Are you looking to increase your online presence? If so, the old adage that content is king still stands. One way to get your content out and achieve your goal is to create an excellent content calendar.
Once you have populated this with engaging content, you should quickly see results. Below, we give our guide on how to create a content calendar.
Why Use a Content Calendar?
The first thing a content calendar does is to allow an overview of the content you are putting out. You can map the number of shares, comments, and likes in real-time. This allows you to adapt quickly, increasing traffic to your blog.
Secondly, a content calendar allows you to track the process of the creation and see where it is currently at. You may have content delayed, or some pieces may move through the creation process at a much faster pace.
Goal Setting
Before starting your content marketing strategy, you need to establish some goals. That begins with your purpose for creating the content. Are you increasing blog traffic? Are you trying to make sales?
All of this should influence the type of content and how often you put it out. For example, content created to sell a product is vastly different from one that aims to increase website traffic.
Planning Process
You can find numerous calendar tools on the web. These tools are set up for business use. As your organization grows, you may want to consider larger workspace programs. However, for small organizations, you can start with a basic sharable calendar program.
Your calendar will need some specific pieces of information for each piece of content. This includes the channel or format on which it will be published (Youtube video? Website blog?). You should also include the topic and the person creating the content, along with the publish date and status of the topic.
Creating the Content
Once you have the content calendar templates, start to fill in any important dates. These can be wide and varied, from major national events, such as holiday seasons, to ones related solely to your organization.
If you are creating content tailored to these dates, remember to place the start dates a long time before the actual event. If the content is delayed, it becomes useless, and so it is better to allow adequate time to create it.
Balancing Content
When creating content, attempt to create a balance of date-based content and evergreen content. Evergreen content is articles that remain relevant at any time of the year. Date-based content, such as news, tends to be popular for a short time before its relevance starts to fade.
Decide on Release Dates
Once you have the content ideas, you need to decide upon release dates. Creating content takes time, and you need to assign resources to it. That may mean taking people away from other tasks in your organization.
If this is not an option, consider hiring someone to do this for you. You can often get SEO help and content creation from the same company to really push your digital presence forward.
Keep Reviewing
Once you have the content calendar in place and the content to fill it, do not rest. It pays to constantly revisit your schedule. See which types of content work best and calculate the best time to release them, even planning out the times of day to release and increase engagement.
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