A New Generation Marketer

Coming up with new content can be frustrating, time consuming, aggravating and repetitive. Don’t pull your hair out over this problem anymore because there is a much easier way to manage your content.

Is your team utilizing an editorial calendar to dole out responsibilities for blog posts and other content alike? If not, you should be.

One of the major problems facing companies today, especially ones without much bandwidth to blog or produce original content, is that they find it hard to create fresh content on a regular basis. This can be from a lack of structure in content production, no set schedule of when to blog, or a low priority is put on blogging and other content development activities. When it comes down to it, management finds that it is best to focus on client deliverables, product development, advertising, etc. While these are a priority, there is a way to fit in content production without feeling a burden.

Editorial calendars are a great way for your company to dole out responsibilities and keep track of scheduled content to be produced to keep the audience engaged. These can be created on a weekly, monthly or even yearly basis to divide up when and how content will be created and published, and by whom. This document then can either be uploaded on an Intranet database for all employees to see, or emailed to everyone. This leaves no question among anyone as to when content is to be ready by and whose responsibility it is.

Editorial calendars can be quite simple to create, which is quite the contrary to what many may think. Employees should be responsible for keeping note of any blog post or content ideas as they come to them, so that when it is time to create the editorial calendar, ideas can easily be added to the sheet.

I believe it would be ideal for the team responsible for content to sit down once weekly or monthly to share and develop their ideas, plan them out on the calendar, update it regularly, and keep track of when the deliverables are complete. This way, everyone in the team is informed about what is going on and when and there is no question about content creation and publishing. In turn, audiences will be satisfied with fresh, frequent content and your company will be seen as delivering relevant, interesting information to visitors and readers to help them learn about the industry and be assured that the company is an expert.

When I am asked to be a blogger for a company as a freelance job, I ask them if they would like me to use an editorial calendar to display my topic ideas to them and when I plan to have each post ready by. Then I send it over to them for their approval and begin blogging. This process has been very well received and keeps everyone in the loop.

One great aspect of editorial calendars is that they can easily be adapted to changes and evolving trends. This means that content can be moved around when needed, and new content can also be added in on short notice. This is great for a company that has created a yearly editorial calendar. The topics that were listed to be published four months from now may in time become outdated with new technologies, trends, and events, so editorial calendars are perfect for adapting to emerging topics.

I highly recommend that you and your team begin creating an editorial calendar, if you have not done so already. They serve as an excellent blackboard for ideas and keep content organized, fresh, and updated.

In what ways does your company use an editorial calendar (or if you are a freelancer, how do you use it)? If you are not using one, why not?