So it’s already February and your resolution to ‘create more content’ is looking a little wobbly. Don’t panic.
Here are my 5 tips for creating – and sticking to – a stress-free editorial calendar that will help you achieve your goals for 2015.
1. Take a look at the big picture
Before you start drilling into the detail and trying to come up with blog topic ideas, take a step back and look at the big picture:
- What are your business and personal goals for 2015?
Are you trying to drum up more business, ramp up your personal branding/profile, establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, better engage existing customers, or value-add for your clients? Perhaps it’s ‘all of the above’.
Once you’re clear in your mind as to why you even need to generate content, it should help you focus on what type of content is most appropriate for you – and help you stick to your plan.
After all, if an activity is driving our business goals, rather than just adding to our workload, we’re more likely to stick with it, right?
Another tip to help you focus your activities: look for any conferences, events, or relevant activities that are happening throughout the year that are relevant to your audience. Then plot these on a calendar so you can see where you should be putting your resources each month, and capitalise on the additional media and momentum that will be generated by these.
2. Work out where you will publish your content
It’s all very well to tap away on a fabulous article or blog post that would make your mother proud, but the big question is, where is it going to end up? There are plenty of options: your own blog, your company website, someone else’s website (as a guest blogger for instance), in the mainstream or trade press, on social media. Work out where your audience is and target those places. And don’t forget that you can re-purpose content for use in different formats – my fellow ABN blogger Belinda Weaver had some great tips about this in a previous post which you can check out here
3. Plan the kind of content you will you be producing
There are so many ways to present content, and what you decide on will depend partly on how much time you have, as well as your audience. Do they read blog posts or tweets or are they into whitepapers? Does the topic you’re covering require in-depth analysis or just a casual observation? For instance, if you’re working in finance or insurance, anything you write about will probably require you to go into a bit of detail to give your writing that added gravitas – if you’re blogging or tweeting about the latest fashion must-have, short is probably the way to go. But don’t be afraid to vary the length and test what gets your audience going – and don’t just stick to the written word. Videos, infographics and slide shows can be equally powerful ways to get your message across. Consider some or all of these as possible content format options:
+ Articles
+ Blog posts
+ White papers
+ Newsletters
+ eDM notifications
+ Social posts
+ Speeches
+ Webinars
+ Conference presentations
+ Videos
+ Native advertising
4. Decide how you will distribute your content
So you’ve written and possibly published the content to your website – how are you going to get it out to people?
First thing to look at is your existing assets. If you’re planning on tweeting or posting to Facebook, look at how many followers you have (and who they are) – will you get enough eyeballs on your content? Do you need to look at a social media plan alongside your content plan? After all, any content you generate will need to support your overall marketing and business plans. Check and see if the people who are signed up to your newsletter or following you on Twitter are the people you actually want to reach with your content. If not, you might need to first build a following – and of course your content can help you do just that.
5. Decide who will write it
This is crunch time. You’ve drafted your content plan, decided what you want to produce and where it’s going to end up.
Now is the time to be brutally honest with yourself: Exactly how much time do you have to devote to this? Be realistic about what you can get done.
My tip would be to work out where your strengths lie: if you genuinely enjoy writing about certain things, or find you’re a dab hand at Facebook posts and witty Twitter ripostes, then by all means plan to generate some (or even all) of the content yourself.
But if you just know that time won’t allow you to stick to your content calendar (either from an admirable self-knowledge or bitter past experience), then consider outsourcing some or all of your content to a competent copywriter. A copywriter can work with you to come up with blog ideas then research and draft them for your approval; or take a brief with a set topic, conduct a 10-15 minute interview with you, and Bob’s your uncle. A copywriter can even pull together or edit a whitepaper for you.
Even budgeting for 1-2 hours of copywriting support each week (think of it as part of your overall marketing budget) will free up your time to run your business, and ensure you have regular, professional content that will help you achieve your goals for 2015.
Happy planning!
