Carolyn McMaster | September 18, 2014
“I can’t think of anything to write about.” “But everyone loves the office dog posts.” “I’ll do five posts next week—I swear.” “I thought blog posts didn’t have to be coherent.”
Many a blog program runs aground on a shoal of excuses, but you can keep the weaseling to a minimum and ensure that your blog follows your content strategy by establishing a structured process with an editorial calendar as its backbone.
The editorial calendar will list planned topics, writers, production deadlines, types of content, and audience (if you have more than one). You can also use it to record promotional actions for each post.
A lack of topic ideas will shut your blog down cold, so schedule regular brainstorming sessions. Aim for various types of posts to keep the blog interesting to readers and enable a variety of people to contribute.
Also consider: Do you want the blog to have a particular voice and tone? Speak to a certain knowledge level? Contributors should know the content parameters, so it’s a good idea to provide writers’ guidelines. It’s also helpful to document the standard route from topic conception to publishing, including approval, editing, and posting steps, as well as expected timing and roles.
Ultimately, it’s crazy to leave execution of your blogging strategy to chance. Whether you are posting once a week or daily, a set editorial process ensures you stay on topic—and on course.
Get more strategies and tips in our Strategy>Shift report, 5 Steps to a High-Powered Blog.
[…] promote it. For a business blog, the most effective way to do that is to bake promotion into your production process (you have one, right?). This turns systematic promotion into a habit and gives you a basis for […]