How to Create an Editorial Content Calendar 2022

We understand how overwhelming content tracking and creation are for large-sized projects. For instance, it would need you to have an effective mechanism for managing content creation and flow. So, this guide will help you learn how to create or use an editorial content calendar in Google Sheets for your marketing strategy.

This guide is not only essential for big brands that create daily marketing content. But it’s also for small businesses planning on adopting a content marketing strategy.

Marketing agencies like DIGting commonly depend on content marketing calendars. That is to say, we not only use an editorial content calendar to keep track of our client’s content. But also for our content creation processes.

So, we will help you understand the basics of a content marketing calendar. And how you can create or customize any content marketing calendar template in Google Sheets to fit your business needs. Let’s start by understanding what content or editorial calendar is.

What is an editorial content calendar?

An editorial content calendar is a chart showing the exact message to post on a specific day, time, and month. It is like any other calendar. Therefore, it should consider the special days of the calendar year. 

Pretty much sure you have seen brands posting particular messages on Independence or Heroes Days similar to the one in the image below. They don’t just come up with the idea one or two days before. Their marketing team must have created, revised, and scheduled the posts earlier.

And that is the reason for an editorial content calendar. It clearly illustrates the posting cadence to the stakeholders and the marketing team. 

Posting cadence is how frequently you will update a brand’s marketing channels. In other words, how many times do you consider posting? Is it once, twice, or thrice a day?

So a content editorial calendar will give you a bigger picture of your content marketing strategy. It includes the types of content posted each day. And who handles the content creation, editing, and publication roles.

What makes a good Editorial Content Calendar?

An effective editorial content calendar must have the following:

• Marketing channels
• Date and Time for posting
• Marketing Copy for posting
• Expected length of content
• Content Status (Published or Scheduled)
• Person in charge
• Link to Visuals, for example, photos, videos, illustrations, Infographics, gif
• Link to published posts for easy tracking
• Hashtags or Focus keyword
• Miscellaneous notes
• Objectives of the Calendar For instance 

What are the types of editorial content calendars?

There are many content calendar examples different marketers use. However, here are the free marketing calendars we use at DIGting to increase our marketing efficiency:

1. Social Media Editorial Content Calendar

Marketers use this chart to organize their upcoming social media posts by date. In other words, it will help you plan out the workflow of your content marketing strategy. 

A social media content editorial calendar also gives you an overview of the required posts for the entire week, month, or year.

2. Blog Editorial Content Calendar

A blog calendar is a chart that gives you an overview of the blog articles you should write in a specific period. It will make your blogging life easy and beautiful by doing the following:

• It allows you to prepare and organize your blog articles in time. 
• It gives you an overview of your content marketing plan.
• Clearly shows a visual workflow that helps your marketing team stay on track.

3. Email Marketing Editorial Content Calendar

An email marketing calendar will be crucial if you want to run an email marketing strategy. Just like other calendars, it will help organize your email campaigns. Furthermore, it visually describes the email campaign, email list segments, and the time for sending the email content or messages.

4. SMS Editorial Content Calendar

This is for businesses that survive on an integrated SMS content marketing strategy. Using an SMS editorial Content calendar will save you a lot of burdens.

You will also learn the best time and day for sending an SMS to your target customers. Hence, it helps you unlock the potential to engage more users than before.

Why is a content calendar important?

1. Keeps track of important dates

Content creation can be devastating, especially if you don’t have a plan. But did you know most marketers extract part of their content from the editorial calendar?

They create content in response to important dates such as International Women’s Day. Such content will also improve visibility and user engagement.

2. Improves Content Creation.

Using a content marketing calendar will help you stay organized while also saving time. It enables you to create content in time, schedule, and plan. 

This format lends you enough time to plan your marketing message. As a result, it will significantly improve the content creation process for your business. For more tips on how to create engaging and interactive marketing posts, check out this content marketing guide we shared recently.

3. It helps you stay consistent.

How frequently you post on social media is vital. But also, staying consistent with your social media activities is another thing. 

For instance, if you post every day of the week at 8:00 am, keep up to that. Your audience will get used to it, establishing your content as a vital resource.

4. Clarifies responsibilities within your team

You must know who handles which project. It mainly applies to marketing agencies that manage several social media platforms. But with a content marketing calendar, you keep track of each person on your marketing team.

