Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition

Mapping an Editorial Calendar

In Chapter 2 I introduced the idea of putting your business on a trajectory (think of a space map), along with the concept of markers. You may recall that markers are like space buoys on your space map—they guide you toward your goals.

Enter stage left, the editorial calendar. An editorial calendar is your content publishing plan. Typically used by traditional publishers, such a calendar allows you to step back and look at the topics your site will be publishing in the future. You can think of the content within your editorial calendar as markers.

For example, SocialMediaExaminer.com keeps a 60-day editorial calendar that contains the topic and author of every post we plan on publishing. This helps us make sure we're never too focused on a specific topic, and helps our writers submit their articles on a schedule.

Even if you're the sole writer for your company, an editorial calendar will ensure you're on a schedule to produce outstanding content.

The easiest way to craft an editorial calendar is to open up a spreadsheet and set dates. Inside each date you can include the name of the writer, the topic of the post, and when the article is due.

When you map out a few months into a calendar, you'll begin to see patterns emerge. Cindy King, managing editor of SocialMediaExaminer.com offered tips you should consider when creating your editorial calendar:

• Pay attention to the days of the week. Make sure your strongest articles for the week go out on days ...