1. Gather the facts before the captions.
Begin with the official calendar: meetings, recreation programs, closures, service changes, and community events. Record the source, the date, and the staff member who can confirm the details.
Separate confirmed items from tentative ones. A draft can wait; an incorrect date can send residents to the wrong place.
2. Give the week a useful mix.
Start with what residents need to know. Add the events they can take part in and the people or places that help them feel connected.
- Need to know: service changes, closures, and important deadlines.
- Good to join: programs, meetings, and confirmed events.
- Worth knowing: staff introductions, local places, and useful explanations.
Let the community’s actual calendar set the pace. Do not create filler just to occupy a date.
3. Prepare the words and image together.
Lead with the most useful detail. Include who the update applies to, what to do next, and a link to the official page. Choose a photograph you have permission to use and that accurately represents the subject.
A simple post structure:
What’s happening → Who it affects → When and where → What to do next.
4. Make review a real step.
Give an authorized reviewer enough time to check dates, names, links, photographs, and local wording. Identify who can correct a scheduled post if the details change.
Use the staff approval checklist before anything is released.
5. Revisit the plan when the town changes.
Weather, cancellations, and official updates can make a prepared post outdated. Review the upcoming queue after a change and confirm the status of anything already published.
Municiply’s calendar, assisted drafts and Prepare a month support this work. Preparing a month is staff-triggered: somebody picks the month and reviews a preview before any draft is created. Preparation that runs on its own each month, and synchronisation with an external calendar, are not built.
When the change is the kind that makes every scheduled post wrong — a closure, a cancellation, a death in the village — an Approver can pause routine publishing so nothing goes out on its own while you work through the queue, and still send an urgent notice immediately. Resuming asks what should happen to everything that came due in the meantime. How the pause works →