5. Assists with Auditing and Reporting

Keeping track of the status of your posts is essential for performance auditing. So, a content marketing calendar, in this case, will act as a single point of view for all your posts. 

It will clearly show the published and scheduled posts. You may also follow the provided links to see how each post performs.

Who needs an editorial content calendar?

Everyone using online marketing to boost sales and visibility of their brands needs a strategic content marketing calendar. It may include marketers, brand social media managers, and content creators.

Using a Facebook content calendar will improve your productivity. And also help you deliver content on time. As a result, it will help you keep a consistent content creation process.

Many people have found our exclusive guide to social media marketing useful. Feel free to check it out and get started with creating an effective social media marketing strategy.

How to create a content calendar in Google sheets

There is no one stipulated way of creating an editorial calendar for your content. Actually, it doesn’t matter which tools you use or how you make your content calendar. So long as it serves the proper purpose. 

But we recommend spreadsheets or Google Sheets to create your editorial content calendar. These tools are easier to use and accessible.

So, here is how to make a content calendar in Google sheets. You may follow the steps below to generate a customized content calendar for your business.

Step #1: Create a folder in your Google drive

We recommend creating a Google Drive folder for your editorial content calendar. This practice will help you organize and keep track of all content project calendars.

Google Drive is a fantastic file-sharing platform. It is secure and also allows your marketing team to collaborate. To create a new Google Drive folder, follow the steps below:

1. Go to My Drive and navigate to the left panel. At the top most section, locate the “New” button and click on it for the drop-down menu to appear. 

2. The “Folder” option is the first on the list. Click on it to create a new folder. 

3. Now, provide a name for your folder and click “Create.”

We recommend that you give a descriptive folder name. For instance, this is what we have selected “Content Calendar” for easy identification and accessibility.

Step #2: Create a blank Google Sheet document

4. Now, navigate to the folder you have just created by double-clicking on it. Follow step one above, but this time, select “Google Sheets” with the green icon. This action will launch the Google Sheets document in a new window which we will use to create our content calendar.

5. Navigate to the top left corner and double-click on “Untitled spreadsheet.” Now, provide a descriptive name for your calendar. For example, we have named ours “DIGting Content Calendar.”

Finally, you have your blank Google Sheet document. However, Google Sheets allows you to have numerous sheets in one document. So, the next step should be renaming the current sheet.

6. Navigate to the bottom of the screen to find “Sheet1.” To rename it, click on the dropdown button. Then, among the series of options, click “Rename.” After that, you can provide a name for this sheet. For instance, “Social Media Calendar.”

Google Sheets allows you to add many sheets (Content calendar) to one document. That means you don’t need to create another Google Sheet copy. Instead, click on the “+” symbol to add a new sheet. Then, rename it to “Blog Content Calendar” or “Email Content Calendar”, depending on your preferences.

Step #3: Customize the Google sheets

During customization, we recommend that you keep track of the rows and columns. This way, it will be easy for you to follow this guide.

• Rows: The horizontal group of cells on the worksheet. Usually denoted by numbers found on the left side of the sheet.
• Columns: The vertical group of cells on the worksheet. Usually denoted by alphabetical header letters found at the top of the sheet.

With that information, let us proceed to create our calendar. Organize your calendar into the following structure:

In the Column Section

Here are the headers that should take up the column section of your content calendar (Main menu items):

• Days of the week
• Social Media Channels
• Posting Time
• Person in Charge
• Content Status
• Hashtags
• Expected Length of Content

In the Row section

Here are the headers that should take up the row section of your content calendar:

• Content Calendar title
• Month and the year
• Week number
• Main Menu
• Individual days of the week
• Individual social media channels 

Considering the above arrangement of rows and columns, your final editorial content calendar will look like in the image below. You can choose to adjust the size of the cells by dragging their boundary lines. Hence, this will make longer strings fit in well.

This is just a guide to give you an idea of how to create your first content calendar. After that, you may choose to add any information that fits your project. Use the same steps to design the content calendars for other Worksheets you created in step #2.

Final Remarks

So, as we wind up, a content calendar is essential. First, it will help keep your content marketing well-organized and on track. Identifies what is working and what is not by tracking content performance. And finally, it prevents you from spamming one social network and neglecting another.

We hope this guide has helped you create a free content marketing calendar in Google Sheets. Feel free to ask any questions. We also have content calendar templates customized to fit any requirements and needs. You may reach us on WhatsApp for inquiries.