Part Three: Content Calendars
In Part Two of our Guide to Keeping Your Brand Consistent Across Platforms, we walked you through an exercise to create a brand style guide. You will need to reference your new style guide while we cover content calendars.
Does your business take advantage of using a content calendar or do you simply create content on the go? Content calendars allow you to map out your brand’s activity across platforms. When combined with your brand’s style guide, you’ll ensure that your brand is consistent across platforms.
In this example of creating a content calendar, we’ll assume that you are building out one month of content. Here is a step-by-step guide:
Create a Content Calendar
- Start off by creating a blank calendar. (You can do this on a blank table as well.) Just make sure each day of the month has a spot. You will literally be filling this calendar with your brand’s content for the month.
- List out specific content for each platform on individual days.
- Do research for obvious trends and topics and map important days out on your calendar. (An example of this would be holidays, anniversaries and scheduled events.)
- Begin to create your content. Leave placeholders for any days that you currently don’t have anything for.
- Launch the editorial phase of content writing and constantly reference your brand’s style guide.
- Once all content is approved and is up to brand standards, schedule content for posting (if you’re doing social media or email marketing) or prepare to send out.
- Don’t forget about your scheduled content. Make sure to engage with your online communities. It’s also a good idea to stay up-to-date with the news. Doing this will make sure any scheduled content isn’t controversial or detrimental to your brand.
Are you creating content calendars as a team? This can cause inconsistency in your brand’s identity across platforms, but it’s easily coached out.
“Measure twice and cut once.”
What’s the point of measuring if one member of your team is using the metric system and another is using something else? Doing this would lead to an inconsistent measurement. In the case of content creation, “too many cooks in the kitchen” can lead to a confused-looking brand.
The same can be said when publishing branded content across platforms from multiple employees. It’s time to look past the post count and make sure that your content both accomplishes your goal and is consistent.
Before ever having someone “new” create content on behalf of your brand, it’s critical that he or she spends a good amount of time researching previously posted content. They should also be given the brand’s style guide to reference.
Could your brand use a boost in content marketing? Let our Dallas marketing agency help! We’d love to talk with you about content creation and keeping your brand consistent across platforms. Give us a call at (214) 414-3035.
