If you’re familiar with content marketing and are ready to kick-start your blogging journey, here’s what you will need to stay on top of your game: A content calendar. Sometimes known as an ‘Editorial Calendar’, a content calendar is basically a visual workflow or a written schedule of when and where you plan to publish your upcoming content.
Blogging as a hobby is a completely different ball game. When you are trying to grow your business through blogging, staying organised is key. With a content calendar, you will save yourself from a lot of chaos and the agony of dealing with unmet deadlines. More importantly, it will get you going in the first place.
Especially if you are planning for the next quarter, a content calendar can really help you stay on track. In a typical content calendar, you will find things like topics of upcoming articles, status updates, writers’ names, planned promotional activities, promotional channels, and last but not least, publish dates.
Depending on how frequent you have posts going live in a day, but as a rule of thumb, it is recommended that you plan your content 2-3 months ahead of time. Yet in the meantime, it is imperative to also remain creatively available and strategically open to last-minute topics that resonate with trend-hungry customers, particularly the Gen Zs.
Now, let’s be clear—there is no such thing as a perfect content calendar. It’s all about preferences, really. There are many tools and formats readily available out there which are designed specifically for creating, managing, and collaborating all at once. If you are a solo blogger or a team under 5, you can never go wrong with apps like Google Calendar or Google Sheets. But for bigger teams with high-volume content, deploying a project management tool such as ClickUp, Trello or Airtable would help keep your team aligned.
Here’s the fun part—listing items and filling up your content calendar.
Step 1: Make a list of your content ideas.
If you write about a variety of topics, it may help to categorise them as you go.
Step 2: Decide on publication dates and frequency.
When and how often will you be posting? This will depend on your specific content strategy. For instance, you might publish multiple posts on social media per day. But if it’s for a blog, you may only publish 3-4 posts per month.
Step 3: Fill ‘em up!
Now, all that is left is to add everything into your calendar.
Heads-up: If you’re working on much larger projects that would require help from multiple people (from different departments) before it reaches its final publishing stage. It is important that you schedule every part of the creation process so that nothing will be overlooked, as well as ensuring your team stays on track.
Here’s a simple content calendar template for you to refer to and feel free to make a copy for your own use (click to view). If you have trouble coming up with content ideas from the get-go, our Edusales Program might be what you’re looking for. To find out more about our Edusales Program, schedule a 15 mins call with our lead Sales and Marketing specialist now!
