Steps in Building a Content Calendar for Success: Planning & Scheduling

In the past year, 64% of marketers have adjusted their editorial calendar. Content Calendars are hands down the most used tools in content teams worldwide. In any industry, people work to the point that they take up the role of mental models, which ultimately help us deal with content tactics or position ourselves in the world. Content calendars also help design marketing efforts to make it easier to track and collaborate, as well as practical; hence, one should keep track of the calendars regularly and structure their progress around them.

This article will give us insight into content calendar objectives, roles, and how to create a robust content calendar.

What is a content calendar?

Editorial calendar is an additional title for a freeform content timeline. This is software that individuals, groups, or corporations use to sketch and schedule the content’s publication and distribution date and time. The content we can create is a blog, a video on the website, video messages, audio messages, and even a podcast video channel.

The main aim of the content calendar is to synergize with its purpose and allow for the constant and planned delivery of content to the intended audience, thereby helping to meet the business goal.

Editorial calendar templates can benefit you with content such as blog posts, videos, and social posts.

How to create a content calendar?

 If you want to create a content calendar, follow the steps below: 

Build your template

There is no right or wrong way to build a content calendar template; however, most content calendars will need the information mentioned below to keep you on track: 

• Publish date
• Due date
• Owner or author
• Status
• Title or topic
• Content type
• Link to cloud options like Docs, Drive, etc.

It must be addressed that every content marketing calendar may have its unique look to keep with the published content formats because each format has its specific needs.

Below is the less given, which will tell you what you need to include for these popular content types: 

 For Blog posts:

• According to primary keywords together, according to their search volumes
• Along with the secondary keywords or by their search volume.
• Slug
• Title and Meta description
• Featured image

For social posts:

• Image or video file
• Caption
• Tagged users
• Hashtags

 For podcasts:

• Link to script
• Interviewee information: contact info. Social handles and badge information must be entered if it exists.
• Original audio files
• Edited audio file

 For videos:

• Link to script
• Interviewee information
• Caption
• Original video files
• Edited video file 
• Thumbnail

After completing a content calendar, you can share it with the entire team and check that everybody understands it properly.

Don’t forget to document these instructions: 

• Generate a guideline showing how to utilize your content calendar. The document can be implemented in a simple, systematic way.
• It is time to circulate the information among the employees and ensure you do this regularly.
• Plan your content
• To be ready with the content, you have to choose topics out of several, and every one of the contributors will be assigned to the appropriate processes.
• There is a possibility of selecting topics that are related to the target audience.
•  For this, the primary step is to research your and potential customers and give weightage to their interests, pain, and expectations.
•  The next step would be developing a list of topics highlighting the specific contents.
•  Approaching clients and analyzing data and the market will give you vital information to move forward.
•  You may wonder when to update your content calendar once this question presents itself.
•  If you are a solo marketer responsible for simple social postings, you can survive the next month with a single blog post strategy. 

Publish Your Content

Publish your content directly, or you can schedule it beforehand. 

Most platforms include built-in scheduling features: social media sites, WordPress, Anchor (for podcasts), and more. 

Sometimes, it is recommended that you schedule some content

• When you are managing the contents of different businesses.
• If the best time to publish content doesn’t match your working hours (or your employees’)
• Publishing content in different time zones.
• Reach an agreement to publish something at the same time.

In these cases, scheduling content minimizes errors and helps you stay on track.

Top Content Calendar Tools

Here are some of the top content calendar tools are given below:-

For Solo Marketers With Limited Budgets:

Google Sheets

If you want to create a content calendar, Google Sheets is one of the best starting points, as it is free, and all your work will be stored in the cloud.

Google Sheets is a good choice for your content calendar if you are a beginner or solo marketer.

WordPress editorial calendar

• Individuals can also use a free wordpress editorial calendar to help them manage their Blog content calendar.
• It is a simple but effective plugin.
• The plugin generates a calendar that displays all your articles (drafts, scheduled, and published).
• From the calendar, you can easily edit and delete posts. And use the drag-and-drop feature to make changes quickly.
• This plugin helps you schedule blog posts but doesn’t have collaboration capabilities.

For Businesses With A Team Of Content Creators (Internal And External):

Trello

• Trello lets you create and manage Kanban boards.
• The kanban view is like a Post-it note hanging on your wall. It allows you to visualize your progress in one place.
• As you work on a task, you use Trello’s-drop functionality to change it to a different state.
• Get started with this Trello content calendar template.
• Trello also allows you to visualize your Kanban board as a calendar.

Notion

• Notion allows you to create a customized content calendar and configure different views.
• Notion excels in being highly customizable. You can use it to create a content calendar marketing tool and many other things.

Asana

• One of the most accessible and most powerful tools. It is an option for larger teams with complex processes.
• With Asana, you can create and assign tasks, visualize your progress using different views (such as a calendar or timeline), and manage your workflows.
• It also offers integration with some of the most popular tools (like Slack, Gmail, Zoom, and many more)

Conclusion

In conclusion, a content calendar will help you gain success. You can create engaging content calendar templates, which will eventually help you in getting success. SEO Inventiv’s in-house SEO experts work daily to achieve better search engine results for our clients. We have a team of highly trained SEO experts who will put your vision into action by ranking your website for the keywords most important to your business. We aim to deliver results that are aligned with your business goals and save time and effort.