Most of us have become small publishers: we create, publish and distribute content. But that can be time-consuming and a bit stressful if you don’t plan ahead.
The best way to approach content marketing planning is to get organized with an editorial calendar. December is a great month to create it, so you can stay on top of your social media content planning for a year.
Two types of editorial calendars:
1.Blog Calendar
First you should define your main goal for your blog.
1) Are you trying to get brand awareness?
2) Are you trying to position yourself as an expert within your field?
3) Are you trying to connect with a specific audience?
The main goal will lead you to think about the topics you wish to write and share with your audience. From here, you can create a running list of ideas. Those might be:
- Write a tutorial that explains how to use a service or a product.
- Write a post replying a customer’s question.
- Share relevant statistics on your niche.
- Success stories.
- Etc.
Tools for editorial calendars:
CoSchedule is a collaborative tool that lets you plan and publish content seamlessly via drag-and-drop features.
Cost: From $15/mo
Trello is a platform that is composed by simple boards where you can drag and drop ideas for your editorial calendar into different lists and organize content quickly.
Cost: Free
Google Sheets
It’s a free resource but may require a bit more setup time.
Cost: Free
2. Social Media Calendar
A social media content calendar will organize the way you create and curate content. Not only should a social media calendar help you get organized, but also it should allow you to be more efficient and way more effective.
You can use any of the tools mentioned above; but here we are going to explain the most common method and it’s free.
Step #1: Create tabs for each month.
Step # 2: Add social media channels for days, weeks and months.
Step #3: Fill the spaces with the content you want to share with your audience. You can also add the blog posts in order to coordinate both contents.
Be Creative | Be Social