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Why you may need an editorial calendar for your business

by | Dec 5, 2012 | Advice & Tips

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.

 

Written by Robin Miller

Written by Robin Miller

Robin will coordinate the writing for your newsletters, social media posts, website, blogs, newsletters and press releases. “I like interviewing clients and spokespeople, hearing their stories, getting to know their personalities and listening to how they phrase their thoughts,” she says. “It’s fun to transform what I’ve learned from those conversations into media-grade content.” Robin enjoys shaping content to ensure that the message will be clearly received. “When someone understands the relevance of what they’re writing and can position it properly for their audience, their work tends to be more convincing and on point. I’m fortunate to have a very diverse background, which gives me a good perspective whenever we bring on a new client.” An IABC- and Mercury-award winner, Robin says her practical experience in the health sciences has proven particularly beneficial as she interprets clients’ scientific information for mainstream media. “But it’s no longer sufficient to write well,” she cautions. “As marketers, we must now comply with the intricacies of digital marketing. That involves a whole set of rules, which are constantly evolving.”

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