“We need to start posting content to boost our online presence.”

Sound familiar?

It’s the line that kicks off your team’s content strategy meetings. But after a burst of enthusiasm, other priorities start sneaking in, and that momentum fades away.

You want to consistently publish content that gets noticed without dropping the ball—but let’s be real, it’s tough to keep it all on track.

So here’s the secret: create a content calendar.

It’s your ultimate game plan to organize and schedule content, ensuring you never miss a beat.

Want to know how to do it? This guide has got you covered.

Pro tip: Ready to hit the ground running? Download our free Ceros content calendar template and get started today!

What is a content calendar? 

A content calendar, aka an ‘editorial calendar,’ is a schedule designed to help you plan and organize upcoming content. 

Think of it as a digital planner that simplifies launching and managing your content marketing campaign. From creation to scheduling and publishing, a content calendar helps you stay on track so nothing slips through the cracks. 

In it, you'll find information about upcoming pieces, including the content creator, status update, publication date, and more.

The goal?

Katie Brinkley, CEO of Next Step Social Communications, says it’s to give your team a sense of routine so they know what to expect. She says, “[...] a content calendar will help you develop a specific strategy for the content you’re delivering to your intended audience…a way to track what content you’ll create and when you’ll deliver it.” 

But that’s just the tip of the content calendar iceberg.

Let’s explore other benefits of having one.

Why is a content calendar important? 

Editorial calendars wear several hats, like the many-faced god in Game of Thrones. 

GIF Source: Tenor

They’re gods of consistency, time-saving lords, and performance-tracking masters — all simultaneously. 

Below, we’ve summed up some of what they can help you do.

Allow long-term planning

Sometimes, publishing isn’t as consistent as you’d like because you’re mostly focused on your current needs. You’re scrambling to decide what to post tomorrow or next week.

While there’s nothing wrong with that, creating a content calendar keeps you ahead of the game. Instead of only being bothered about the present, you’re constantly thinking about the next phase of your campaign.

You can create a content schedule for the next six months and beyond.

This way, you will have a steady flow of posts and be closer to achieving your marketing goals without waiting until the last minute. 

Help visualize the content marketing strategy

The content creation process can quickly become chaotic, with stakeholders struggling to keep track of the different steps involved. 

Say you’re working on a video post. Stakeholders and team members will probably want to know who’s writing the script, shooting the video, and editing, and what are the deadlines for the first draft and publication. 

Usually, you’d send them a message over Slack or an email, but these can easily get lost on you. 

A better way is to use a content calendar to provide a visual overview of the creation process. Everything’s in one place — from content title to creator, due date, publishing date, channel, and more, ensuring it’s all visible at a glance. 

Get a competitive advantage

A content calendar allows you to approach content creation and publishing with more zest and purpose.

Rather than scrambling for ideas, every piece of content is thoughtfully planned to ensure it stands out and resonates with your audience.

Do that consistently, and over time, you’ll be competing with big names in the industry. 

As the icing on the cake, a calendar helps you track content performance. It makes it easy to create more targeted, high-quality content and optimize it for better results.

Ensure consistency

You’re reading this article because you want to take content marketing more seriously. You want to have posts lined up without racking your brain over what’s next.   

That’s what a content calendar is for. 

It enables you to plan a consistent schedule, ensuring you have ready-to-publish content regularly.

Save time

Searching for content to post every day or week can be time-consuming. 

You’ll spend almost the whole day researching trending topics, creating content, and deciding on which channel to publish it.  

It’s pretty exhausting. However, creating a content calendar on a monthly or quarterly basis can switch things up for you. You can schedule content to go out across multiple channels. 

Plus, when you’re not working hand-to-mouth all the time, you can pick a day to plan the brand’s content for the next couple of months, giving you and the team time to prepare content well ahead of schedule.

Enhance real-time collaboration and transparency

An editorial calendar does more than help you stay organized; it improves team collaboration. 

Writers, designers, editors, social media teams, and project managers become more involved, tracking what’s happening and what’s next. 

It provides a clear timeline so everyone knows who’s doing what and when, making brainstorming and aligning efforts easier. 

There are no unnecessary bottlenecks, just a smooth workflow where everyone contributes. 

Manage social media posts better 

Have a social media channel?

A content calendar can help streamline your social media posts, including when and where you post them. 

It makes it easy to keep everything on track. Tools like Buffer can help schedule and publish posts on social networks, so all you have to do is create content.

Now, the question you’ve been waiting for; how do you create a content calendar?

You’ll find the answer in the next section.

How to create and maintain a content calendar 

You’ve heard so many good things about a content calendar. Now, let’s show you how to create one. 

Set the stage

Step #1 is to collect information from your content marketing strategy to lay the groundwork for the content calendar. 

Here’s how:

• Know your audience: Understand what the target audience needs by asking questions like: Who are they? What do they want? What time of the day do they spend time online? Where are they on the customer journey? These insights will help you identify content ideas relevant to the audience and the best times to launch a social media campaign.
• Define your goals: Already have a content marketing strategy? You can use the same goals for the calendar. But if not, think about why you want to create content. Do you want to boost awareness? Generate leads? Increase sales? Knowing this will also help you decide the right approach to content production. 
• Assess available resources: Do you have in-house content creators, or will you hire external contractors? How about thought leaders? Do you have access to them, or is there a long process involved? Listing out what you have and identifying gaps ensures a smoother process when assigning tasks and setting deadlines.

Setting these elements in place will influence the flow of the content production process, ensuring consistent delivery. 

Build the content calendar

You have two options for creating a content calendar: a spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel) or project management tools like Trello or Asana. 

Using a spreadsheet is pretty straightforward.

• Start by labeling rows and columns with essential details such as due dates, authors, content topics, content details, status updates, target audience, and more. 
• Use the checkbox or dropdown features to streamline updates for quick progress tracking. 

