5 Simple Ways to Create an Editorial Calendar

One of the best ways to get high quality traffic is to provide your audience with amazing content. However, the idea of coming up with an editorial calendar can seem really overwhelming. So, today we’re going to look at 5 simple ways to create your editorial calendar.

1. Determine The Type Of Content To Make

There are so many ways to create content on the internet in 2018. So, before even getting into your editorial calendar, take some time to think about the content you personally want to make and what kind of content will do well amongst your viewers.

Content can take many forms such as written content in the form of blog posts or reviews, video content made for your website or specific social platforms, and images, infographics, quizzes and podcasts.

Content creation might seem overwhelming, but remember that there’s always a way to learn how to create various forms of content.

If you want to learn how to start a blog, you can do it. You can also learn how to edit videos, create images, and record podcasts for free online. If you know you don’t want to learn how to make a particular type of content, remember that you can always curate content to share with your audience. Right now, it’s just important to think about the options and understand the ways you can reach your audience.

2. Determine the Topics Your Audience Wants

We mentioned this already, but the first thing you’ll want to do after considering the type of content that you can make, is considering what your audience wants. The best way to do this is to ask them or look at what they’ve consumed in the past.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, look at performance metrics to see what type of content does well. Pay attention to overall engagement, shares, likes, comments, and if you shared it on social media- clicks through to your website. This process can take some time, but knowing what your audience wants is key to making content that will be successful for both you and them.

If you’re brand new to blogging, or content creation, then you might not have many posts to gleam this information from. In this case, consider creating a target audience portfolio. Having a portfolio like this, will allow you to ask yourself "will this content resonate with my audience".

3. Create A Schedule

Once you have an idea of the type of content that will be helpful and meaningful to your audience, you’ll want to create a schedule to determine when you’ll be posting your content.

While this is dependent upon a number of things, such as the type of business your running, who your audience is, and what your goals are, here are some baseline numbers that can be useful in figuring out your content schedule.

Blog: 1-7 times a week

Facebook: 3-10 times per week

Twitter: 5+ times a day

LinkedIn: 2-5 times per week

Instagram: 1-3 times a day

Google+: 3-10 times per week

Pinterest: 5-10 times per day

Youtube: 1-7 times a week

Now, as a brand you may not be using all of these platforms, or you could be using a platform that’s not listed and that’s totally okay. Finding the platforms that work for your brand is a better strategy than trying to juggle too many platforms or too many types of content. After all, it’s better to do one thing really well, than a bunch of things subpar.

Something you should note, is that while there are guidelines, your company is unique. So test different times, days and posts and look at key engagement factors to see what works for you.

4. Get Your Content Lined Up

So, far you’ve figured out what content your audience will value from and when you’re going to be posting, so now let’s find content to share!

First, look into your own content. Ask yourself what you can realistically produce and what you’re going to need to curate.

For example, if you’ve decided to post one blog post a week, but you want to post on Facebook 7 times a week, than you can use content that someone has produced (giving them full credit of course) to fill in the remaining spots. After all, as much as advertising your own work is important, it’s perhaps more important to provide your audience with value.

When you curate content the number one rule is that you find what’s going to resonate with your audience. My go-to for finding content to curate is Feedly.

Feedly is a content aggregation platform that allows you to create a feed of articles being produced by companies similar to yours.

You can also use Buzzsumo to check keywords or domains for shared content around a particular subject matter. For instance, if you want to share a good cooking article, you could type in "cooking" and find articles that have already performed well in your space.

Compile your findings into an Excel sheet or Word document to easily access them in the future.

5. Schedule Your Content

The last thing you’ll want to do is schedule your content. The options for this include using a paper editorial calendar, or digital scheduling tools. Some places like Wordpress will allow you to schedule ahead without fancy tools, but many social media platforms don’t have this capacity.

There you have it! Your now ready to create an editorial calendar that will knock the socks off of your audience!

With extensive research and study, Simon passionately creates blogs on divergent topics. His writings are unique and utterly grasping owing to his dedication in researching for distinctive topics.