Business blogs need a calendar

"I sort of have a plan in my head for how I’m going to schedule my blog posts. But Facebook updates? Those are more random. And Twitter? Let’s not even go there.”

One of my clients who owns a small business made that confession, says Laura Christianson, owner of Blogging Bistro in Snohomish. He’s not alone. Nearly every blogger, tweeter, Facebooker and YouTuber struggles to produce and publish an ongoing stream of enticing, engaging content.

“I’m going to blog five days a week,” we vow. And then things get busy at work. Or we catch a cold. Or go on vacation. Weeks (or months) later, we guiltily return to our blog, wondering why we ever thought this would work. We then make one of three choices: A. We abandon social media altogether; B. We outsource our social media updates to a professional; or C. We resume blogging with renewed determination.

If choice C describes you, I recommend creating a social media editorial calendar. An editorial calendar prevents you and your followers from being overwhelmed or underwhelmed. Rather than publishing 12 posts one week and two the following week, a calendar nudges you to publish steadily.

Assigning self-imposed deadlines will increase your follow-through. If multiple contributors post to your company’s blog, a calendar reduces the amount of seat-of-the-pants posts and holds team members accountable to publish on a wide range of topics.

While deadlines are important, an editorial calendar should be fluid. Allow yourself the freedom to publish breaking industry news, to reorder posts and to transform a single post into a series.

To set up your editorial calendar, brainstorm a long list of topics and links that interest you. I generate ideas with Google’s Wonder Wheel, a mind map tool that displays search results in a wheel shape. When brainstorming, look over your company’s calendar and include dates for product launches, seasonal sales, important anniversaries or milestones, conventions, media appearances and speaking engagements.

Review the list and create 10 categories — search-friendly keywords that serve as your blog’s table of contents. Put every idea on the list in a category.

Next, assign topics to specific calendar dates. Use your favorite calendar, whether it’s Google or Outlook, a spreadsheet, a dry erase board or a large paper desktop calendar.

I build my editorial calendar in Microsoft Word. I create a Word table, with the header row displaying the post title, category, date scheduled, post URL and a 140-character Twitter teaser that includes a link to the post. I color code each post’s title according to its category, and as I slot topics into specific dates I make sure to cover all the categories.

An alternative to scheduling blog posts by category is to assign a different type of content to each day of the week. This technique can increase reader loyalty because it trains readers to expect that every Monday is “review” day, Wednesday is “guest post” day and Friday is “industry news roundup” day.

Your completed editorial calendar doubles as an archive of your published work. You should regularly review it and analyze which topics and articles resonate with your audience.

You’ve heard the adage, “Plan your work and work your plan.” A social media calendar helps you strategically plan your updates and turn your good intentions into reality.

Laura Christianson owns Blogging Bistro (www.bloggingbistro.com), a Snohomish-based company that helps businesses enhance their Internet presence. Contact her at 425-244-4242 or laura@bloggingbistro.com.