps you save time by strategizing and planning posts.

HootSuite provides 30 free templates to streamline your processes. Its two standouts for overall management — which are handy even if you aren’t using HootSuite — are:

Social media strategy template

This Google Slides deck creates a professional overview. It clearly outlines your social media goals (and matches them to your business goals). It also walks you through:

• Defining a target audience
• Analyzing your competition
• Auditing your current social use (if any)
• Creating a content strategy 
• Measuring your progress

Once filled in, it’s a clear blueprint for how to move forward with your social media. HootSuite also has a 9-step companion article to assist in setting up your strategy.

You’ll need to give your email address, name and a few other details to access this template.

Social media content calendar

This Google Sheet is again unlocked by providing a little bit of your professional info. From there, it’s ready to help tackle planning your social posts. There are four key tabs:

• Strategy: This is a broad-view space to keep your business goals (their example has two) and social media goals (they provide three ideas). From there, track up to six “cornerstone content” pieces (e.g. blogs, promos, events) and tactics to get there (like posts, Instagram stories or reels, TikTok videos, etc.).
• Monthly view: Keep tabs on special dates, holidays, marketing campaigns, and the content and tactics you’re using.
• Weekly view: For the nitty-gritty. Log what you’re posting where, and at what times and dates.
• Evergreen content library: A handy place to stash valuable or successful posts to reuse in the future.

After downloading the template, make a copy of it and start filling it in.

2. Canva templates to easily create visual content

With a reputation for being user-friendly even if you’re not a designer, Canva helps you whip up professional-looking, easy-to-customize images for social media.

You’ll find around 1 million free social media templates even in its free version. That’s a lot of inspiration. Use them as-is or as starting points to add your own images or aesthetics.

Best of all, each template is correctly sized for each platform. They’re tailored and optimized out of the box, which removes editing and tinkering from the process.

Click on each link below to get a look at Canva’s templates for:

• Instagram posts, stories and reels
• Facebook posts, covers, ads and videos
• TikTok videos
• LinkedIn video ads
• YouTube videos
• Twitter posts

It pairs its templates with another million graphics, photos, videos, audio, and hundreds of font options.

Or, if you have some text and a few images to start with, use its Magic Design AI tool to create for you. You can always tweak and polish later, but it gets your gears going.

A paid Pro version also lets you create your own brand kit with color palettes, logos and more.

3. SocialPilot templates for audits, coordination and hashtags

Another social media scheduling service, SocialPilot offers organizational templates similar to HootSuite. These three cover common marketing needs. (Each is available by giving your name, company name and email.)

Social media audit template

What should you track for each platform? This Google Sheet boils down those performance metrics.

An overview tab gives a snapshot of each platform, including engagement, posting frequency, new followers gained and most-visited pages. It pulls in that data from more detailed tabs for each profile (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.).

Each profile tab also has a grid that lets you strategize for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, aka SWOT.

Team coordination template

This Google Doc is handy when multiple people are working on a campaign (writers, designers, managers, etc.). A “creative brief” template, it’s a snapshot of:

• Your brand and campaign
• Your campaign’s objectives and strategies
• Key people (decision maker, approver, support, etc.)
• Campaign assets and deliverables
• Target audience
• Creative considerations
• Competitive analysis
• Budget
• Timeline

Hashtag kit

Hashtags can help you connect with your audience when they’re specific and sparing. This download hones in on what’s trending and effective in 2023.

Of course, you’ll also want to see what’s relevant to your industry and audience. But this template covers some basics you might not want to miss.

4. Adobe Express templates to craft even more imagery

Aesthetics drive social media. So you really can’t have enough design tools in your digital pocket. And Adobe Express — from the makers of PhotoShop — is a solid companion to Canva.

On top of its thousands of social media templates, Adobe Express packs in unique photos and robust video editing options. Its options can be slightly more limited than Canva and take more tinkering to master. But it too, features plenty of templates worth exploring, including:

• General social media graphics
• Instagram stories, highlights covers and photo collages
• Facebook covers, stories, photo collages, posts, ads and logos
• YouTube channel art, banners, thumbnails and end screens

Next steps for managing your business’s social media

Managing social media is a tall task, but templates can remove a good chunk of the tedious setup and busywork.

Pick a template that matches your goals, whether it’s strategy, a content calendar, audits, or the many posts you’ll need to create. Then, get planning and posting!

Need more guidance? Talk to us. Here at Zoe Marketing & Communications, we offer 15+ years of digital marketing experience. We can help you create and hone your social media marketing.

If you’re still doing your research, keep on learning. These two articles are ideal next steps:

• Discover how social media ads work and look (plus lots of basics about seven key social media platforms)
• 3 top free digital marketing templates for businesses