Getting your blog up on your site is only the first step. You've got the platform in place - now the REAL work begins. Creating solid, interesting and high quality content that your audience will enjoy, find valuable and (perhaps most importantly) SHARES takes thoughtful and diligent planning.
You can go along way towards helping yourself by creating and sticking to an editorial calendar.
Consider This
- Does seasonality affect any aspect of your business?
- Are there relevant holidays that your customers or audience would find interesting or helpful to cover or integrate?
- What does your product roadmap look like? Don't forget to include new launches, updates or iterations that you'll want to cover!
- Look forward in the next 6-12 months. What are the relevant events (conferences, trade shows, annual regulation changes, etc) that you will want to ensure coverage on?
- What is your content cadence or rhythm? (Examples of this are Weekend Coffee Links, Friday Re-cap's, Cup of Joe, etc.)
Don't forget to plan for all of your content needs as you develop this calendar.
As you begin actually planning for content creation remember that it may be appropriate to use video, special photography, graphics, or other rich media. This can take time to create quality so PLAN AHEAD. Built this into your calendar and project management process.
Clear Priorities
With all of these different elements coming in to play in your editorial calendar you need to develop a clear sense of prioritization as some of these elements will conflict.
Have a mission statement for your blog to refer back to in instances of divergent interests will make the decision process much more seamless.
What Goes Where?
For each piece of content you want to plan where it's placed and promoted:
- Tumblr
- Blog
- Newsletter
- Syndication Channels
Details To Include
When you layout your editorial calendar, include some of the following as well:
- Time and date of ideal publication
- Amount of time and effort needed to prepare content
- Where the content will be published, promoted and potentially syndicated
- Keywords and linking strategies for the content
- Cross promotional opportunities to be leveraged
- Approvals necessary prior to publish (Legal, PR, etc)
Align your editorial calendar with the performance metrics you've set up for your blog/content platforms. The two together will help you derive valuable insight in to how your consumer interacts with your content.
Question: do you use an editorial calendar or not? Why? Leave a comment by clicking here.