Social Media Calendar Spreadsheet for Hootsuite

What do cross-country road trips, wedding speeches, and social media marketing accept in common? Planning.

You could improvise all three, simply it's better to accept a plan for what direction yous're heading — especially when developing your social media content strategy.

Past now, near marketers recognize that social media plays an integral role in an effective inbound marketing strategy. With and so many social networks bachelor to usa, it's of import to stay organized and have a plan for when and what y'all're going to share on these platforms.

Permit's swoop into our list of meridian tools to stay organized and on superlative of your game.

Social Media Content Agenda Tools to Plan Your Messaging

1. HubSpot's Downloadable Template for Excel

Content Calendar

Cost: Free

Download This Template

Marketers might already use Excel for different types of reports and data assay in their roles, only this multifaceted tool is perfect for social media content calendar organization, too. Excel can exist customized co-ordinate to the priorities and metrics your team is focused on, then it's a great option for planning ahead.

The good news? Nosotros've already done the heavy lifting for you by creating a free, downloadable social media content calendar template using Microsoft Excel. Marketers can use this template to programme out private social media posts hands — monthly or annually — while keeping an heart on bigger picture show events, holidays, publications, and partnerships.

• Use the Monthly Planning Calendar Tab higher up to become a bird's-heart view of what'south coming down the content pipeline in a given month.
• In the Content Repository tab, you lot can add together the content yous'll be publishing on this tab to go on track of which pieces have been promoted already and to easily remember older content that can be re-promoted.
• Y'all can draft and plan out social media posts in advance on the Social Network Update tabs. These tabs are for organizational purposes. After planning out your social media posts, you'll manually upload the content of the posts to a social media publisher.

For more than on how to utilize the templates, bank check out this in-depth guide from my colleague Lindsay Kolowich.

This gratis resource tin can draft social media posts or bulk-upload them into a publishing app to maximize efficiency. (HubSpot customers: You can use this spreadsheet to organize content and upload it direct into Social Inbox. For instructions on doing this, check out the template'due south cover sheet hither.)

Why nosotros like this social media tool:

Marketers with small teams and heavy workloads will love this intuitive template. Information technology acts every bit a social media content planner, tracker, and archive, making information technology perfect for sharing your social plan with stakeholders and referring to it when you need to repurpose onetime content.

ii. Google Drive

Content Calendar and Asset Organization

Toll: Complimentary for personal use. Google Workspace plans for businesses get-go at $6 per month.

Google Drive has several helpful features that make it easy for social media marketers to build an constructive content calendar.

Here'southward an example of how a team might use Google Agenda to track their editorial and social media calendars to make certain posts align with new web log content. These calendars can exist easily shared with multiple teams to avoid scheduling conflicts and marshal campaigns.

Marketers can also use shared Google Sheets to schedule posts on social media, rails the status of different pieces of content, and assign tasks to squad members without switching betwixt platforms.

With the help of Google Docs, users can keep comments all in one identify and interact on different projects without emailing dorsum and forth or scheduling a meeting. This is a particularly useful feature when editing content for social media, which may need to be drafted and approved speedily.

Why we like this social media tool:

Google has several products that can be used together to create quick, seamless workflows. So whether you're publishing dozens of posts per mean solar day beyond multiple platforms or ramping upwards one channel for your freelance business, you'll detect value in the Google Drive system. The best part is that HubSpot customers tin can easily link their Google Drive accounts to the HubSpot portal to upload files from Drive into the HubSpot software.

3. Loomly

Content Planning, Creation, Publishing, and Calendar

Toll: xv-24-hour interval free trial. The Base program is $26 per month for 2 users and 10 accounts when you choose the annual understanding.

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If y'all want more than mileage out of your content calendar, you tin plough to an all-in-one content planning and publishing platform such as Loomly.

Loomly offers tools beyond content scheduling and management. This tool provides inspiration and management to help you create content. It as well allows yous to manage your content assets, schedule posts, view them as a list or a agenda, and analyze what posts are working versus which ones need work.

