Weekly Content Planning Template

The weekly content planning template structures the process of selecting, validating, and scheduling video topics for a 7-day publish window. It integrates three input sources: trending topic signals, audience retention data from prior videos, and competitor gap analysis — combining them into a prioritized topic list with assigned publish days.

The template addresses the most common content planning failure mode: topic selection based on intuition alone without reference to data. By requiring each topic candidate to be scored against trend signal strength, prior retention performance, and competitive opportunity, the template creates a repeatable decision process that improves content selection consistency over time.

The planning process starts Monday with a topic candidate list built from three inputs: trending topics in your niche from TubeAnalytics's trend discovery module, topics from prior videos where audience retention was above your channel average, and topics where competitor channels have gaps or under-indexed content. Each candidate is scored 1–3 on each dimension, and the top-scoring topics are assigned to the week's publish slots.

Wednesday and Thursday are production windows. The template includes a pre-production checklist that validates thumbnail concept, title keyword placement, and end-screen CTA before recording begins. This prevents the common problem of producing a video and then discovering the title or thumbnail strategy is weak.

The template is most effective when the trend and retention inputs come from TubeAnalytics rather than manual YouTube Studio exports. The platform's trend discovery module surfaces rising topics 3–5 days earlier than most manual research methods, and the retention curve comparison lets you identify the specific video topics and formats where your audience stays longest.

Export the prior week's performance data from TubeAnalytics on Monday morning as the starting input for the planning cycle. The template includes a data entry section for pasting these figures directly so the scoring process takes under 30 minutes.