An editorial calendar will keep you on track to produce epic content. You can use this calendar to determine and maintain a consistent publishing schedule.
When I didn’t have my editorial calendar, I sometimes forgot to publish a blog post. I’d incorrectly schedule some blog posts to the point where 2-3 got published in one day.
At a point, I became inconsistent in blogging, and my editorial calendar looked ugly. Looking at that barren calendar helped me get back on my feet and commit to writing more content to enhance the overall experience.
If you want an epic editorial calendar, follow these five strategies.
#1: Write New Content Every Day
The best way to become a better blogger is to write new content every day. I’ve taken this a step further by publishing one new blog post every day.
It takes more time than just writing one blog post each week, but this level of commitment ensures I show up every single day.
At the beginning, writing and publishing a new blog post every day may seem daunting, but it isn’t very difficult once you get on board. Any task can turn into a seemingly effortless habit with continued implementation.
Sure, you’ll have to think of more content ideas, but it’s well worth it in the long run. You’ll give your readers a better experience and more chances to see your content.
Based on my blogging schedule, I also decided to up my podcasting game. I currently publish one new episode every weekday. At the rate I’m interviewing people, I may soon make Breakthrough Success a daily podcast.
Plus, I love interviewing people and hearing their insights.
I even have plans on daily YouTube videos in the future, but that isn’t as near term as some of the things I’m doing now.
Daily YouTube videos can make a comeback for my brand by the end of Q1 of 2018. Do everything in your power to make daily your frequency. People remember the people they see daily.
And if you come out with valuable content every day, you eventually won’t have to tell your audience to check out your content. They’ll instinctively want to check it out.
#2: Plan Weekly Revivals
As you create new content every day, you must remember you have a library of old content forming your brand’s core. While some of your old pieces of content don’t drive any traffic, there are other pieces of content that continue driving traffic.
These are the pieces of content you need to focus on. Small updates here can generate big gains all across the board.
Updating your old content will give it new life on search engines. However, during these updates, you can link to your newer content. Every week, you can link to at least two of your newer blog posts in an older piece of content.
Use the older content to drive traffic to the newer content.
If you receive an old piece of content every week, that gives you 52 possibilities.
#3: Get Contributors Involved
You can only do so much on your own. Inviting contributors to help with content creation will take you to the next level. Content will literally be given to you. When you publish this content on your platform, the other person will promote it to their community.
That’s how guest blogging, appearing on podcasts, and similar relationships work.
If you have one contributor every day (you can split this up amongst your content), you’ll have at least one person sharing your content every day. Some people in your contributors’ audiences will decide to share the post.
Your content brand can get massive exposure with this one approach. But that depends on how much you scale this approach.
#4: Incorporate Multiple Media Formats
You can have a preferred media format, but you need to incorporate multiple formats throughout your journey.
I am in my zone when I am creating blog posts, podcast episodes, or videos. Since there are the fewest barriers of entry for blogging, writing is my preferred format. Podcasting comes in as a close format because even though the prep work does take some time, the advice I get from the interviews is golden.
Video is one area that I’m developing in. I have no problem with providing a valuable video, but starting is the problem. Starting is more challenging than the action itself. That’s true for most actions in life.
The reason you can’t stick with one content format is because your targeted audience isn’t doing that either. Some people in your targeted audience only have time to listen to podcasts on the way to work.
If you only write blog posts, you lost that ever-growing segment of the market. You can tap into that market by launching a podcast and updating it at least once per week.
If you only create videos, then you lost me. I get most of my information from reading blog posts and books. Only when I’m exercising will I listen to audiobooks or podcasts, but I almost never watch videos.
#5: Theme Your Free Content Around Product Launches
High-end product launches and service offerings are where most of the revenue is made. To get the lion’s share of that revenue, you need to warm up your audience to those promotions.
The promotion for any launch starts well before the actual promotion date.
If I’m promoting a product about social media, I’m creating new blog posts and videos about social media. I’ll publish these blog posts and videos several weeks before the product launch and all the way to the product launch date.
Don’t just publish random content at random times. Your content gets your audience interested in a topic. Getting them interested in the right topics at the right times can, no exaggeration, double your income.
I’m writing more content about content marketing because I know my audience wants that type of content. With this in mind, I also created the Content Marketing Plaza, my high-end training course.
I know you would be less interested in the Content Marketing Plaza if I wrote about productivity all of the time.
Bias your content creation towards what you plan to promote. I identify all of the products and services I promote at least six months out so I know what type of content I need to create.
While this is harder for a podcast, I can even change episode numbers to ensure that the right guests and topics get published at the right times.
Don’t just be strategic with promoting your content, but also be strategic with which content you publish and when you publish those pieces of content.
In Conclusion
An epic editorial calendar gives you the framework you need to consistently provide your audience with valuable content.
If you are not producing new content every day, you risk falling behind. Audiences are increasingly gathering around people who can produce content more often than once a week.
In fact, you may consider publishing multiple new pieces of content every day across multiple platforms. Who’s to say that you can’t publish a blog post and a podcast episode every day?
You’ll be putting more of your time on the line, and doing so will force you to think of new and creative ways to spread the word. Even if your initial blog posts get zero traffic, taking action every day will eventually lead you to the goldmine.
What were your thoughts on these tactics to craft a rocking editorial calendar. Do you have any best practices for us? Do you have a question for me? Sound off in the comments section below.
Success! You will receive your free eBook shortly.