Loomly's most robust feature set includes a collaboration and approval environment so that teams tin can submit mockups, provide comments, see version logs, and flag for approval. This can help you streamline processes for efficiency when there are "too many cooks in the kitchen" on a item project.

Why we like this social media tool:

If your team is responsible for organic and paid social, this tool can do both. And for your team who wants to avoid using their personal account for social media duties, they can respond to comments and replies directly in Loomly — that means they won't need to login to each native platform to engage with followers.

4. Trello

Task Direction and Content Agenda

Price: Gratuitous for individual use. The Standard plan starts at $v per user per month, billed annually.

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Looking for an organizational tool that's highly constructive for team collaboration? Try Trello. This platform offers a full calendar view, making it piece of cake to visualize what content is going out and when. More specifically, social media managers can employ Trello's flexible assignment "cards" and customizable "boards" and "lists" to map out to-do lists, manage a content agenda, programme a campaign, and shop brainstorm ideas.

You're not express to just one structure, though. Users can customize boards according to their needs. For example, a team could create a board to organize social media posts for a given week, on a specific platform, or mail service ideas around a topic, such every bit a campaign or awareness day.

Why we like this social media tool:

Trello cards can be assigned to different squad members, marked with due dates, and commented on. Users can even customize labels with dissimilar publication statuses and so the entire team can see the progress of their social media posts and when they're due on the calendar. The labels could likewise bespeak different social networks where content is being published.

5. SproutSocial

Social Publishing and Content Calendar

Price: The Standard plan starts at $89 per month for v social profiles, billed annually.

Sprout Social'south social media calendar and publishing tool arrive easy for teams or individuals to programme and schedule all of their social posts. You lot can schedule content to automatically post to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more.

You tin can also tag each social post and add notes to rails and written report your posting strategy and campaigns. Additionally, their publishing suite includes a tool called Optimal Send Times, which analyzes your social media data and automatically publishes at a time your audition is most engaged.

Why we similar this social media tool:

Coming up with social media content ideas isn't always like shooting fish in a barrel. Sprout Social's social listening tool lets marketers similar you lot uncover niche conversations that your audition is interested in. From there, you can join the conversation for brand awareness or start your own conversation on the topic to grow your following.

vi. Evernote

Content Calendar, Task Management, and Asset System

Toll: The Basic plan is costless. Create a custom template using the Personal plan for $7.99 per month.

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Evernote is a annotation-taking app that marketers can use to keep track of all the moving parts that comprise a social media campaign.

The tool besides features yearly, monthly, weekly, and hourly logs, making it piece of cake to keep rails of when you're publishing content on social media, when you're producing weblog content, and other team-wide priorities. (Evernote offers customizable templates for each of these that tin can be downloaded into the app.)

Some other useful feature is Evernote'southward Web Clipper extension for Chrome. Marketers tin use this tool to hands save links to their Evernote Notebook for sharing afterward on.

Why we like this social media tool:

The Evernote mobile app also boasts interesting features to help marketers keep their social content ideas straight. For instance, y'all can easily snap a photograph and save it to your Evernote files for review later. This feature is of detail value for social content creators looking to maintain a backlog of photos to publish on Instagram.

7. Hootsuite

Social Publishing and Content Calendar

Price: The Professional person plan starts at $49 per month and starts with a gratis 14-24-hour interval trial.

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Hootsuite offers a built-in Planner tool to help you create campaigns, identify publishing gaps, and collaborate with your content creation team. Its master features are in social publishing so that you can release content to your networks in accelerate, but it too has rich features for collaboration and post approvals.

You can even curate content from other sources without logging into your account. Once your content is created, you can preview it with the Composer tool, which displays according to each social network's unique format.

Why we like this social media tool:

Cantankerous-collaboration is a big deal on simply about whatsoever marketing team, and Hootsuite has a way to brand this even easier. The social publishing platform comes with a born content library that serves equally the single point of truth for your entire organization. Does your sales squad need a product feature cheatsheet? Client service looking for details on the latest product feature? All that and more tin be found in your team's Hootsuite content library.

8. Agorapulse

Social Publishing and Content Agenda

Price: The individual program is free, or you tin use the Pro programme for small teams starting at $79 per month.

