How to create a Kickass editorial calendar

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Managing your content can be a daunting task.

If you are new to editorial management or are just looking for ways to keep all your content well organized, you can ask a few questions. How do you organize your content? How do you know what content to post? Is there an easy and effective way to stay on top of your content posting goals?

That's where the editorial calendar can save the day.

In this post, we'll define what an editorial calendar really is (and isn't) and explain how to create an editorial calendar that works for your team.

What is an editorial calendar?

An editorial calendar, borrowed from the traditional publishing world, is a practical calendar that outlines high-level, thematic frameworks for showing when your overarching content should be scheduled throughout the year.

This is a useful resource for building the foundation of your content where it sets the starting point for your content planning by looking at the big picture, then diving into the details. content will be posted. A powerful editorial calendar categorizes content and displays corresponding timelines to ensure transparency on upcoming material. Think of the editorial calendar as the blueprint for your content responsibilities — it tells you where you need to go and how to get there.

Why create an editorial calendar?

Image of Jane, the marketing director of a medium-sized company. Jane manages a team responsible for social media, traditional marketing, events, and (importantly) content. But they are struggling to stay organized. The company's social media pages went without posts for a week, and before that they were inconsistent.

Jane is trying to stay organized, but the hustle and bustle of the workday is dragging her down. She needs resources to plan her team's content responsibilities. Insert editorial calendar. The editorial calendar not only makes Jane's life easier, but it also adds value to her team by acting as a tool for communication and planning. At any given time, anyone can consult the calendar and see what's going on from a 30,000 - foot view.

If you're like Jane, you have a team that needs help planning and organizing relevant content throughout the year. As a snapshot of your year's overarching content, an editorial calendar solves that problem by allowing the team to preview content gaps and prepare the right content at the right time.

What is the difference between an editorial calendar and a content calendar?

It's important to note: an editorial calendar is not the same as a content calendar, although the terms are often used interchangeably. Although they sound similar, they serve different purposes.

At Convince & Convert, we define a content calendar is the “tactical, actionable calendar for planning all content activity. It takes existing content and reuses it through atomization and determines how certain assets should be used. “Content Calendar guides content management – tactical, specific, and detailed on a daily basis. They usually include the exact message and content to be posted, such as an article, video or blog post link for each of your channels, and the exact date to publish. This content corresponds to the overarching editorial theme of a given time.

In contrast, editorial calendars orient content by covering high-level topics over a long period of time. It is used to plan ahead for upcoming material, allowing teams time to create, reuse, or organize relevant content to fit publication schedules.

Think of the editorial calendar as the strategy and the content calendar as the execution. The editorial calendar guides the content to be published. And the content calendar defines and publishes specific content.

Create your editorial calendar by answering 4 basic questions:

What does the editorial calendar look like?

Similar to a content calendar, an editorial calendar looks like an actual calendar. There are several different ways to design your calendar, and many different templates are available online. But each calendar should have key elements, including month/day, content theme, background, etc.

Your editorial calendar can be as simple as an Excel spreadsheet or as complex as a paid tool (more on these tools shortly). But it's probably best to avoid PDFs. It's often helpful to organize your calendar by color-coded themes, posting platforms, and months and important dates.

There is no one right way to create an editorial calendar. You have to decide what your team needs and best will be able to monitor and use on a regular basis. Here are some examples of editorial calendars, all different, but still effective.

The first calendar is the one we use at Convince & Convert. Seasonality is important to our content, so we plan our editorial calendar around major holidays and events. Having a simple calendar showing the holidays allows us to consult and know immediately what is coming and what to expect.

Content calendar example from Convince & Convert

The second calendar is from HubSpot . It shows a month-by-month snapshot of where and how content will be posted. Note that it doesn't actually cover any content topics, allowing users to fill in details but still get a sense of what they need to create to follow through on the plan.

