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How to Create a
Social Media Editorial Calendar
"I sort of have a plan in my head for how I'm going to schedule my blog posts. But Facebook updates? Those are more random. And Twitter? Let's not even go there."
One of my clients who owns a small business made that confession. And he's not alone. Nearly every blogger, tweeter, Facebooker and YouTuber struggles to produce and publish an ongoing stream of enticing, engaging content.
"I'm going to blog five days a week," we vow. And then things get busy at work. Or we catch a cold. Or go on vacation. Weeks (or months) later, we guiltily return to our blog, wondering why we ever thought this would be a good idea.
We then make one of three choices:
a) We abandon social media altogether.
b) We outsource our social media updates to a professional.
c) We resume blogging with renewed determination.
If choice C describes you, I recommend creating a social media editorial calendar. Here are three good reasons why:
- An editorial calendar prevents you - and your followers - from being overwhelmed or underwhelmed. A calendar reminds you to publish at a steady, reasonable pace so you don't publish 12 posts one week and two the following week.
- A calendar doubles as an archive of your published work; you should regularly review it to analyze which topics and articles best resonate with your audience.
- If your company produces a group blog in which multiple contributors post, a calendar reduces the amount of sub-par, seat-of-the-pants posts. It holds team members accountable to publish on a wide range of topics, and it gives team members a breather between posts, thus decreasing blogger burnout.
The Key to a Good Editorial Calendar
A social media editorial calendar should be fluid, rather than set in stone. Give yourself the freedom to publish breaking industry news, to reorder posts, and to transform a single post into a series.
But remember: assigning deadlines will drastically increase your follow-through.
How to Create Your Calendar
To set up your editorial calendar, brainstorm a long list of ideas and links that interest you. I use Google's Wonder Wheel - a mind map tool that displays search results in a wheel shape - to help me generate ideas. (Here's a tutorial at bloggingbistro.com about how to use the Wonder Wheel.)
You'll also want to experiment with two additional excellent, free tools that help you generate keywords and phrases people are most likely to search for:
Google's Keyword Tool
Wordtracker
When brainstorming, look over your yearly calendar and include dates for product launches, seasonal sales, important anniversaries or milestones, conventions, media appearances and speaking engagements.
Review your list, pull out ten categories, and give each category its own color code. Categories are search-friendly keywords that serve as your blog's table of contents. File every idea on your list into a category.
Editorial Calendar Tools
Now it's time to assign topics to specific calendar dates.
If you have a group blog, Google Calendar allows you to share calendars with other contributors to your blog.
Here's another editorial calendar template, structured as a Google Spreadsheet.
(You can view these calendars without signing in to your Google account, and you can download the file to the following formats: CSV, HTML, Text, Excel, OpenOffice, or PDF. If you log in to your Google account, you can Make a copy (from the File menu) and save it in your Google Docs.)
Google Docs offers a social media calendar template so you can organize your updates by date, topic, and social media channel.
If you use Outlook for managing e-mail, you might consider also using it to manage your social media updates.
Or you can use a giant paper wall calendar, a dry erase calendar, the calendar on your smartphone, or any other calendar you gravitate toward.
I build my editorial calendar in Microsoft Word. I create a Word table, with the header row displaying:
- Post title
- Category
- Date scheduled
- Post URL
- Teaser - a 140-character teaser for Facebook or Twitter that includes a link to the post
I color code each post's title according to its category, and as I slot topics into specific dates I make sure to cover all the categories.
Train Your Readers
An alternative to scheduling blog posts by category is to assign a different type of content to each day of the week.
For example:
- Monday - Reviews
- Tuesday - Top 10 List or Links
- Wednesday - Guest Posts
- Thursday - Tutorial
- Friday - Industry News Roundup
- Saturday & Sunday - Take the weekend off; you deserve it!
Conclusion
You've heard the adage, "Plan your work and work your plan." A social media calendar helps you strategically plan your updates and turn your good intentions into reality.
Bonus Tools for WordPress.org Users
I love the WordPress plugin, WordPress Editorial Calendar. It features a month-at-a-glance calendar view of all posts so I can see where there are gaps I need to fill and I can drag-and-drop posts to a different day on the calendar, instantly re-scheduling them.
Another WordPress plugin that has been recommended to me (but I haven't downloaded yet) is Edit Flow. This plugin looks perfect for group blogs. Here are just a few of the cool things you can do with it:
- Create custom status categories for every blog post draft, such as "Assigned," "Waiting for Feedback" (instead of the default "Draft" and "Pending").
- Add a threaded commenting system WITHIN the WordPress admin so multiple users can discuss each post without having to send e-mails back and forth.
- Receive a-mail notifications whenever a user changes a post.
What About You?
Can you recommend a particular tool that helps you keep your social media updates organized? Please share it - email [email protected]. I'll publish your recommendation in an upcoming blog post, and will include a link to your website or blog. Where's Laura?
I'd love to connect with you in person. I'll be speaking and teaching at the following events this winter and spring:
February 18-19, 2011
Christian Writers Seminar Castro Valley, CA
In addition to giving three keynote talks on branding and marketing, I'll be teaching two breakout workshops on social media marketing.
Info will be available soon at http://christianwriter.org
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Everett Community College Corporate and Continuing Education Center, Monroe, WA
Facebook Pages for Business (2-hour hands-on workshop)
http://tinyurl.com/25sh34k
April 14-19, 2011
Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference near Santa Cruz, CA
Major Morning Track (8 hours of instruction): Social Media Mania
http://mounthermon.org/adult/professionals/writers-conference/tracks
Monday, May 2, 2011
Northwest Christian Writers Association, Bothell, WA
Workshop: 10 Essential Google Tools for Writers
http://nwchristianwriters.org/speakers2.html
For detailed information about the above events and to book Laura to speak for your event, please visit http://tinyurl.com/2baydaw
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 Laura Christianson founded BloggingBistro.com, a company that serves a full menu of social media services to businesses and individuals.
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