If you promote your business online through social media and blogs, you need an editorial calendar. Busy schedules and writer’s block are two of the most common roadblocks to a successful social media presence. The solution is to think and act like a professional publisher, and that includes staying organized by creating an editorial calendar.
Successful magazines use editorial calendars to plan out each issue, often a year in advance. That gives the writers and editors time to get columns and articles researched, written and approved. It also enables the sales force to sell ads related to each issue’s or article’s focus.
An editorial calendar will keep you organized
A company’s editorial calendar serves several purposes:
• It gives you a place to list story ideas
• It gives you a place to inventory your potential content sources
• It helps you manage content generation for multiple social media channels
• It helps you easily see your posting frequency and schedule
• It gives you a place to record writing and posting assignments
Editorial calendar elements
The basic guidelines for creating an editorial calendar are simple. Working at least one to three months in advance will go a long way toward preventing you from scrambling for ideas at the last minute. You’ll want to include and/or consider the following elements:
• Layout: The design of your editorial calendar is entirely up to you. Some people prefer a month-at-a-glance calendar layout. Others prefer lists created in Word. Create something that’s compact (one page is best), easy to post and easy to share. You may want to do the planning in Word then transfer the results into your calendar format.
• Social Media Channels: Where will you post content? Typical examples include blogs, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Topics to be covered: What topics do you want to discuss this month?
• Content sources: Where will you find the information?
• Who is responsible for writing each piece? You may want to assign different people to different social media channels. Now is the time to determine if you want your company to have one voice or many.
• Who will approve each piece before it is posted? Who should have the final say over what is written and published online?
• Who will posting/tagging/categorizing each piece? This is critical to your search engine optimization, so make sure the person responsible is properly trained.
• What is the posting schedule? Will you post a new blog each Tuesday? Tweet once a day?
If you are stumped and still have trouble getting started, consider having a brainstorming session with your staff. Or call me at 952-697-5269. My team helps clients in many different industries develop their editorial calendars. We offer a different perspective, and may be able to suggest sources and ideas that you hadn’t considered.
