how to make content planning 10x easier

well, hello there, everyone! happy tuesday from new york city. while you read this edition, i am currently on my way to social media week hosted by adweek. if you’re here today and tomorrow, hit me up here or slide in my dms.

to all my mothers out of there of all kinds, i hope you had a very fun-filled and relaxing weekend.

this week, i’ve been thinking a lot about what actually keeps a brand moving forward — not just at a surface level, but beneath it. Not just what makes content good, but what makes a team feel focused, creative, and not totally underwater. And I keep coming back to one thing that sounds boring on paper, but changed the way I work and the teams I have and have had the honor of being part of:

A monthly brainstorm call.

I used to think monthly brainstorms were a waste of time, but that changed once I was able to use these meetings to help team who were struggling with cadence of uploads, original content, planning in advance, briefing in needs with enough lead time, and more and use them to our advantage.

We’re going to chat through the structure I use for these that you can take and work into a format that works for you.

But, before we get into it, if you’re a brand thinking about scaling into retail or trying to make Q4 your biggest season yet (which you should be planning for), the name of the game is attention. You need as many eyes on you as possible — not later, not “once the product’s perfect,” but now. Because awareness isn’t something you turn on overnight. It takes time to build, and if you want your Q4 to move, that work starts in Q2, sometimes earlier.

What kills me is how often I hear people talk about wanting their brand to be “everywhere,” but then side-eye the idea of brand awareness like it’s a bad word. You can’t have it both ways. If you want reach, impressions, and that FOMO energy, you have to invest in it — through content, through creators, through paid, through real community moves.

That’s where AdFairy comes in. It lets you blend the best of both worlds: real creator discovery and a workflow that doesn’t require your entire team to live inside a platform all day. You can find new and rising creators who are already gaining traction, test different verticals, build longer-term partnerships, and rack up meaningful impressions — then rinse and repeat.

Trusted by brands like OLIPOP, Graza, and more, AdFairy helps you actually move the needle. OLIPOP alone has seen over 3 billion organic impressions from creators using the platform. For Graza, it was a no-brainer — I needed something that could scale with our influencer program to get us massive awareness, especially when rolling into nationwide retail. 

Here’s how it works:

• Tell the AdFairy team what you’re looking for — goals, verticals, CPMs, etc.

• They send back curated creator recs that actually make sense for your brand (and yes, you can give feedback).

• Once approved, you’ll get a dashboard where you can track content status in real-time — from drafts to uploads to results.

• As posts go live, you can see how much reach and traction you’re pulling in across TikTok, IG, Facebook, and YouTube Shorts.

If you’re a brand that wants to partner with influencers regularly, streamline your creator comms, or drive more velocity in retail, or just give the vibe that your product is literally everywhere, AdFairy might just be what you’ve been looking for. To get started, You can book a demo right HERE and let them know I sent ya.

Let’s talk about the meeting you’re probably skipping — the one that would actually change how your team functions.

A monthly brainstorm sounds basic. Maybe even unnecessary when you're in the thick of a million things. But if you’re running social and influencer on a lean team? It’s the closest thing to a cheat code I’ve seen.

Here’s how most setups look when I join a brand:

Small-but-mighty team running social, influencer, content, community, partnerships. Big goals from leadership. A calendar that looks full, but doesn’t always feel strategic. And a team that’s stuck reacting to the sprint, constantly moving, but rarely pausing long enough to ask, “Wait, what are we even sprinting toward?”

That’s why I started instilling this process everywhere I go once we’re through the thick of redoing strategy or an audit, testing out some concepts, and more and that is: a monthly 90-minute brainstorm call. A meeting that brings clarity, momentum, and a working plan you can actually execute on to crush the upcoming months in advance.

Now, why is this call helpful?

Reason #1: It slows the chaos.

When you’re under pressure, you revert to what’s familiar. You reuse the same content formats. You only prioritize what feels big and obvious (a launch, a restock, a holiday). You forget to think long-term. You forget some channels even exist. You stop making room to test.

These calls force a pause. They let you zoom out, assess where the brand is right now, and decide what deserves your attention next month or the month after — not based on panic, but on purpose.

At Curology, for example, our monthly brainstorms helped us break out of reactive mode and increase our cadence significantly week over week aligned to a larger vision. We started planning farther out. We had time to brief creators in advance. We were able to hand in briefs to the creative team with enough time to execute. You get the point.

Reason #2: It creates alignment in a lean setup.

The goal isn’t just to brainstorm. The goal is to get everyone on the same page.

You don’t need a ten-layer approval chain. You need a place to hear what’s coming up across the brand before it hits your inbox.

