How to Set Up an Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar is a great way to keep your content marketing team organized. It helps you plan and track your content by the month, keeping your writing team on track to meet deadlines.

An editorial calendar can be as simple as a spreadsheet or as complex as a paid tool (more on tools shortly). No matter what you choose, it should have key elements such as month/day, content theme and posting platform.

Organize your content by topic

When a company’s content marketing team is creating new articles, blog posts, and other types of content, it’s important to organize the work in a way that keeps everyone on track. An editorial calendar is one of the most helpful ways to do this. It’s easy to set up and helps to ensure that the team has a clear understanding of what they’re working toward.

To create an effective editorial calendar, you need to first determine your goals. This can be something as simple as generating more leads or something more complex like creating content that is evergreen and keeps your business relevant in the current climate.

After you have a clear idea of what your goals are, it’s time to begin organizing your content by topic. This will help your team to stay on track and make sure that they’re creating high-quality content on a consistent basis.

You can also use this step to identify who will be responsible for specific pieces of content. This can be a great way to give your writers more creative freedom and make sure that they’re not overworking themselves or creating content that doesn’t meet your goals.

A strong editorial calendar will help your team create consistent, high-quality content and reach their goals. It can even help you get more traffic to your website, which will increase your search engine rankings and improve your overall SEO.

Organizing your content by topic is a great way to keep your audience engaged and make it easier for them to find the information that they’re looking for. You can also use this process to identify gaps in your content strategy, which you can then fill with fresh, new content.

Another way to organize your content by topic is by using a topic map, which can be a fun way to showcase a wide range of topics and ideas. This can be especially useful if you’re trying to attract new readers and engage existing ones.

Once you’ve outlined your editorial calendar, it’s time to start planning out your content. This can be done in a variety of ways, including spreadsheets, whiteboards, Kanban boards, Figma, or other project management tools. However, the most effective way to create an editorial calendar is to use a tool that can keep all of this information in one place.

Determine your deadlines

If you have an editorial calendar in place, it will be much easier for you and your team to keep track of all of your upcoming content assignments. It should clearly state what type of content you will be creating and when it will be due. It should also state which writers are working on each assignment so that there is no confusion.

The best calendars will also be able to distinguish between different types of content, such as social media posts and blog articles. This will help you and your team to more easily determine which tasks are most important and which ones should be delegated to someone else on your team.

You should also consider how long it takes you and your team to create each piece of content. This will help you to set realistic deadlines that your team can work towards and ensure that you don’t waste time and energy on unimportant assignments.

An editorial calendar is a tool that allows you to plan out all of your upcoming content, including blog posts, emails, social media updates, and more. You can organize your calendar by topic or theme, and you can color code it to highlight certain types of content and their specific deadlines.

It’s also a great way to stay on top of trends and seasonal topics that may be relevant for your business or brand. Using an editorial calendar will allow you to plan out content around these types of events, which can help you increase traffic and shareability for your brand.

Ultimately, an editorial calendar is a tool that should be used regularly to ensure you’re on track with your goals. The more you use it, the better you’ll get at using it to stay organized and on schedule.

It is also essential to have an editorial calendar that is updated frequently, as new ideas and priorities change over time. Having an agile calendar that shifts with your data will make it easy for you to identify areas where you need to adjust your strategy and goals.

Make a list of your content assets

Regardless of the platform or tool you use, creating a list of your content assets is essential to setting up an editorial calendar. You need to have a clear mental picture of the types of articles, blog entries, social media posts and emails you will create for your audience, the dates when these are expected to be published and the details about each piece.

This includes keywords, topics, themes, authors and other information that can help you create an effective editorial calendar. It also allows you to track your content performance and ensure that all pieces of content align with your business’s goals.

You can also use an editorial calendar to track your publication channel, ownership and any other information that is relevant to your content. These details make it easier to distribute content across channels and ensure that your audiences receive the type of content they want to read.

A well-designed editorial calendar is a useful tool for organizing your content, planning the right topics to cover, and assigning writers. It can be used for small-scale projects, or it can serve as the basis for a larger editorial strategy.

Whether you are managing an internal or external team, it is important to establish a system for publishing on a regular cadence. This way, everyone knows when they need to start working on their next article or post, and you can all track each step of the process together.

It is also a good idea to share your content calendar with sales, marketing, HR, public relations and other departments to ensure that everyone understands what’s on it and how it can contribute to their respective goals. This can help you avoid surprises and get more people involved in your content efforts, increasing its effectiveness and return on investment.

The most important thing to remember when using an editorial calendar is that it should always be updated, as new ideas and topics come up. This can help you keep up with your audience’s interests and be more creative with what you publish, so that your content is relevant to your audience and has a chance of driving engagement.

Make a list of your target audiences

Whether you’re looking to optimize your existing content or start producing new material, it’s important to set up an editorial calendar. This helps to ensure your team is on top of their content production and that they are always producing the kind of material that is most likely to engage your target audience.

When setting up your editorial calendar, it’s important to make a list of your target audiences and consider what type of content they are interested in. This can help you create a more targeted marketing plan and improve your overall results.

While it may seem like a lot of work to establish a well-organized editorial calendar, there are tools that can help you make the process easier and more effective for your team. The best tools are those that allow you to quickly and easily build a centralized document that your entire team can access and use.

For example, Bit allows you to build media-rich and interactive documents that are easy for everyone on your team to read and edit. It also allows you to track engagement and get insights into how your documents are being used, which can help you build better versions in the future.

In addition to tracking the time spent by your team on your documents, Bit also lets you track the amount of views they have and what keywords were clicked on the most frequently. This can be extremely helpful when you are trying to optimize your existing content or are planning new content, as it will give you an idea of what is working and what needs to change.

As with any tool or process, it’s vital to choose one that suits your needs. There are plenty of different templates to choose from online, and it’s a good idea to find out what other teams are using to set up their own calendars.

Once you have an editorial calendar in place, it’s important to keep it updated as your content marketing strategy evolves. This way, you can ensure that your content stays fresh and engaging for your target audience, helping to drive traffic and generate leads for your business.