Content Corner: Creating a Content Calendar
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With great content comes great responsibility. On this installment of The Marketing Blog, we’ll work through how to set yourself up for success with a content calendar! Whether your business has five employees or 500, staying organized and creating a realistic schedule is key to delivering messages to your audience across platforms. Managing content is all about coordinating marketing efforts. Product launches, community events and corporate responsibility activities will all have their time to shine.
Do I Really Need a Content Calendar?
To begin, let’s talk about why a content calendar matters. Picture this: You’re running a small business and focusing on making your operations greener. Your team is working around the clock to connect with ethical suppliers and to find distributors who share your eco-conscious mission. Your packaging is sustainable and you are getting ready to unveil a new product for which 50% of proceeds are directly sent to your partner organization’s work cleaning the ocean.
You know that your customers are going to be excited about this partnership and their chance to make a difference through their purchase, but this effort has been all hands on deck. When launch day comes around, there’s limited hype. What went wrong? Your team had been writing blog posts during the process, but only one had received final review and approval for posting. You posted on social media when there was time for it, but did not prioritize it. When you started to share, engagement had declined.
In other words, without a content strategy and plan, the “post whenever” mentality sabotaged your ability to do the most good. At The Good Camp, we value schedule flexibility. We know that by investing in our team members and trusting them to manage their time, they will be happier and do their best work. A content calendar should not be a work stressor but rather a stress reliever! With a strong plan in place, your team can put thought into various content they are creating and be ready well ahead of the absolute deadline.
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What Comes First?
Content calendars look a little different for every business based on the different types of content you share and on what channels. Starting with an Excel sheet shared through Microsoft Teams or a Google Sheet shared in your GSuite are great places to master the basics and create a design that works well for you. No matter what, be sure that all critical contributors, reviewers and approvers have access to the calendar.
In your sheet, create separate tabs for distinct content types. This creates accessibility to similar content in one place for sharing across platforms, but you can also see each channel’s unique story. We break our content calendar into three sections: Social Media, Lifestyle and Marketing.
For example, the social team can see where The Marketing Blog is at in its development and review and what content will be coming next in the series. This helps them to plan and strategize how and when to post about blogs on what platforms. Another bonus, social media algorithms and search engine web crawlers are fans of continuous content. By planning to consistently post (and increasing engagement) you’re boosting your ratings.
Take a look at this sample content calendar to understand the gist of it.
Sample Content Calendar
What Should I Include?
Remember, your content calendar should be working for you, so you should include whatever helps to best keep you organized. For social media, you might include information like this:
Review Date: The first deadline for finalized copy and visual material – Add as many review deadline columns as fits your team’s process.
Approved: Include a checkbox for the reviewer to mark when content is ready to go live.
Post Date: The day and/or time content will go live.
Theme: If you are posting within a series there should be similarity and your reviewer or teammates should look for this. Indicate the theme in a column, by color coding or another way of your choosing.
Topic: In a few words, describe what the post is about.
Link to Copy: Wherever you have been writing for the post, make it easy to review.
Link to Visual(s): Whatever infographic, video or image you choose should be linked for review.
Notes: Keep a column with specific instructions or details about your post in progress.
In addition to these categories, you could also log the author or contributor and their contact information, especially helpful when managing internally and externally created materials. To continuously improve posts, consider tracking engagement metrics like reach, likes and comments for review. As you add new content to your calendar, gain insight from what performed best in the past or most recently.
Depending on the size of your team, the volume of your social media and how much content is distinct or repeated across your platforms, you may want to separate each social media type (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) with tabs, columns or page sections – maybe it even needs its own calendar. For blogs, adding columns to track research deadlines and links to your blog pages once live may be helpful. Infographics, magazines and email might be other content types you create and track, too.
Last, if you’re looking for a more visual way to organize your content and share it amongst your team, Asana and AirTable are a little more technical but can be used to manage content and link relevant files.
How Should I Set Dates?
Obviously content planning is important, but you want to be strategic about when you publish. Utilize web analytics tools to find when your audience is most likely to engage with content by day and time. Social media algorithms favor accounts who post frequently but engagement also matters and you want to deliver quality, not quantity. Don’t spam your audience and if possible, incorporate customer preferences (especially for email). A good place to start might be two to three posts a week, one or two emails and one or two blog posts – your team size and resources matter here again, but if you need more help, give us a shout!
Some brands will create general content plans a year in advance while other teams may benefit from creating or updating their calendars each month. Here’s the thing: What’s going on at your company might change! You want to stick to your schedule to stay organized, but don’t be afraid to change up the weekly post with an innovative idea or a connection to a uniquely relevant current event. Personally, I’m a fan of having annual concepts laid out to visualize the story you will tell throughout the year and incorporate holidays, but monthly content calendars are my pick for detailed information to keep what you share relevant.
It’s About People
Above all, the way you plan and schedule your content should serve your team and audience. Leave time for quality reviews, edits, legal approval and all necessary eyes. As you bring new team members to the party, having a plan and process with a content calendar in place will help them contribute clearly and quickly, too. Look at that – transparency rules again!
Stick to the deadlines you set and be realistic about the speed of the content creation and review process. As the one in control or working with your team, allow constraints to give you the flexibility to create the best content in advance. Timing is essential, but with a thorough strategy and calendar, you can start telling your product or organization story and generate buzz along the way to have a successful launch. Say goodbye to last-minute or “when there’s time”. Take control of your inbound strategy and make your dreams of success a reality through content planning.
