If you're a social media manager or content creator, you're probably already thinking about what to publish during the second half of the year. The best way to get organised is by setting up a content calendar.
What is a content calendar?
Also known as an ‘editorial calendar’, a content calendar is a planning document showing when and where to publish upcoming communications such as blogs, social media posts or website articles.
Why do I need a content calendar?
An effective content calendar enables you to:
- Organise your communications workflow
- Keep customers interested with a steady flow of relevant, high-quality content
- Build trust and credibility by posting regularly on interesting, timely topics
- Gather tracking data to see what works and what doesn’t
Content calendars help you plan ahead and collaborate with others to create the unique and valuable content your audience is looking for.
5 top tips
Step 1: Define your goals & audience
- What do you want to achieve with your communications? Brand awareness, engagement, customer acquisition or something else?
- Who are you trying to reach? Understand their demographics, interests and preferred communication channels.
Step 2: Set up a shared document
- Create your calendar using a platform such as Monday.com or shared document that the whole team can edit.
- Think carefully about which data you need to include for each piece of content, e.g. author, publish date and the relevant hashtags.
- Consider using a free content calendar template (available online) to help you get started.
Step 3: Gather info & resources
- Mark important company milestones, industry events, holidays and national awareness days in your content calendar.
- Look at previous campaigns, blog posts and successful social media interactions to see what has and hasn’t worked in the past.
- Brainstorm content ideas with your team mates (colleagues in customer-facing roles often have particularly interesting insights into your audience's needs and interests).
Still stuck? Find more ideas to spark your creativity in our next blog post!
Step 4: Play with different formats
- Think about how to use images, videos and infographics to make your content as visually appealing as possible.
- Explore different content formats like quizzes, webinars, polls, user-generated content campaigns, contests and other interactive elements.
- Recycle! You can easily repurpose existing content into new formats (e.g. by condensing a previously published article into a slideshow or series of posts).
Step 5: Brief your content creators
- Make sure everyone has access to your content calendar and understands how it works.
- Share your brand guidelines with anyone creating content for your company, to ensure a consistent brand voice across everything you publish.
- Encourage your colleagues to share new ideas.
How Bwritr can help
Remember, a content calendar is a living document. Keep refining it based on your learnings, as well as your evolving goals and audience.
...And if you're short of time, let us know. Our creative team is full of fresh ideas to kickstart or brighten up your editorial calendar.
