It was the hunting season in a faraway Yoruba land when Oduduwa embarked on a hunt in a thickset forest. On that day sunshine bathed the land and birds circled the blue sky and trees singing happy tunes. While hunting, he aimed his bow in every direction and when night fell, returned home with no catch, a deep-seated frustration, and unmotivated to return to the forest the next day.
This scenario perfectly illustrates the typical experience of a content creator or brand who launches ideas and campaigns on the internet without creating and following a content calendar.
The internet is like a vast endless green field stretching towards the horizon. With a mass like that, undefined targeting converts to no target.
This article is best for you if you’re:
A content strategist
An inspiring content creator
A content creator
In it, we have provided a detailed guide to help you create a content calendar in 8 easy steps. Let’s get learning!
Step 1: Define Your Content Goal
Defining your content goal is the first and most crucial step when considering creating a content calendar. Releasing your content without a clear purpose wastes valuable time and resources. To discover your content intent, try to answer questions like:
Am I creating content to:
- Gain organic visibility?
- Grow my social media following
- Drive traffic or buyers to my website?
- Curate them into my portfolio?
Arriving at an answer will help you set clear planning processes and pinpoint your desired results.
Step 2: Create a Template for the Calendar
There are numerous — free and paid — calendar templates available online — feel free to choose one that suits your needs.
However, it's important to note that your chosen template should aid easy navigation and also have a share option. The latter is a great advantage if you're planning content execution with a team since members would be allowed to collaboratively add ideas.
Here's an example of a simple content calendar I created using Excel.
Except adhering to the specific instructions from an organization, your content calendar should include the following information (but not limited to):
- The topic
- The type of content
- The chosen channel for publication
- The audience target
- The date and time for each publication
- The publisher in charge
- Follow through - Was the publishing done? How did it perform?
Step 3: Select an ideal Publication Channel
Conduct target audience research to discover where your potential audience spends their time online.
If you're unable to evaluate on your own, browse Google for records of readily available statistics on social media platform performance like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Remember, while it's beneficial to publish your content on multiple forms and channels as this can broaden your reach, making sure that there are available resources to help push out content successfully is important.
Step 4: Brainstorm and Accumulate Content Ideas
Break free from generic topics and seek out ones that revolve around the interests of your audience by answering yourself:
- What questions do they have?
- What problems are they trying to solve?
- How can I solve them?
A second method is to conduct keyword research in your niche to identify popular search terms. Thirdly, analysing - but not copying- other's content for inspiration using a unique approach will help you stand out, and attract organic traffic.
Step 5: Draft a Publishing Schedule
One known characteristic of content creation is this: it is time-consuming. To maintain consistency and organization, draft a realistic publishing schedule with built-in content-free days. An overloaded will calendar lose its efficiency. However, fill those scheduled days with great content ideas aligned with your set goals (please refer to Step 1).
Also, planning your content around upcoming holidays and events creates a sense of timeliness and allows you to capitalise on current trends.
Ensure your schedule isn’t set in stone but permit flexibility while syncing with trends. For instance, if the topic trending on social media differs from your calendar’s week 4 pre-planned idea, consider swapping it to remain on the digital track.
Step 6: Harness the Efficiency of Scheduling Tools
Tools are reliable delegates that make working easier. Ones like Semrush and CMS platforms not only analyse and manage your content creation projects but also guarantee timely and unmissed posting assignments.
Step 7: Stay updated
As mentioned earlier, trends are fluid and can emerge unexpectedly. Stay updated in your content niche and update your calendar accordingly. TikTok is famous for trend creation and dissemination, so ensure you don’t underestimate its influence.
Step 8: Review Your Content Performance
One of the best aspects of digitalization is its measurability. For instance, this article’s performance had begun tracking data before you even found and read it.
However, creators and brands at times neglect to review individual content performance after investing time and resources into brainstorming, creating, and executing a content calendar.
Schedule time to analyse your content’s performance to identify what content sparked the longest and broadest engagement, what received negative feedback, and what had low conversion rates. This knowledge enables you to know your "winner" content topics or niche — your best-performing content— and create more ones like it.
Conclusion
A content calendar is a yardstick that points you to the destination of your target audience and customers. By applying these 8 easy steps your content creation and launching days will yield desirable results.
#contentstrategyseries
I’ll write to you again next Friday! Until then, have a fun weekend and productive weekdays.
PS: Don’t forget to clap (more than once) and follow me for more resourceful articles 😀