Do all that, and here’s what a spreadsheet-based content calendar view will look like: 

Image Source: Vertex

On the other hand, using a project management tool to build the calendar will offer you more advanced features. 

Here, you assign roles to different collaborators, create custom rules to simplify hand-offs or delegate tasks, and automatically notify teammates.  

Choose the content channels and topics

Now that you’ve got a calendar layout ready, it’s time to fill it with necessary information, such as relevant topics the audience needs and the channels they’re active on, like LinkedIn or TikTok. 

Start by conducting audience research using tools like Google Trends or One2Target. You’ll find valuable information about what your audience likes and where they spend their time. 

For relevant topics, identify pain points and questions. Then, use keyword research tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to find relatable subtopics to grab their attention.  

By deciding on the right platforms and topics ahead of time, you’re setting yourself up for success. You’ll be sharing content the audience craves where they’ll likely see it. 

When filling in the calendar, consider the audience’s experience with your brand. How do you give them a wholesome experience? Below is a list of things to consider.

What should you consider when content scheduling? 

For starters, consider what the audience demographics hold dear and add it to the content calendar. That, for instance, could be celebrating World Environmental Day if they’re environmentalists. 

In addition to that, you always want to consider factors such as:

• Content mix: Steer clear of repeating the same content format, as it could lead to ad fatigue. Mix things up occasionally so your audience is engaged. Schedule posts like short-form articles today, long-form tomorrow, interviews some other day, and more. 
• Timely content: Now and again, different trending topics rock the digital world. One way to capture people’s attention is to ride the wave of moments or events like that. 

If the topic relates to your brand, it’s your time to shine. Find a way to contribute to the conversation and establish the brand as an authority. 

• Evergreen content: This refers to content that remains relevant long after it’s published. Some examples include case studies, videos, or even blog posts. 

You want to devote a good portion of your topics to evergreen content, as it can consistently generate leads.

• Company milestones: Anniversaries, product launch dates, or industry conferences should also be included in your calendar. Creating content that mentions achievements will make the audience feel like they’re part of the journey, improving brand loyalty. 
• Sales and promotions: Are you planning sales or promotions, like Black Friday sales? Consider adding them to the calendar, too. 

You want to plan for it ahead of time as it’ll give you enough time to find the best approach to advertise events like that.

What are some content calendar best practices? 

You’ve decided to create a content calendar, but there’s a lingering doubt — will it be as effective as everyone claims?

Here are some practices to help clear your doubt and craft an effective content calendar. 

Embrace simplicity

Content calendars are there to make your job easier, so keep it simple as much as you can. 

You can start by adding only essential elements to the calendar in a spreadsheet, and you’ll be good to go. 

By essentials, we mean:

• Editorial elements and the content topics to be published, which need to be scheduled well ahead of time so there’s time to plan and create them.
• Promotional elements. This means how you intend to distribute the content. Which content will be published on the blog, social media accounts, or guest websites? 
• Future ideas column, where you list every idea you intend to work on so nothing slips through the cracks.  

Bottom line? Fancy is good but a simple calendar will help you get started more easily. 

Include every aspect of the creation process

A content calendar usually includes a content title, publishing date, and status update for progress tracking. 

However, for larger teams with more complex projects, you should break down the different steps involved in content creation. 

So, instead of having blog post production alone on the calendar, you include keyword research, brief creation, writing, editing, graphic design, and publishing. 

This practice is especially great for teams where different people are responsible for different sections of the content, as it helps everyone stay in sync. 

Include all types of content

You can use the calendar for other content-related activities besides scheduling different content types. 

For instance, you could use it to plan content updates, audits, and off-brand content such as podcast interviews, conferences, etc.

It’ll help you stay on schedule with tasks and keep things on track. 

Now, while spreadsheets can help you create a content calendar, there are digital tools you can leverage. You’ll find some of them below!

What are some useful content calendar tools? 

A content calendar tool is worth considering if you lead a relatively large marketing team and publish tons of content. 

It’s a platform that simplifies scheduling and coordination, making your workflow more efficient. 

Here are some top options to explore:

• CoSchedule is an all-in-one marketing calendar for planning your content. It allows you to create multiple content calendars simultaneously, making it easy to manage different campaigns concurrently. With CoSchedule, you can personalize your workflow and use tags and labels to organize projects visually. 
• Notion is a connected workspace that lets you centralize different phases of your workflow. It can be anything depending on what you need — a notepad, a whiteboard for brainstorming, or a content calendar tool. You just need to find a template from Notion’s library to edit it and get started.
• Asana is primarily a project management tool that allows you to create a content calendar and centralize your content planning. It offers templates you can leverage and allows you to create one from scratch, too. 

Plus, you can automate each step in your workflow, creating rules that enable you to instantly assign tasks, request edits, or hand over tasks. Asana has integrations with tools like Dropbox and Google Drive, making finding content to add to the calendar easy.  

• Google Calendar is a simple tool for solo creators to manage their content marketing efforts. When creating a content calendar with this tool, you can add events for each post and labels to categorize them. It allows you to include relevant information such as platforms, dates, content, and other pertinent information.

So, that wraps up this guide!

Over to you!

Now that you know how to create a content calendar, you’ll be amazed at the boost in productivity you and the team will get. 

In addition to that, it’s a great way to show stakeholders the value of content marketing. You’ll be giving them a clear picture of your strategy, the platforms you’ll penetrate, and how you intend to achieve your plans. 

To make an even bigger impact during the presentation, consider using a tool like Ceros to make it more attractive and engaging. 

It can help you add interactivity to your calendar, making the presentation dynamic, and keeping stakeholders hooked from start to finish. 

See how it works for yourself. Book a demo with Ceros today.