On these calls, we’d walk through a Google Sheet that contained:

• Brand priorities: launches, retail pushes, restocks, education, seasonality

• What content could support those — and across which channels

• Creator/influencer ideas that would amplify them

• Key cultural or calendar moments that could serve as a creative hook

• Any partners or giveaways we should plan around

At brands like Graza or Zab’s, this structure helped us align on specific concept to fall under key pillars — like recipes — and jot down:

→ The creator(s) who could bring each one to life
→ The brand partners we could tap to make it bigger
→ The moment in the calendar it should hit

We weren’t throwing ideas at the wall. We were matching them to moments and getting buy-in in real time where we could. Now, note: the buckets you may set-up and work across will always be relative to your brand or your segment it out.

Reason #3: It makes execution way faster.

People think “brainstorm” and imagine an unstructured idea dump. That’s not what this is.

This is where we make decisions. It’s where we assign ownership. It’s where we start moving.

After every brainstorm, we’d leave with:

• Social already plugging ideas into the calendar, flagging what needed a designer, external support, internal support, etc.

• Influencer leads starting outreach for seeding, partnerships, or re-engagement.

• Partnerships sourcing collaborators, giveaway partners, or cross-promos.

• Founders or execs having visibility into what’s coming, so they’re not asking for last-minute pivots later.

You could feel the shift: no more “What are we posting tomorrow?”
We were planning weeks out — and still had breathing room to jump on something reactive when needed.

Who should be on the call?

Depends on your setup. At minimum? Whoever’s owning marketing execution. I’ve done this call with two people (me and a founder) and I’ve done it with six (social, influencer, partnerships, CMO, content, and creative).

You don’t need everyone. You just need the right people — the ones who will walk away with action items or who have a large hand in giving the right information or will have to be lifting during the execution phase.

What does the format of the brainstorm look like?

Great question…if you were wondering. It all starts with a little bit of homework, a Google Sheet, and a dream.

This Google Sheet is titled for the month we are intending to plan for with a section for themes, key moments + initiatives/campaigns that will be the main focus to give us direction to plan around.

From there, everyone who joins the call gets their own row to drop in their concepts across a few buckets.

These buckets include:

• Organic Social → Based on your brand, how this gets broken down will depend and based on your pillars. For me, it’s sometimes recipes, education, entertainment, etc.

• Partners → Are there potentially any brand partners who would be good to support the key initiatives or plans you have? Any partners who could support on content as well?

• IRL/Retail/E-Comm → Any key moments that we need to ideate around? If so, drop the ideas here. If there are ideas to test around amplifying any of these channels, that’s where they would go as well.

• Influencer → What communities are we aiming to send product to, any influencers we think would be good to pay to support said initiatives, etc.

What happens after the call?

After the call, each team updates their own system.

• Social plugs concepts into a calendar or PM tool (Asana, Notion, Google Sheets — whatever works)

• Influencer pulls lists, sends product, kicks off briefs

• Partnerships makes contact with the goal brands and aligns on timelines

• Creative knows what needs assets and when

The machine starts moving immediately — because the vision is already in place.

Final Thought:

The more brands I work with, the more I realize this:

You don’t always need more people.
You usually just need better systems.
And a rhythm with those systems.

The monthly brainstorm is that rhythm.
It gives you focus.
It gives your team a north star.
It reduces decision fatigue.
And it builds real momentum.

So, if you’re running social, content, or influencer at a lean brand — start here. Add 90 minutes to your calendar. Repeat monthly.

It’s time for Ahead of The Trend.

A quick, snappy ode to the fun things I’m seeing online across creators, social, and brands. Sometimes, it’s a trend. Sometimes, it’s just a tip I want to share about marketing. TL;DR: just cool things I’m loving right now or things you should know.

Things of the Week That I Can’t Stop Using, Eating, Reading, Seeing…You Get The Point:

• Using: Amp It by point of view, which is coming back in stock tomorrow.

• Eating: For all my seed-oil free folks, I was recently sent a nice little box from Rosie’s, which is a new beef tallow chip where the ingredients are literally potatoes, beef tallow, and salt. The simple things truly are delish. Perfectly salty, crunchy, and hit the spot. Let it be known that I do consume seed oil here and there, please don’t hate me.

• Drinking: I have gone through 24 cans of Cadence’s new Cola flavor in 1.5 weeks.

• Campaign of the Week: It’s not a Kendall newsletter if I don’t keep expressing my love for Merit, who wiped their IG clean to prep for their new + upcoming launch. I always get weak in the knees at their rollouts.

• Watching: Is anyone else on Tiki the Dog Tok? We must talk about this.

• Influencer: I feel like everyone else on the internet right now, but if you need to laugh, @vanillamace is your girl.

That’s a Wrap!

As always, thanks for spending some time with me and being patient with me. What a pleasure to be in your inbox.

If you get to this point, can you do me a solid? Can you hit “REPLY” and send back what YOU want to see? Are there any questions or topics you want to learn more about when it comes to social media, content strategy, systems, or influencer marketing? If so, shoot ‘em over.

While you think about the above, I’ll see you later this week with my friends over at Sprout Social as we have been cooking something very fun up.

Peace, love, and KPIS,

KD

This edition is brought to you by Adfairy