Creating Content Calendar

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 What is a Content Calendar?
A content planner or calendar defines
your publishing schedule for weeks or
months in advance, giving you a quick
overview of your content schedule.

Being a shareable resource, it also

gives team members clarity about
project details and deadlines. Rather
than stifling creativity, it will become
an ongoing source of content
inspiration.

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 BENEFITS OF USING A CONTENT
CALENDAR

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 Benefits of Using a Content Calendar
These are just a few benefits of using an editorial calendar:

1. It helps you maintain a consistent content production schedule.

2. It will stimulate new content ideas.
3. It helps your team work more efficiently – together and in isolation.
4. It makes team members more accountable for content production.
5. It enables you to plan for seasonal content, company events, and national events.
6. It’s a flexible framework that allows you to change your content output according to demand.
7. It helps you plan a diverse range of content topics, such as news, opinion pieces, and in-depth
content.
8. It helps you deliver a more balanced mix of content formats, such as articles, videos, and social
posts.
9. It will help you to maximize your content output.
10. By using analytics alongside a content calendar, you can track specific content stats.

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 HOW TO BUILD YOUR CONTENT
CALENDAR

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 Step 1: Start with Existing Content Assets
There’s a lot of focus on creating new content when we should really be focusing on
creating more with less. Instead, start by taking note of all of your existing content or
resources to see what can be repurposed and remixed. For example:

• Slide decks: Repurpose these as videos, blog posts or key takeaway slide decks.
• First-hand data or research: As long as you use that data safely and in ethical ways,
leverage your own data or research to create infographics or news stories.
• Colleagues and coworkers: The expertise of your colleagues can be tapped for video,
audio or transcribed interviews.

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 Step 1: Start with Existing Content Assets
• Whitepapers or reports: Break big content pieces into a series of blog posts or social
takeaways. We call this content atomization, which we’ll dive into in just a bit.
• Old blog posts: Make minor adjustments and update with fresh information. If they’re
all on the same topic, combine them into an uber-post or whitepaper, which is a
process we call reverse atomization.
• Repurposing content assets takes away some of the strain of having to come up with a
million new content ideas. It also helps you efficiently fill gaps in your content
schedule. A single content asset can also often give rise to several pieces of content,
which we refer to as content atomization. It’s the process of taking one big piece of
content and spinning it out into eight smaller pieces of content.

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 What Is Content Atomization?
Content atomization is basically the practice of breaking down one broader theme or
more massive piece of content into smaller, focused and more strategic content pieces or
elements (the phrase content atomization was first coined by Todd Defren, a globally
recognized social media innovator).

With content atomization, the idea is to:

• Start serializing content, so you’re delivering smaller – but more substantive – pieces
of content to your audience (over a series of days, weeks, etc.).

• Squeeze the most out of every content idea and existing piece of content that you’ve
developed so that you’re using your resources as efficiently as possible – and so that
your content ultimately delivers better results.

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 Why Content Atomization?

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 Ways to Atomize Your Content Marketing
1. Audio Tactics 3. Community Tactics
• Podcast • Linkedin Group
• Soundcloud file • Facebook Group
• Forum/Discussion Board post
2. Blogging Tactics 4. Long-form Content
• Blog post on your blog • eBook
• Guest blog post • Whitepaper
• Linkedin blog post • Slideshare presentation
• Medium post • Case study
• Tumblr post • Testimonial/interview
• Quora post • Webinar
• Infographic

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 Ways to Atomize Your Content Marketing
5. Messaging • Interactive quiz
• Email • Poll
• Event-triggered email (marketing • UGC contest
automation) 8. Video
• SMS messages • Youtube video
6. Social Content • Facebook video
• Linkedin status update • Instagram video
• Facebook post • Twitter video
• Tweet • Video podcast
• Twitter card • Pre-roll video
• Instagram photo post • Periscope live video broadcast
• Pinterest pin or board • Google Hangout On-Air
• Snapchat story • Video infographic
7. User-generated Content • Blab video conversation
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 Ways to Atomize Your Content Marketing
9. Paid Tactics
• Remarketed display ad
• Pre-roll video
• Sponsored tweet
• Sponsored pin
• Paid Facebook post (dark social)
• Sponsored Instagram
• Paid Linkedin status update

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 Step 2: Identify and Create Your Content Shows
There are 3 types of shows you need to identify within your content:

• Binge-worthy shows: These shows are big, steady ongoing content initiatives that have the same
theme and format. Otherwise, they should target at least two audiences. They’re not worth the
time or effort to produce. These are often podcasts, video series, webinar series, white papers,
reports, etc. You should be able to execute this show at least twice per month. These also get
plugged into your calendar first.

• One-time shows: These shows are special quarterly or yearly shows that attack a major
customer pain point or topic. Although they’re less frequent in cadence than binge-worthy
shows, they’re still fairly large content pieces. Think white papers, research papers, contests,
user-generated content campaigns, etc. These don’t have to have the same level of consistency,
but they should still be in line with your branding, voice and tone.

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 Step 2: Identify and Create Your Content Shows
There are 3 types of shows you need to identify within your content:

• Regularly scheduled programming: These shows are ongoing content initiatives that round out
your calendar, and they don’t have to necessarily connect completely or be 100 percent
consistent in theme. Like in the case of blog posts, they may have a different author, topic or
format, depending on the content, but they always connect back to the content strategy and
have at least one clear audience in mind. Think of them as what a local nightly news show is to
any major television network.

It’s important to note that you most likely already have content shows in your existing content
assets, so check your inventory first. It may just be a matter of spinning assets a bit differently,
giving them an official show title or connecting them in more consistent ways.

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 Step 3: Plan, Schedule, Publish, Promote, Track and Tweak Your Content

Regular editorial planning meetings between all those involved in content creation should be scheduled
well before the next publishing period—be it monthly or quarterly. This meeting can be used to schedule
the publishing content from your repository with realistic time frames and to support social media activity,
email newsletter inclusions, etc.

Your planning meetings can also be used to review the visit, engagement and revenue (if available) stats
from previous periods to assess which types of content are most successful (and perhaps need to be
replicated) and which are less successful (and perhaps need to be rethought).

Analytics (both web and social) and revenue data can also be used to make tweaks to already published
content (e.g. titles, introductions, outbound links, etc.) to optimize visits and engagement.

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