How to Manage an Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar is a tool that helps you plan, track, and coordinate content. It can make a huge difference in your content marketing efforts.

To get started, you need to identify your goals. Having clearly defined objectives makes it easier for you to build an effective calendar.

Create a template.

An editorial calendar is a must-have for any business that wants to produce consistent, high-quality content. It helps you plan out your themes, create content, and schedule your publication dates. It also gives you a clear overview of your content production and makes it easier to plan for seasonal trends.

Whether you’re a sole practitioner or an enterprise-level team, managing an editorial calendar is essential for ensuring your content is published on time and within budget. In addition, it helps you stay on track with your goals and improves search engine visibility.

The format that works best for your organization depends on several factors, including the size of your team, your publishing schedule, and your marketing goals. Some options include a spreadsheet, project management tool, and online editorial calendars.

A spreadsheet-based template is useful for content producers or teams that don’t have a lot of complex tasks to complete. It can also be helpful for collaborating on your calendar with internal and external contributors.

Another option is an online editorial calendar, such as Trello or CoSchedule. These solutions let you share your calendar with your team, and can give you a Kanban-style overview of the entire process.

These templates are great for a wide range of organizations, from startups to large companies. They’re simple and easy to use, and they can be customized to fit your needs.

Finally, an editorial calendar is a great tool to monitor your content’s performance and make changes to your strategy accordingly. For example, if a certain type of downloadable goodie didn’t generate the kind of results that you wanted to see, then it’s best to adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.

Map out your themes.

One of the most important elements of a successful editorial calendar is mapping out your themes. It helps you see what content you have scheduled and how each piece relates to the larger picture of your overall marketing strategy.

It also helps you understand how your themes map to specific company goals, so you can plan your next move. For example, if your team is focused on business reporting and you’re looking to focus on building dashboards in the next quarter, it’s useful to map out those topics in the context of an editorial calendar.

Whether you’re using a spreadsheet or project management software, there are many options for building an effective editorial calendar. For example, Trello, Airtable, Basecamp, and Asana all offer tools that make it easy to organize tasks, collaboration stages, and asset status.

The best way to determine which tool is right for you is to ask yourself what you want from your editorial calendar. For example, do you want to track milestones like product launches? Or do you want to keep track of your social media efforts?

Another question you should answer is how often you create content. Depending on your needs, you may want to create a monthly or quarterly calendar. Alternatively, you might want to schedule posts based on trends and holidays that are relevant to your industry.

Once you’ve decided which kind of template you want to use, you should start mapping out your themes and the details you need to include in your calendar. This will make it easier for you and your team to keep track of what’s happening with your content and where you need to go in the future.

Plan out your content.

An editorial calendar is an essential tool for managing your content marketing strategy. It gives you a high-level overview of your overall plan and helps you set a sustainable pace for publishing new content on all marketing channels. It also ensures that you keep your brand messaging consistent across all channels, strengthening your brand image.

You can use different formats for managing an editorial calendar, from spreadsheets to project management software or integrated tools that work in conjunction with your content workflow management platform. Choosing the right format is key to ensuring that you get the most out of your calendaring efforts and that your team is in sync with the schedules they’re responsible for.

Some of the best content calendars allow teams to brainstorm, collaborate, and provide feedback on assignments in real time. They also track content progress, platform, type, and approval status in one easy-to-navigate space.

While some teams prefer to build their own editorial calendars, there are a few popular options that can help you manage your content planning. These include Trello, Airtable, Basecamp, and Asana, which each have features that make it easy to organize tasks, collaboration stages, and asset status.

Another option is CoSchedule, which is a content planning and project management platform that allows you to create social posts on multiple platforms from within one portal. The tool also has color categorization, calendar and task views, and drag-and-drop features for navigating your schedules and keeping the entire team on the same page.

No matter which tool you choose, it’s important to monitor the performance of your content as you go along and make changes to your strategy based on the results. This will help you to maximize your content marketing efforts and improve your ROI as a result.

Set deadlines.

A well-managed editorial calendar helps your team stay on track with the content they create and distribute. This will allow you to focus on your overall marketing strategy and goals.

The goal of a calendar is to provide a visual workflow for all the different stages of your content creation process. This includes the type of content you’re creating, who is creating it, when it will be published and other key information that can help you manage your entire content process.

You can use spreadsheets, project management software or even a simple paper calendar to keep track of all your content ideas and deadlines. However, if you need more advanced features like color categorization and task management, you might want to look into an online tool or platform.

For example, Digital Authority, a digital marketing agency that specializes in content and social media, uses CoSchedule to plan out timelines for blog posts and social media posts. It also provides a visual tracking display that shows each team member’s progress and lets them know if they’re falling behind.

To make sure everyone is on the same page, be sure to set clear deadlines for all assignments and ensure that every team member knows exactly what they’re responsible for. Otherwise, you’ll end up delaying content pieces and confusing writers.

Using an editorial calendar will also allow you to organize your team’s brainstorming sessions and schedule as much content as you need for a steady publishing schedule. This way, you can be sure to have a continuous stream of ideas ready to go for your next content marketing campaign.

You can also schedule team meetings to review the status of each assignment and determine if you need to change anything. During these meetings, be sure to discuss performance metrics so you can analyze which content pieces performed best and use those findings for future assignments.

Track your progress.

Managing an editorial calendar is important for any content marketing team that wants to maximize their efforts and achieve their content goals. An organized editorial calendar can help you make the most of seasonal and trending topics, as well as produce evergreen content that will be relevant for years to come.

Many content teams use Excel templates to create an editorial calendar, although there are also many free options available. Some templates even have functions to track content ROI.

There are different kinds of editorial calendars, including a traditional calendar, a project management tool like Kanban board, or an online collaboration platform. The best choice depends on the size of your team and budget.

The content calendar template you choose should be flexible enough to accommodate all your team members’ individual schedules. This allows them to plan their content in advance and ensures they complete tasks on time.

A great editorial calendar can be part of a holistic marketing platform that keeps all your content in one place, and helps you measure results. This includes goals, calendars, deadlines, to-dos, assets, bandwidth, budget, and more.

When it comes to tracking progress, an editorial calendar can be just as important as the content itself. It can keep you informed about which pieces are falling behind, so you can make the necessary adjustments before they fall apart.

Keeping an eye on your calendar can also help you decide which pieces are more valuable than others for certain times of the year, so you don’t waste time or money on a piece that doesn’t have much value for your audience.

If you’re looking for a more budget-friendly solution, consider creating a spreadsheet that can be shared with all your team members. Having one source of truth for all your content helps you stay on track and make the most of your investment.