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Similar to Hootsuite, Agorapulse offers social publishing tools and a content calendar and so that you can manage your social media accounts with ease. This includes scheduling (or rescheduling), queuing, and bulk uploading posts, which is incredibly helpful for teams who use quarterly or monthly content plans.

Why we like this social media tool:

What makes Agorapulse unlike is its social inbox that allows you to manage all the interactions from various platforms in a single place. After all, content isn't just a one-and-washed activity; information technology's about building awareness and engagement with your readers as well.

nine. StoryChief

Content Planning and Distribution

Toll: Squad pricing starts at $90 per month, billed annually.

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If you want more from your content agenda than simply knowing when posts go live, StoryChief is the pick for you. With StoryChief's smart agenda, you tin can better strategize and plan your content strategy across channels.

It displays much more than your timetable — it besides allows you lot to assign collaborators to tasks and filter them by campaign. StoryChief self-describes its tool as a "content distribution platform" that unifies analytics and publishing across multiple channels for a more simplified approach to content creation. Best of all, it syncs with HubSpot and all of your favorite agenda apps.

Why nosotros similar this social media tool:

Believe it or non, there are quite a few similarities between social media marketing and SEO marketing— StoryChief bridges this gap with its SEO Copywriting tool. Past highlighting the areas you tin better your copy for the reader (and subsequently the search engines), you can write clearer, more engaging content that works on social media and your website or blog.

x. ClearVoice

Content Creation and Direction

Price: Request a free consultation for pricing.

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So what well-nigh content planning and creation? ClearVoice offers content creation tools to fit into your workflow. Their big claim to fame is their Talent Network Search which allows you to find and connect to content creators to work on your projects. Yet, ClearVoice too has features for task direction for internal and external collaborators.

Yous tin can create, edit, and approve projects in an interface that makes editorial management easy. Information technology also includes a dashboard and dynamic editorial calendar with enough of interactive functionality and integrations with other popular software.

Why nosotros like this social media tool:

Not every social team is working for a big agency or customer. For freelance content teams who want to stay organized and on time with their social media publishing, ClearVoice offers some of the same great features at a cost customized to your team.

11. Zerys

Content Creation and Management

Toll: $forty per certificate plus $49 per calendar month for project management.

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Zerys is another platform that matches you lot with your ideal content creation freelancers. Nevertheless, it markets itself equally a platform dedicated to content success, offering content planning, product, publishing, promotion, conversion, and analytics features.

Why nosotros similar this social media tool:

You tin manage unlimited content projects, programme keywords and titles for blog content, hire writers, and view deadlines on an integrated calendar. With the project management features that Zerys offers, in-house writers can employ the platform to produce quality work on time every time. It also integrates with HubSpot so that publishing is a breeze.

Social Media Templates

HubSpot'due south Social Media Calendar Template

If yous're new to setting upward social media calendars, HubSpot offers a gratuitous, pre-made downloadable template that yous tin can use to schedule out total weeks of posts.

Download At present

HubSpot'southward Social Media Content Calendar Template for Startups

This template is very similar to the ane seen to a higher place, but it includes tabs that work equally a repository for content ideas. The template also includes helpful tips for posting on specific social media networks.

If y'all're aiming to get all of your ideas downwards in order to develop a large-picture program for your social assets, we recommend starting with this template.

The Benefits of Using a Social Media Content Calendar

We're all decorated, and inevitably, tasks slip through the cracks. Social media content is no exception.

Only like with blogging, a successful social media strategy requires regular publishing and engaging with followers to see positive results — whether that's in terms of SEO, brand recognition, lead generation, or all three.

