You may think that small business follow a different set of rules than large corporations, but that isn’t always the truth. As we’ve mentioned previously, integrating a content marketing strategy is an important feature to start in the New Yea, whether you are a big or small company. And if you are going to start working in content marketing, planning out your blog posts, newsletters, and more is the first step.
So, what is an editorial calendar?
An editorial calendar is basically a content marketing plan for your blog and social media. Depending on seasonal trends and product launches, you and/or your team comes together to plan out what content and products you want to promote at which times and mark it in your calendar a week to a few months ahead of time.
Things you can add to an editorial calendar include blog posts, social media messages, email newsletter ideas, holidays relevant to your products, planned sales, product launches, and more. An editorial calendar is a one-in-all look at your company.
Why should we have an editorial calendar?
Having a predetermined plan for your blog posts and promotions is the best way to take advantage of upcoming events and get the maximum exposure. Do you sell products for red hair? Then you should plan ahead for promotions during Kiss a Ginger Day (which is today, by the way). Do you specialize in gifts? You should be thinking about Black Friday and Cyber Monday in advance, not the week of.
Thinking strategically about your content and timing certain releases and blog posts about that product or seasonal trend is the best way to gain optimum exposure.
Nothing is worse than scrambling to put something together, having a plan is the only way to prevent that.
How do I get started?
There are many options for editorial calendars. You can go as basic as printing out a calendar and penciling in ideas, write it out in a planner, or you can use your built-in Google Calendar to jot down events as if they were appointments.
But if your company blog is hosted on WordPress, we’d recommend the use of Coschedule. It’s a plugin that works with your WordPress blog, making it easy to plan blog posts, assign individual tasks to different team members, and even schedule social media posts in advance. It basically coordinates everything.
One of the best features about this product is the ability to designate tasks to different team members, which is perfect for all sizes of organizations.
So, are you convinced? We challenge you to try writing out all of your content for the next two weeks and see how it helps your strategy.
Still not sure where to start? We can handle your social media and blog marketing. Get started with a free quote today.