Practical content strategy: content planning & editorial calendar
Geplaatst op 17 oktober 2011 door Robert van Velzen met de tagscontentmanagement, contentstrategie
This post is the second in our series of posts covering tools, deliverables and activities under the content strategy umbrella. Enjoy.
- Content inventory / audit
- Editorial calendar / content planning (this post)
- To be determined (content specifications, workflow & procedures)
What is (in) a content planning / editorial calendar?
The terms “content planning” and “editorial calendar” are used to describe all sorts of topical and date-based overviews of content to be produced and published.
Magazines use it to give advertisers and potential authors a high-level overview of the topics for upcoming issues/editions of the magazine. Publishers and businesses use it to plan and coordinate the day-to-day production and publication schedule for content.
In short, a content planning or editorial calendar helps organizations plan for content.
Planning for content
After finding out what you have, and what shape it is in (see my earlier post on content inventory & audit), the next step is figuring out what you need in terms of content:
| Determined by | Inputs & triggers | Topics & themes |
|---|---|---|
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|
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Tip: Check out this recent AdAge article, illustrating how a brand like Mercedes Benz determines what gets on the editorial calendar.
Content planning / editorial calendar setup
The actual setup and structure of a content planning a.k.a. editorial calendar will differ according to type of usage and scope (which audiences, what content, which media/channels).
We have found the following setup (similar to the best practices described by the Content Marketing Institute) suits us well, and allows for customization when required:
- Story ideas / backlog
- Master calendar: high-level overview (monthly/quarterly view per theme/topic)
- Channel-specific production calendar (monthly/weekly/daily view per channel)
Story ideas / backlog
Maintaining a running list or back log of story ideas or even concrete articles is an excellent way to keep the inspiration and ideas flowing, and to guarantee to have content readily available as a substitute or to fill in any gaps that might appear in the calendar/planning.
What to track:
- Theme/topic (area)
- Medium/channel
- Type of content
- Outline/actual content
- (Re)sources
Master calendar
We use a master calendar for high-level planning of content per theme/topic (and/or audience group) on a quarterly/monthly basis. It should feed off directly from annual/quarterly marketing and communications plans.
As such, it provides oversight of what is being communicated to whom, when and how (using which media/channels).
What to track:
- Program/campaign (from marketing communications calendar)
- Theme/topic (area): product groups, service offerings, launches, trade/industry developments
- Audience(s): prospects, customers, partners
- Purpose (goal/objective):
- Message (global)
- Type of content
- Medium/channel
Channel-specific production calendar
Besides the master calendar, we use editorial calendars for each medium/channel in use, for detailed planning and scheduling of content on a monthly/weekly basis. It allows for detailed production planning, workflow, and progress monitoring.
As such, it provides oversight of what content is actually being created/produced, edited and reviewed, when and by whom.
What to track:
- Theme/topic (area)
- Audience
- Purpose
- Message (detail)
- Call-to-action
- Type of content
- Relations (links to/from other content, possibly in other media/channels)
- Production & publication scheduling (incl. review/approval workflow)
- Status & prioritization
- Owner
- Author/editor
Published content?
It has been suggested to also include an overview/listing of content published in the editorial calendar setup.
However, we prefer to feed that into the content inventory and audit setup discussed earlier, in effect closing the loop between the two.
The illustration shows how both content strategy artefacts/tools are feeding into and off each other.
Illustration: content management cycle
(click on the image for the full view)
Tools of the trade
A content planning or editorial calendar can be setup and maintained using a number of tools, ranging from the omnipresent office productivity workhorses (spreadsheets and calendars), generic collaboration and project management tools, to dedicated web applications specifically built for editorial calendar and content planning purposes.
- Spreadsheets: Excel, Google Spreadsheets et.al.
- Calendars: Outlook/Exchange, Google Calendar et.al.
- Collaboration & project management (on-premise, hosted): Sharepoint (using its workspaces, lists and libraries features), Basecamp (using its milestones, to do lists features), Smartsheet (using its spreadsheet, gantt and calendar features)
- Specific editorial calendar & content planning tools: Divvy, Jumpchart, Gathercontent
Others (see resources at the bottom of this post) have already described how to use the general office productivity tools (spreadsheets, calendars) and collaboration/project management software (Sharepoint, Basecamp and everything in between) for editorial calendars. Therefore, I will only briefly review the other tools available:
- Divvy HQ : new kid on the block, currently in beta, planning/calendaring of content
- Jumpchart : web content creation in a wireframe setting, hierarchical site structuring, no planning
- Gathercontent : web content creation in a wireframe setting, simple content modeling, no planning (yet)
- Smartsheet: online collaborative spreadsheet for project/task management, with gantt/calendar features
Without having tried the specific editorial calendar tools myself, Divvy seems to focus squarely on managing editorial calendars (content to be produced, due dates, assigning tasks). Jumpchart and Gathercontent seem to focus more on actual content production and the structure/context it will be published in (primarily for the web), and not on planning/scheduling (although Gathercontent plans on adding that to its features). Smartsheet is spreadsheet-centric with specific features for project/task management, a tool we covered earlier (Practical content strategy: content inventory & audit).
Our recipe
The combination of the benefits of a spreadsheet and a calendar/planning tool made us turn to Smartsheet again.
The familiar spreadsheet paradigm allows for easy manipulation of sets of data, from lists/logs of content ideas to status reporting.
The data can also easily be presented and manipulated in a calendar or gantt style view for planning and task management purposes.
Illustration: content planning in Smartsheet (click on the image for the full view)
And as an important side benefit, it enables us to keep content inventories (what we have now) and editorial calendars (what we will/plan to have) together in the same online workspace, closing the content management loop.
Resources
- LinkedIn: Content strategy group (several discussions on editorial calendars and other deliverables)
- Google Knol: Content strategy (Jeffrey MacIntyre)
- Content strategy deliverables (Shelly Bowen)
- Editorial calendar (Wikipedia)
- How brands are borrowing from publishers’ toolkits (AdAge)
- How To Create An Editorial Calendar to Publish Blogs, Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, and Email Newsletters (Reach Customers Online)
- How to Put Together an Editorial Calendar for Content Marketing (Michelle Linn, Content Marketing Institute)
- How To Effectively Manage the Content Marketing Process (Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute)
- Using Editorial Calendars in B2B Content Marketing (Ardath Albee, Marketing Interactions)
- Plan je content: de editorial calendar (Anna Borsboom, LeLab, in Dutch)
- Content Grid v2 (Eloqua)
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