And then, if you're not already using a social media content calendar, here are iii facts to pique your interest:

1. You can pivot flawlessly when plans alter by using a content calendar. With a social media content agenda, marketers can plan out posts for entire weeks or months in advance, which frees up working hours to strategize for the future. The best part is that yous tin always go out space for breaking news or electric current events in your manufacture. Otherwise, you'll spend valuable fourth dimension searching the cyberspace every day for content to share, which is a known productivity killer.
2. Grow your audition on each platform past curating content specifically for them. Social media marketers should take the time to arts and crafts custom messages for each network because the audience expects to see something different on each one. For example, your Instagram followers want to run across Reels and Videos, while your Twitter followers like quick audio bites and shareable quotes. Planning this content in accelerate using a social media calendar will save you lot time throughout the week and ensure yous're beingness thoughtful and intentional when y'all postal service on each site.
3. Optimize your social strategy by tracking the performance of your content each month. Without a calendar, social media marketers are publishing content into the void. They cannot track big-picture and past performance. With a calendar, marketers can look dorsum and analyze which content performed all-time then they can arrange their strategy accordingly. If a particular blazon of mail received a significant corporeality of views, you lot could recreate it for a different topic and encounter the same success.
4. Accept reward of social media holidays to tap into a new but relevant audience. With the help of a calendar, marketers can plan for holidays and observance days, such as National True cat Mean solar day, when they can tailor their content and engage with a broader audience.

Social Media Calendar Examples

1. JotForm Social Media Calendar

JotForm's social media agenda isn't just visually appealing; information technology's also functional. The tabs at the top reveal your social plan for every channel you execute your strategy on, including in-person or virtual events. If y'all're modeling your social calendar after this one, don't forget to include a tab for content details and who on your squad will exist responsible for creating the content. You might also include a separate tab for each month to keep things organized.

ii. Firefly Marketing Social Media Content Calendar

Going a more traditional route with your social media calendar? Try a Google Sheets template like the one created by Firefly Marketing. Each tab is defended to a dissimilar calendar month, while the worksheet includes every channel you might need beyond the top. The rows are separated past week, so you tin can easily identify the engagement and time a post is scheduled for publishing. Our favorite part of this template is the pre-populated social media holiday cavalcade with fun dates that your audience will honey.

How To Create a Social Media Posting Schedule for Your Business

Scheduling your business organisation'southward social posts can keep yous organized and assist you consistently deliver content to your followers without worrying about looming deadlines. Content posting strategies can differ depending on the social media platform, and you should consider not only what you're posting only too​​​​​​​ when you're posting and how ofttimes. Past creating a social posting schedule and adjusting the schedule to fit each platform, yous can increment the chances that your posts volition accomplish your audience.

Facebook

Facebook'southward Meta Business organisation Suite makes it easy to schedule posts and stories for your business.

Scheduling a Facebook Mail on Desktop

Stride 1: To schedule a post using the Meta Business Suite on desktop, start by selecting your concern's Facebook Page from the dropdown menu in the superlative left of your sidebar.

Stride 2: Next, click Posts & Stories or Calendar, so click Create Mail service.

Footstep 3: Click Facebook News Feed ​​​​​​​to schedule the post to your news feed.

Pace 4: Enter the details of your mail, including text, media, and a link or location. If you choose to add a photo to your postal service, yous won't exist able to add a link preview. Click Call to Action or Feeling/Activity to add an optional call to action or feeling/action to your postal service. You cannot add both a call to action and a feeling/activity.

Step 5: Every bit y'all build your post, a preview will appear on the right. You lot can modify the preview to see how your post will look on both desktop and mobile past using the dropdown card at the superlative of the window.

Pace six: After building your mail, click the arrow next to Publish and click Schedule Post. Select the date and time when you lot want your mail to exist published and click Schedule to schedule your post.

Scheduling a Facebook Post on Mobile

Footstep 1: You can also schedule Facebook posts on mobile by using the Meta Business Suite mobile app. Start by tapping Mail service to create a new post.

Pace 2: Enter the details of your post, including text, media, links, a background color, and a feeling/activity. Then choose your business concern'south Facebook page to publish to Facebook.

Step 3: Tap Schedule for later on and select the date and fourth dimension when you want your post to be published. So tap Schedule to schedule your mail.

Instagram

Like Facebook, Instagram besides uses the Meta Business Suite to schedule posts.

Scheduling an Instagram Mail service on Desktop

Step 1: To schedule a mail to Instagram using the Meta Business Suite on desktop, start past connecting your Instagram account to the Meta Business Suite.

