How to use Social Calendars in Metricool
Updated 3 months ago
What are Social Calendars?
Social Calendars help you plan your content around key dates throughout the year—from big campaigns like Valentine’s Day or Black Friday to fun ones like National Dog Day.
With this feature, you can:
See all the highlighted dates in one place.
Use these dates as inspiration to create engaging and timely content.
Never miss the chance to join the conversation with posts your audience cares about.
Social Calendars are built right into your planning dashboard, so you have everything you need, right where you need it.
📘 In this article, we’ll walk you through how to use them step by step.
❓ Don’t forget to check out the FAQs at the end—we cover the most common questions.
How do Social Calendars work?
Social Calendars give you two ways to add events to your planning:
Explore preset calendars: add featured dates curated by Metricool.
Import your Google Calendar: add events from Google Calendar using an iCal (.ics) URL.
Where do the calendars appear?
When you add a calendar, you can choose:
By brand: all brand collaborators will see the calendar.
By user: only you will see the calendar, and it’ll show across all your brands.
By user and brand: you can also select both options to add the calendar to your user and to the brand at the same time.
This lets you decide whether a calendar is useful for the whole team or just for your own planning.
How are calendars synced?
All calendars in Metricool are updated either automatically or manually, depending on the type:
Preset calendars update automatically.
Calendars imported via URL (.ics) sync every 30 minutes, and you can also trigger a manual sync.
👉 Each section below includes more detail about syncing for each calendar type.
How to manage active calendars
Once you’ve added calendars, you can manage them easily from the Social Calendars section.
The calendar picker has a select / unselect all button, and the panel scrolls once you have more than five calendars.
🔘 Turn calendars on or off
Go to Social Calendars, and you’ll see a list of your active calendars.
From there, you can quickly turn them on or off to show or hide them from your planner.
It’s a quick way to manage visibility without deleting anything.
⚙️ Manage individual calendars
In the same section, click on “Manage calendars”.
Click the three dots icon next to the calendar you want to update. There, you can:
Change the calendar color (this is a local setting and only affects your view).
Delete the calendar if you no longer need it.
🔎 Explore preset calendars
You can browse and add Metricool’s preset calendars with featured dates like international holidays, fun observances, and key seasonal events to inspire your content.
These calendars update automatically and show relevant events right in your planning view.
Calendars added from this section display the Metricool icon, so you can spot them easily.
Metricool calendars are tailored to match your account’s language setting.
How to add a preset calendar
In the Planning dashboard, click the three dots icon and choose Social Calendars.
Hit the “Add calendar” button.
In the “Explore calendars” tab, select the ones you want to add.
Choose if the calendar will show by brand (shared with the team) or by user (just for you).
Click “Add” to finish.
👉 Once you’ve added your first calendar, you’ll unlock the option to manage calendars and add more anytime.
⤴️ Import your Google Calendar
Currently, Metricool only allows importing calendars from Google Calendar.
If you use another calendar tool, you can export the calendar in .ics format and import it into Google Calendar first.
To import a Google Calendar, follow these steps:
While it’s possible to import the iCal URL of a corporate Google calendar, Google does not allow Metricool to access its events. For this reason, the calendar will appear empty after import.
Go to Google Calendar and open the settings of the calendar you want to import.
Find the “Integrate calendar” section.
Copy the iCal (.ics) URL.
⚠️ The calendar must be set to public or it won’t work.
In Metricool, go to “Add calendar” → “Import calendar”, paste the URL, finish the setup, and hit "Add".
💡 When you import a calendar, Metricool will automatically pull the name, description, and color (if available from the original source).
If you need help locating the public URL of your calendar or making it public, check Google’s official documentation here.
Event syncing
Custom calendars sync automatically every 30 minutes.
If you want to see changes instantly (for example, if you just added an event in Google Calendar), use the "Sync" button manually.
This button is only available for imported calendars, not the preset ones.
How to manually sync a calendar
Go to Social Calendars in your Planning dashboard.
Find the calendar you want to sync.
Click the three dots icon next to it.
Select the “Sync” option.
👉 This will refresh the calendar events right away without waiting for the 30-minute automatic sync.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Can I edit a calendar after adding it?
No. Once a calendar is added (either imported or preset), you can’t edit its name, description, or URL.
You can only change its color from the calendar management section. (This color setting is only visible to you.)
What if I need to fix something in the calendar?
Calendars can’t be edited once added.
If you need to make changes, you’ll need to delete the calendar from Social Calendars and add it again with the correct info.
Can I use the same calendar across multiple brands?
Yes! When you add a calendar, you can choose to apply it to a specific brand (visible to all collaborators) or to your user account (visible only to you across all your brands).
Which platforms are compatible with calendar import?
Currently, calendar import in Metricool is only compatible with Google Calendar.
If you use another calendar platform, you can export the calendar in .ics format and import it into Google Calendar.
Once added to Google Calendar, you can obtain the public iCal URL and use it to import it into Metricool.
How often do calendar events update?
Imported calendars sync automatically every 30 minutes.
You can also use the "Sync" button to update events instantly.
Who can see the calendars I add?
If you add it by brand, all brand collaborators will see it.
If you add it by user, only you will see it across your brands.
You can also select both: add it to your user and to the brand at the same time.