How to Organize Your Editorial Calendar (with Free Template)
An editorial calendar or content calendar is a calendar that lists all of the content that you will produce in a month and on what platforms, channels, and mediums that content will be produced. An editorial calendar helps you visualize your content strategy, which helps you avoid repetition, ensure you’re targeting your audience with your content, and know what is being published and when.
Step 1: Figure Out What Kind of Content You Need
Step 1: Figure out what kind of content you need on your calendar. (Photo credit: Patrick Perkins on Unsplash)
Editorial calendars allow you the luxury of planning your content in advance, so you’re not scrambling to figure out what to produce, how to produce it, etc. Slapping content together for the sake of getting something out there usually results in a shoddy product. What’s more, it results an inconsistent publication schedule, which algorithms frown upon. Consistency is an important aspect of content creation.
Thus, your content calendar visually lays out what days you’ll post what and when on which platforms.
- Use your editorial calendar to see when you’re posting video, written blogs, or memes, or uploading podcasts, or sending e-mail newsletters, etc.
- Strategize themes for a week or a month’s content. You can plan a series. For example, if you’re a lawn and garden company, you could dedicate a week of your December calendar to getting your landscape in Santa-ready holiday shape.
- Target your audience’s specific needs. Advanced planning enables you to think of who will consume your content and what precisely they need.
Step 2: Organize Your Content on the Editorial Calendar
Speaking of planning, plan your editorials calendar’s content months in advance, so you can organize it based special event days or holidays or so you can plan special promos days, for example.
Step 2: Organize the content on your editorial calendar. (Photo credit: Estee Janssen on Unsplash)
- Designate themed days of the week or content categories. For example a pet brand might have “Pet Tip Tuesday”, “Walk Your Dog Wednesday”, “Cat Lover Thursday”, etc. You can then say, “Okay, my pet tips go on Tuesday.”
- Determine what content is posted to which platforms on the day of the week. If you use Facebook, Pinterest, and YouTube in your marketing strategy, then you can say, “On Pet Tip Tuesday, we’re going to post this video to YouTube, this meme to Facebook, and this photo with a link to our blog on Pinterest.”
- Check your niche for special days and incorporate those into your content strategy. If the third Thursday of November is pet adoption day, then all of your content for that particular day needs to tie into that special event.
- Use your calendar to strategize your holiday marketing plan. You can plan sales, special promos, and themed product tie-ins to your strategy. For example, in your December calendar, you can add the perfect cat gift to promote to your calendar for Cat Lover Thursday.
This approach helps you stay focused and organized. It also helps you look back at what you published in the past. An important aspect of content production is being new and useful; being redundant doesn’t accomplish that.
Step 3: Assign Roles for Who Publishes What & When
Step 3: Assign roles for who publishes what & when on the editorial calendar. (Photo credit: Climate Kic on Unsplash)
Lastly, use the calendar to designate tasks and deadlines. Who is writing what? When is it due? When will it be published? The more specific your calendar’s information is, the better. Having your team get content to you a month or two in advance of publication, which will help you avoid scrambling for content.
An editorial calendar is a useful resource in any brand’s marketing strategy. It enables you to consistently visualize what you will do, to determine how best to do it, and to ensure that you are meeting your audience’s needs with your content.
Create your editorial calendar for a more streamlined and effective approach to reaching your audience, but, hey, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Download The Storyteller Agency’s free editorial calendar template to use for your brand. Contact us if you need help or would like more tips on content storytelling, marketing, and strategizing.