Footstep two: In one case your Instagram account is connected, click the dropdown carte in the top left of your sidebar​​​​​​​ and select your Instagram account.

Step 3: Click Posts & Stories or Calendar, then click Create Post. Click Instagram Feed ​​​​​​​to schedule the mail service to your Instagram feed.

Stride 4: Enter the details of your postal service, including text, media, and an optional link or location. If y'all choose to add a link to your Instagram post, it will not bear witness a photo preview.

Stride five: As you build your post, a preview will appear on the right. You tin alter the preview to run into how your mail service volition await on both desktop and mobile past using the dropdown menu at the top of the window.

Step 6: Subsequently building your mail, click the arrow next to Publish and click Schedule Post. Select the date and time when you want your post to exist published and click Schedule to schedule your postal service.

Scheduling an Instagram Post on Mobile

Step 1: Like Facebook, you can schedule Instagram posts on mobile using the Meta Business concern Suite mobile app. First past tapping Post to create a new mail service.

Step 2: Enter the details of your mail service, including text, media, and links. Then choose your business'south Instagram page to publish to Instagram.

Step 3: Tap Schedule for later and select the engagement and time when you want your postal service to be published. Then tap Schedule to schedule your post.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn does not give users the ability to schedule posts, but by using third-political party software such as Hubspot's social media management tools that are included with HubSpot'due south Marketing Hub Professional accounts, you tin can hands create and schedule LinkedIn posts.

Step i: To schedule LinkedIn posts using HubSpot's social media management tools, start by logging into your Marketing Hub Professional account.

Stride ii: Next, navigate to Marketing > Social and click Create Social Post.

Footstep three: In the right panel, click LinkedIn. Create your post in the text box, including emojis, hashtags, mentions, tags, and a content link. When using HubSpot'southward social media management tools, yous tin can only mention or tag LinkedIn company pages, not LinkedIn users.

If you add together a content link to your mail service, a post preview will announced. You lot can besides add together upwardly to four images to your post by clicking the image icon, or add together a video to your post past clicking the video icon.

Stride four: Click Preview to view a preview of how your post will appear on LinkedIn.

Step 5: To schedule your post, click on the When dropdown menu, choose a date and time and click Schedule post.

Twitter

Step 1: Yous tin schedule Tweets for your business by logging into your Twitter Ads account and navigating to the Creatives > Tweets tab. In order to access the Creatives tab in your Twitter Ads account, your account must accept a credit carte du jour on file.

Step 2: Next, click on New Tweet in the acme right corner and create your Tweet. If you would like your Tweet to only exist seen by users you accept targeted in a Promoted Ads campaign, click the Promoted Only checkbox. Exit this unchecked if y'all would like the tweet to be seen organically by your followers.

Step 3: One time you've written your tweet, click the down pointer adjacent to Tweet, click Schedule, and select the date and fourth dimension you would like the tweet to be posted.

Pinterest

Scheduling a Pinterest Post on Desktop

Pinterest allows you to schedule upwardly to 100 Pins. You tin can schedule one Pivot at a time, up to ii weeks in advance.

Footstep 1: To schedule Pins for your business, log into your Pinterest Business organization account. Next, click Create at the left corner of your screen, then click Create Pivot.

Step ii: Cull an image or video, and add together a title, description, and link.

Step 3: Click Publish at a later date and cull the twenty-four hours and time you lot'd similar to publish your Pivot.

Pace 4: Choose a board from the drop-downwards card, or create a new lath by clicking Create board.

Footstep 5: Click Publish.

Scheduling a Pinterest Post on iOS

You can likewise schedule Pins using the Pinterest app on iOS.

Step 1: To start, log in to your Pinterest Business account.

Pace 2: Tap the plus icon, then tap Pin.

Stride 3: Take a photograph for your Pin or select an paradigm or video from your device, then tap Next.

Step four: Add a title, description, and the destination website to your Pin.

Pace 5: Below Schedule Date, tap the edit icon and select the date and time you would similar to publish your Pin.

Step 6: Tap Done.

Footstep vii: Tap Next.

Stride 8: Choose an existing board to relieve your Pin to or tap Create board to create a new board.

