Creating a content schedule doesn’t have to be massively difficult and overwhelming. You can start slowly and build on your efforts as you get used to each new platform, while creating systems that make it easier.
To make a workable content schedule follow these steps:
Understand Your Sales Cycle
How often do you plan to launch new products or services? This is an important factor in deciding how much content you should create and when you should publish it.
If you have just one product or service then you’ll be able to create an entirely different type of calendar than someone who continuously launches new products.
Know the Platforms You’re Using
Each platform you use has different content publishing preferences. For example, on Twitter, you will want to share things more often and repeatedly than you will on Facebook. Although, due to Facebook changing their algorithm so that less of your audience sees every post, you can post the same information more than once there too.
Look for analytics on each platform that will tell you the best times and frequency to post.
Identify Your Audience
Of course, you should know your audience before creating any content, but you should also think of your audience as you create your schedule. That way you will understand how much content and how many emails they prefer.
You’re better off creating more content than less but some audiences will not be happy if you try to sell to them to several times a day. This is one of those things were you’re going to have a bit of trial and error to see what works.
Choose Your Topics
Pick the topics that you’ll create content for based on your launch schedule. If you only have one product then the best thing to do is start from the beginning and work on creating pillar content from which all the rest is derived.
Schedule Publishing, Due Dates & Promotion
When you choose a topic, go ahead and schedule due dates for research, creation, outsourcing, publication, and promotion.
Each day, just look at your calendar to find out what you need to do that day.
Make sure to build in time for outsourcing, because you really can’t do everything, and be realistic when you schedule to ensure that you can definitely meet your goals.
Track & Tweak
Once you’ve published, give your content some time to start getting results, then look at your analytics.
If you never look at your analytics, you’ll have no idea whether your content is working or not. If you look at your stats and notice you’re not getting much traffic or interaction to certain content, you can try changing up the headline or your images to see if you can get a better response.
You can also look at which topics and types of content are getting more clicks and create more of what is working for you.
When you create your content schedule, if you’ve made sure that the goals you’ve created are realistic, you shouldn’t have much problem reaching your goals with content marketing.
Use a spreadsheet and a good naming convention to keep track, or get yourself a good editorial calendar. It’s also a good idea to use cloud storage, such as Dropbox, so that you never lose all your hard work.
Action Point!
Okay, so you’ve got everything you need now to start planning out your content schedule, so that’s your task for today.
Need a hand? Drop me a comment with any questions or points you want to make!
Day 9 is all done. Tomorrow, you’ll get to create a marketing and promo schedule for every post.
Don’t want to wait? Prefer to get all of the 30-Day Content Marketing Challenge posts in one place, so you can work through at your own pace? Here’s a link to all of the challenge lessons: https://creativeblueberry.com/30-day-content-marketing-challenge-catch-up/
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