Engaging content is the core of success when you are building your business. It increases brand awareness, encourages consumer engagement, and will move your website to the top of Google. So, how can you make all this possible?
A content calendar is a perfect start to managing your content strategy. There are a couple of different types of content calendars. For example, a social media content calendar allows you to plan and strategize content for all your social media channels. An editorial content calendar is designed to plan out specific marketing tasks such as blogs, videos, infographics, etc.
The information you have within your content calendar is crucial. At the very least, it’s the place where you store ideas, topics, and dates. While this is a great first step, an excellent content calendar will go the extra mile to include the following:
- Topics with an assigned owner
A prioritized list of what needs to get done first- A list designating who’s writing, editing, and publishing
- A list of what channels you’ll be posting on
Adding those items into your content calendar will help create a functional calendar to help you and your team stay on track. Always remember, that the amount of information included in your calendar is entirely up to you. The main goal of creating one is to take broad ideas and turn them into actionable campaigns. These should be simple and easy to follow.
So, why should you invest time, money, and resources into creating and managing a content calendar?
One of the most important reasons for creating a content calendar is organization. It’s a way to visualize your content strategy over time and across platforms. You can see any overlaps or if there’s a gap in your content schedule. The more content you can schedule in advance, the better because it frees up more time during the week to focus on other marketing efforts.
The structure of a content calendar is also a way to catch trends. Do you notice any patterns? Does content do better on a certain day of the week? Is a certain type of content better than another? Answering these questions will help you define your strategy by determining optimal post time and learning what types of content are more engaging.
Instead of making last-second decisions, content calendars allow for preparation. You have plenty more time for research, creation, and execution. It allows you to plan your content with a purpose, instead of throwing it together day in and day out. Content calendars also need to include key business dates such as holidays, events, and launches. By doing this, you’ll be sure to never miss a deadline again.
Content calendars provide a great tool and resource for achieving both short-term and long-term goals. It’s the heart for a company’s marketing strategy. Marketing Acuity’s content calendar has helped us tremendously in the planning and execution of our social media content and our blogging. We recommend it to any business owner who plans on developing a content strategy. It’s more important than you think!