How To Create a Content Calendar

1. Download HubSpot's content agenda template.

2. Draft your content goals.

3. Determine what types of content you want to publish.

4. Choose which platforms you will mail service on.

5. Program the most efficient posting schedule for your content.

Step one: Download HubSpot'southward content calendar template.

Download Now

Consistently posting content is central to making the most of your business concern's social media accounts. HubSpot's content calendar template makes it easy to ready up a monthly posting schedule for all of your business's social media accounts. The template can exist opened in Excel or uploaded to Google Sheets, and so you tin hands plan content with your team from anywhere.

HubSpot'due south content agenda template​​​​​​​ includes a monthly planning calendar, a content repository, and posting schedules for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest. With HubSpot'due south content agenda template, your team can view and manage all of your business'southward social media posting schedules and deadlines at a glance.

Step 2: Choose your content goals.

Americans spend around two hours on social media every day, making it a bang-up mode to attain out to your business'southward current and potential customers. It's not enough to know what you desire to post; you also demand to sympathise why your business organization posts content.

Posting content to social media can help your business concern achieve many goals, including raising make awareness, driving traffic to your website, introducing new products and services to your customers, and even launching rebranding campaigns, to proper noun a few.

When choosing your business'southward content goals, consider what your brand about needs to accomplish. Are y'all looking to achieve out to a new demographic and generate leads? Do you want to increment your customers' engagement with your business? Knowing your content goals tin assistance to ensure that your business's content reaches the right audience with the correct message.

Step iii: Determine what types of content you want to publish.

Once you know your business'southward goals, decide what types of content your business will post. Each type of social media content has advantages and disadvantages. For example, blog posts and articles can aid your business concern build brownie, just they can be time-consuming to create. Meanwhile, Tweets tin assistance your business gain consumer insight and hone its brand vocalisation, only Twitter's limit of 280 characters per Tweet means your business may have to utilise long threads of multiple Tweets to go your message across. Carefully choosing the types of content that your business will post tin assistance to ensure that your content is providing value to your audience.

Step four: Decide what platforms y'all will post on.

Once you know your business organization'south content goals and the types of content you will publish, information technology'due south fourth dimension to choose where your business organisation will mail service.

Your business concern's social media presence should be informed past its content, goals, and target audience demographics. For example, while posting on Instagram may aid your business achieve a young audience and market appurtenances, the photo and video sharing platform may exist a poor pick if yous want to increase blog traffic among professionals in your manufacture. Too, a LinkedIn post may aid bulldoze traffic to your business concern's blog but may non help you bulldoze traffic to your online store.

Considering each social media platform'southward strengths and weaknesses tin aid y'all reach your business'south content goals without wasting time and money marketing to users who are outside of your target audience.

Step 5: Determine the most efficient posting schedule for your content.

After deciding on your business's goals, the types of content y'all will publish, and where you volition post the content, you need to create the posting schedule that your business will use. Each social media platform has top appointment times — certain days and times of twenty-four hour period when users are near likely to view and engage with posts. Therefore, knowing the best times to mail on each social media platform will help you maximize the reach of your concern's posts. For instance, user engagement on Facebook peaks between 11 a.g. and i p.m. on Wednesdays. User engagement on Facebook is lowest on Sundays, before 7 a.m. each day, and after 5 p.chiliad. each 24-hour interval.

When creating your business's content calendar, business relationship for the engagement patterns for each of your business organization's social media accounts to demystify the scheduling procedure, save fourth dimension, and become your posts in front of your audition when they are most likely to come across them.

What is the all-time social media calendar?

Now that we've reviewed a few helpful tools to kicking your social media strategy into high gear, information technology's fourth dimension for you to experiment with them. The all-time social media calendar is 1 that saves you time, streamlines processes, and helps you lot work smarter, not harder.

Several of the platforms we've suggested are free to employ or offering a gratuitous trial. Take one person on your team test one out and written report their findings. You might notice the tool that helps you reach your next social media KPI. Don't forget, every social media squad is different. Combining these tools could help you execute your strategy efficiently to bulldoze ROI.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Apr 21, 2022 7:00:00 AM, updated April 21 2022

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