To stay competitive online these days, your business needs to be producing some sort of content.
Some companies produce thousands of posts, articles, emails, etc. a month. Others are lucky to get a blog post, an email and a social media post out in a month.
Keeping all of this organized can be challenging, depending on how large your company is and who (if anyone) is in charge of creating all of this content.
That’s where a content calendar can come in very handy.
What is a Content Calendar?
A content calendar is exactly what it sounds like. A calendar, either digital or hard copy, that acts as the collection point and source of truth for all the content your company puts out to your audience.
Basically, it’s an easy way to determine:
- What types of content you’re creating.
- The topics you want to create content about.
- When you want each content piece to launch into the world.
- Where and how each content piece should be promoted.
It’s a pretty simple tool, but it’s incredibly useful, especially if you have several people working on your content and everyone needs to coordinate resources. It’s also darn handy if you’re a solopreneur and you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the content you need to produce.
What Tools Can I Use for My Content Calendar?
Honestly, I recommend keeping your content calendar on your personal calendar. That way it’s staring you in the face every day and you don’t forget about what you should be producing next.
Any of the calendar tools like the built-in Calendar program for Mac, Outlook in the Microsoft Office Suite, Google Calendar or the like will let you set up a “calendar” within their system with color coding so you can easily identify your content calendar and see what’s coming up, as well as plan for the future.
If you use a paper calendar, like a planner or a date book, write your content ideas in there.
There are also a lot of content calendar tools out there, including:
If you don’t necessarily want a calendar format, but do want to see an organized flow of your upcoming content, I recommend Trello. It’s an easy to use, drag-and-drop card format board that lets you move cards with all the information for a project from list to list. You can track your progress and include collaborators on each card so everyone knows what’s going on with the project.
There are hundreds more options out there online, so you can find something that works well for you.
Finally, a good, old-fashioned spreadsheet works wonders. All you need are the headings for each column, which can include:
- Type of content
- Publication date
- Author
- Working title
- Content description
- Publication channels
- Keywords for SEO (if needed)
- Any calls-to-action
- Status: draft, complete, published, or hold
You fill in the fields as needed and update it when necessary.
One of the things I look for in any content calendar tool is flexibility. If I decide I want to move a post from one date to another or if I want to add notes to an entry, I want that to be easy to do and have it save automatically. There’s nothing worse than adding a brilliant idea to your post invite or card in a system, then having that disappear into the ether.
What Should I Put on My Content Calendar?
Your content ideas.
Sorry to be obvious, but that’s what a content calendar is for.
This is where you collect ideas for future posts, add notes and resources to currently planned posts and keep track of how your content is being distributed.
If you’re like me and you write blog post series, you can organize your posts by week or month to see how your pieces fit together.
If you post to social media regularly and you have certain topics you want to post on each month, you can add ideas for specific posts for each platform you post to.
If you send out regular emails, you can keep track of the subject lines and topics for each email and when you plan on sending it.
If you know you have a promotion coming up and you’re planning content around that, including landing pages and social media ads, your content calendar is a great place to keep track of all of that.
You get the idea.
Where Should I Publish My Content?
Great question!
You want to publish your content where your audience will see it.
This can include:
- Your business blog (like this one).
- Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.
- Video sharing sites (if you do video) like YouTube.
- Regular emails to your list.
- Upcoming promotions on your website.
The most important thing when choosing where to publish your content is to make sure you know where your audience hangs out, so it’s easy for them to find you and enjoy your content.
How Do I Use My Content Calendar Regularly?
First, go through and add at least two months of content to your calendar. If you can come up with more than that, keep going.
For me, that would look like a blog post, an email and a topic for my Beach Walk Wednesdays every week. I’d fill in the topics on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and add any notes, resources, keywords, headlines or subject lines I came up with.
For you, that may look like a social media post every day to two different platforms, an email to your list once a week and a blog post every two weeks.
Or you may be incredibly ambitious and want to post on every channel you use every day. (I recommend having at least 2 copywriters working with you if you do this. I’ve worked at companies where we had a schedule like this and it can be exhausting for one person to do alone!)
The real point of a content calendar is for you to see what’s coming up and to be able to plan content well in advance, so you’re not struggling to figure out what to write/post/talk about every time you need to publish something.
For those of you who prefer a paper calendar that you can print out and write on, I’ve got a simple content calendar you can download. I didn’t create it, it’s from stephcalvertart.com. Hat tip and thanks to her for putting out such a useful tool. Please click on the button below to download yours now.
Go Forth and Create Content!
Now you know how to use a content calendar to organize your online content life. Go do it! Pick a tool and start coming up with ideas.
Remember, you don’t have to come up with ALL THE IDEAS for your whole year in one sitting. (If you do, you’re amazing and deserve whatever treat you want for doing so.) Get at least 2 months listed out, then keep adding as you come up with new ideas.
If you decide you hate something, take it off the calendar. If you think it would work better at a different time of year, move it. This is a tool to keep you organized. You are not setting anything in stone.
Enjoy the content creation process and get the word out about your business with glee and abandon.