Why a Social Media Editorial Calendar Makes Updates Simpler

Do you use an editorial calendar to help manage your social media posts, tweets and blog posts? If not, you’re probably spending too much time managing these activities. With a little planning and the completion and ongoing maintenance of an editorial calendar, daily social media updates and blog posts become almost automatic.

If you ran a magazine, wouldn’t you plan ahead for the content that you intend to include in your magazine? Wouldn’t you need to think about what’s happening in your magazine’s world for the next 3 to 6 months? Maybe even a year? Of course you would. For example, if your magazine focuses on food, you’d want to plan ahead for Halloween Treats, Thanksgiving Dinners and Christmas festivities, right? And you’d need to plan far enough ahead to leave time for the writers to create recipes and photographers and stylists to create the photos.

Well, successful marketing activities require the same type of planning. What’s happening in your business over the next 3 to 6 months? Is there a major product launch? Location change? Promotions, coupons, sales? New employees or customers that you want to mention? What’s happening in the external world with respect to your business – pertinent holidays, national days or months, local events, award ceremonies, worldwide events?

All of these events can be placed on your calendar and then you can plan your content in a timely manner. For a product launch, you can start posting teasers in the weeks prior to the launch. Or perhaps you can post a blurb about the launch event or upcoming show where you’ll be unveiling your new product. By entering other topics in between the events and holidays, you’ll find that you’ll spend less time looking for other content to post and retweet because you’ll know the type of content you’re seeking.

Last week, I posted step-by-step instructions for creating a social media editorial calendar on BayBusinessHelp.com and provided a detailed sample calendar. Take a look!

How do you manage your content and what tools do you use?