An example of an editorial calendar from HubSpot

The third example is the word CoSchedule . They call their editorial calendar the “Broad and General Calendar” because it displays multiple months and related topics and subtopics. It doesn't list channels but still gives a clear picture of what's to come.

An example of an editorial calendar from CoSchedule

Remember, this is a visual representation of your content. You will be able to view your editorial calendar and clearly see the topics or topics that will be covered throughout the year.

What should (or shouldn't) be included in the editorial calendar?

When creating your editorial calendar, certain information will be important to include in order to be of value to you and your team. Consider including some of the following, keeping in mind what works for your team:

Important dates (events, seasonality, etc.)

Topic / Topic (subtopics may also be relevant)

Posting rhythm (weekly, monthly, etc.)

Main distribution channels (website, social networks, etc.)

Calendars can also include content owners, assigning tasks to each team member responsible for producing content. The production stages (in progress, editing, approvals, etc.), with linked timelines for each, will ensure even more transparency on upcoming documentation and disclosure of information. Communicate more clearly if there is a delay.

At the end of the day, the information contained in the editorial calendar should be the elements that help you and your team curate content in a more streamlined manner. If an element starts to drag you down and doesn't make your content easier, remove it.

How often should you update and use an editorial calendar?

There is no right or wrong time to start planning your editorial calendar for the year. But the sooner you address it, the more time you'll give your team to plan what's to come. A strong editorial calendar at the start of the year will guide your content strategy, ensuring everyone is on track with your content goals. But it is important to allow flexibility. This shouldn't be carved in stone – go ahead and make the necessary changes along the way. Again, the editorial calendar is to be used as a guide, not a mandate.

We also recommend consulting the schedule early and often. In practice, this means using a calendar to keep your content organized and on schedule. If your marketing team has a weekly basis of communication, you should look at the editorial calendar at each meeting for a quick review. This ensures the calendar stays fresh in the user's mind.

Ultimately, it's important to measure your content's performance throughout the process. If future content is planned, but not displayed to impress your audience, change the plan. This helps you better serve your audience by focusing on the topics that matter to them.

Do you need an editorial calendar tool, and if so, how do you choose one?

Depending on your team size and budget, you may not need a powerful tool to manage your editorial calendar. It usually depends on how much content you publish. If you don't publish multiple pieces of content each week on a large number of platforms, you can do it with just one spreadsheet. Just make sure it's accessible to your entire team.

But while a shared, live, breathing document is manageable for most groups to use, a full-fledged tool is often easier, cleaner, and automated for this exact purpose. For those reasons, a number of tools exist on the market. Some of them have free versions, like Trello, Airtable, and Meistertask, while others are paid subscriptions. Our Persuasion & Conversion team uses CoSchedule's paid tool which we really like.

Whichever option you choose, make sure it fits the needs of your team.

If you're trying to figure out where to start, start by keeping it simple. Create a single editorial calendar via spreadsheet to work with. It's hard to keep track of everything when it's in different places. And that makes it even harder for your team to know what to do when. By keeping everything in one place, communication is streamlined, expectations are set, and efforts are not duplicated. And, the more organized, the easier it is for your team to be purchased by your team to use the calendar.

Conclude

Let's get back to our marketing manager Jane for a moment. In recent months, Jane has booked an editorial schedule for her and her team. She started out simple, with a color-coded Excel template stored on a shared memory. And her team has already begun reviewing the calendar at their weekly meetings.

Results are displayed. Not only has Jane felt more comfortable managing her content requests, but her team's content has also become very consistent. Even better, her teammates have started participating in the calendar. Some of them even emailed her with content ideas, including the exact date the idea would fit into the calendar!

Hopefully, Jane's example highlights the power and simplicity of an editorial calendar. With this tool in your arsenal, you have complete power to curate relevant, high-quality content and deliver it on a consistent schedule.

This post was originally written by Nathan Ellering in 2015, and extensively updated by Donna Mostrom in 2019.