At times, finding content to share on your social media accounts can feel like either feast or famine. An editorial calendar provides a mechanism for both spreading out your posts and coordinating event promotion across multiple accounts and weeks.
Benefits of an editorial calendar
Editorial calendars help you develop a content strategy for your social media platforms, email marketing, blogs and more. Using an editorial calendar will:
- Save time by lessening how long you spend searching out new content each day
- Help you discover new opportunities
- Allow you to maximize content by repurposing it across platforms
- Allow you to build upon current trends
Building an editorial calendar
There is no right or wrong way to format an editorial calendar. Spreadsheets are a great option when coordinating across multiple platforms potentially managed by different people. A tabular or calendar format is a more visual way to organize your posts and can be easily referenced. At other times, a simple text document with dates and times can be sufficient.
Regardless of how you format your calendar, here are some steps to get you started:
- Account for how many times per day or week you will post
- Account for all your platforms
- Identify key “anchor” events in your area, including any ticket or registration deadlines
- Work in national holidays, seasonal activities and more
- Review the master calendar for major University events and activities
- Note any relevant hashtags
Template editorial calendars
Get started today on building an editorial calendar for your social media platforms by using one of our templates: