Content is the fuel of online marketing and if you don’t have a clear content strategy, you’ll struggle to generate leads. But something that’s often underestimated is that this requires a well-planned editorial calendar.
However, not all marketers understand how to properly implement an editorial calendar for their content strategy. Failing to start with the basics can make content production more complicated than necessary.
This article will cover the basics of this important topic. We will also tell you how an editorial calendar can elevate the quality and improve the efficiency of your content creation team.
What is an editorial calendar?
An editorial calendar is a visual workflow that helps a team of content creators schedule their work on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. In short, an editorial calendar is a timeline of what you're going to publish and when.
editorial calendar
This can help you visualize content types, channels, authors, and most importantly, publishing dates. Simply put, the editorial calendar is the framework that allows you to turn your content strategy into an action plan.
But it is not only about creating content, but also about publishing and promoting it through different channels. That is why editorial calendars are also very useful for editors, community managers, designers and marketing specialists.
How to make an editorial calendar?
There is no one ideal form for an editorial calendar, as it must be tailored to the needs of your team. However, there are a number of questions you can explore the answers to in order to determine what your editorial calendar should look like.
How often do you post content?
Defining how often you publish can show you the best way to view your editorial calendar.
Do you create more than one type of content?
If you upload videos to YouTube, record podcasts , and also publish blog posts, your editorial calendar should allow you to distinguish between all types of content.
How many people are on your team?
The best editorial calendars allow every member of your team to collaborate and give feedback on tasks in real time, right on the calendar.
How complex is your content process?
There are many different workflows, review and approval processes. The ideal editorial calendar should allow you to visualize and distinguish each stage of each piece of content.
What is an editorial calendar for?
Like any tool, an editorial calendar helps make the efforts of those who use it more efficient. Here are some reasons why every content marketing strategy should have an editorial calendar.
It is the foundation of your content organization
editorial calendarWhen you stop planning what you do, time is wasted and inefficiency becomes the norm. With a content calendar, you'll know what's coming up, what's needed, who's responsible, and the goal of each piece of content.
This is especially valuable if you have a complex content strategy. But if you don’t plan out how you’ll implement that strategy, you’ll never be able to make it a reality. A content calendar will allow you to plan out what steps you need to take, and when.
Save time for creators and programmers
If you've already defined how much content you need and what type of content, it's much easier to come up with ideas for the content itself. An editorial calendar saves you from having to worry about the basics over and over again.
When all your content and planning is in one place, the scheduling stage is simplified. You no longer have to rework a strategy on what, when, how, and where each piece of content should go. This also helps improve the consistency of what you publish.
editorial calendar
Allows you to maintain a consistent publishing cadence
Cadence is crucial when it comes to content. Once you’ve set your audience’s expectations, it’s important to maintain them. If you post weekly at first and then stop for a month, you lose credibility and your audience’s attention.
This is where an editorial calendar will help you distribute your team’s efforts over time. If you have more material than usual, you can include it in the calendar for the following week or month.
Helps prepare for the unexpected
It's much easier to adapt to changes if you have a plan in place. An editorial calendar allows you to visualize where new content should go if it arises from unexpected developments and news.
Facilitates collaboration
It's much easier to share, edit, and keep track of bulgaria mobile phone number list what's on your agenda when you don't have to deal with dozens of documents at the same time. An editorial calendar makes it easy to distribute your workflow to avoid overloading certain stages. This also prevents bottlenecks and delays.
organize publications
Allows you to accumulate content for reuse
How much evergreen content could you publish tomorrow if you wanted to? Evergreen content is content that is always relevant, and if you already knew what it was, there’s no need to explain that it’s a content strategist’s best friend.
When you have multiple editorial calendars in your archive, it will be much easier for you to find relevant content to republish, saving your team a lot of time and effort.
It works as a registry
An editorial calendar is not only useful for planning your future social media posts, but also for recording your past posts. Your editorial calendar will serve as a record system that you can refer to whenever you need it.
It will help you determine what content works (and what doesn't)
By having a calendar, you can align your content into different categories and distribute them over time. This simplifies the process of tracking its effectiveness against your key performance indicators (or KPIs).
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