As you develop a content strategy, it’s important to start thinking of yourself as a publisher. I know, yet another ‘hat’ to wear. Publishers have everything planned out in advance based on a month to month cycle. They know in advance exactly what type of content they need to create and produce for the month of say ‘February’ and why. If you think more like a publisher, you’re going to be much more successful in your content strategy implementation, if you use an editorial calendar.
I also use mine which I’ve included as a freebie to track everything; Social Media Content, Social Media statistics, Analytics’s and blog topics. It really is a one stop shop as far as content & social media is concerned. It’s a simple spreadsheet which can be customised to suit you and your business.
Ability to Create a Theme
By creating an editorial calendar, you can develop an overall theme in advance on the products and/or services that you’re promoting, as well as for the time of year. Planning it all in advance makes it easier to be prepared and come up with the ideas, content, and images that you want to use to promote. Are you thinking about Valentines Day at Christmas?
Makes It Easier to Diversify Content
If you know in advance what the topic of your content needs to be, it’ll be easier to create different forms of content for your needs. You can plan in advance to create blog posts, vlogs, videos, reports, and more, based off a particular subject or theme designed to market a particular product or service. By not doing it “on the fly,” your content will be more cohesive and diversified.
Keeps the Content Ideas Flowing
By making an editorial calendar, you actually create a situation where you make it easier to keep content ideas flowing. Some people think planning makes content boring, but the truth is, planning makes content effective, appropriate and enjoyable for your target audience. It gives you time to create appropriate titles and outlines, to ensure that you get the message out that you want out.
Enables You to Create Quality Content
By planning your content in advance, you have more time to make the content true quality content that speaks to your audience. Whether you’ll be writing it and editing yourself, or hiring others to do it for you, it’s important to plan in advance what type of content will be needed in order to produce the highest quality content that you can.
Attracts More Visitors
Having a set calendar will make your content appear more regularly, thus increasing the rate of visitors to your website. Your audience will learn to expect certain content from you at certain times and will appreciate knowing when, what and where to go to see it and view it.
Sets Expectations and Deadlines
[bctt tweet=”Even if you are just setting deadlines for yourself, it’s important to do so.”]
If you have no expectations of yourself or others it will be difficult to build a truly profitable business. For instance, if you are building a furniture business, but you cannot ever tell anyone when the furniture will be finished, you won’t ever be able to sell anything. Set expectations and deadlines for yourself and anyone you outsource to; this will help you meet your goals.
Finally, by having an editorial calendar you’ll ultimately have a more organised and planned business that will make more money in the long run. Content that is distributed and marketed according to your editorial and/or publication calendar will see a lot more success than content that is haphazardly put out without any notion of a goal or a plan.
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