How to Plan a Monthly Content Calendar

Creating quality content is a great way to connect with and expand your audience. But no matter how good the content is, if you aren’t sharing consistently, your efforts will be for naught. The best way to deliver and plan the content your audience craves is to create a content calendar. A content calendar keeps you accountable by planning and maintaining a production schedule. As a result, your messaging will remain fresh and build a consistent connection that resonates. theBLOQparq (tBp) has designed a community built for connection with our micro-retail and office spaces that encourage long-lasting, far-reaching experiences for your customers.

If you are ready to sit down and get to work with a bit of content calendar planning, these steps will provide some clarity and inspiration.

1. Brainstorm Your Ideas

The first step in creating a content calendar involves brainstorming your ideas. The topics should mirror your brand identity and address questions or topics that are likely to pique the interest of your target demographic. Interesting and relevant is what you want to achieve. The idea is to establish your company as a go-to expert in your industry through the trusted content you provide. This can take on different forms such as how-to guides, webinars, success stories, interviews with leaders in your industry, behind-the-scenes shares of your business, and infographics — just to name a few!

Bonus Tip: Look at what your competitors are doing. Some of the best ideas can arise from viewing what other similar businesses in your industry are creating for content. Allow this to serve as inspiration, without mimicking or comparing yourself and your brand.

2. Determine Frequency And Platforms

Once you’ve got your list of brilliant ideas, you’ll want to determine where you should publish your content and how often. A good rule of thumb is to remember that each platform you post content on serves a different purpose. The channel or platform you select delivers your content in a unique way. Some of those modes of content channeling include:

• Emails allow you to target a specific audience segment with press releases, newsletters, and promotions.
• Website content scheduling includes landing pages, sharing videos, and how-to content that should be updated 1 to 3 times a week.
• Video shares on platforms like YouTube can include content with behind-the-scenes footage and explainer videos. Weekly publication of at least one new video can keep your viewers tuning in.
• Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are an ideal way to deliver new content, engage your audience directly and build upon your brand image. They are perfect for promoting new content, increasing brand awareness, and interacting with your target audience.

3. Utilize A Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets serve as the perfect template to build your content calendar. While there’s no wrong way to create your spreadsheet, some helpful columns include the publication date and channels, title of the content, the author, content descriptions, keywords, and status of the content.

4. Track Your Published Content

As your scheduled content goes live, you’ll want to track responses and related actions to anything you may be sharing. Analytics is a great way to determine which content is getting top notch results and which is missing the mark. In addition, analytics can inform and direct what content makes its way to your content calendar for the weeks to come.

Once you’ve established the steps mentioned above, your content calendar will serve as a powerful tool in your arsenal for audience reach, engagement, and growth. At tBp, you’ll find a home where entrepreneurs like you can find inspiration for new engaging content at every turn.