Back in the Saddle: Why Having an Editorial Calendar Keeps You Going

I can't believe it's been this long since my last post. It's like other goals: If you write it on paper or say it out loud, you have upped your level of commitment to following through. I must have been surfing on the fact that the local paper ran the last article as a print piece.

That said: here's a list of posts I've been talking about but haven't published:

• What artists can teach us about engagement with content
• What VR has to offer us as educators
• A synopsis of key takeaways from reading the book Who Owns Culture by Susan Scafidi. 
• More on OER and Creative Commons (IV and V of that series are in my drafts!)

In addition to putting some topics out there, I also revisited some practices behind the calendar. Audience, Topic, Timeliness are what I think make big differences. For example, if you are in education, yearly planning cycles,  and beginning, middle, and end term cycles are key time frames. So planning topics in sync to those cycles provides content more likely to be of interest to those readers. (And then there is maximizing on audience reach by pushing the link or article to other social media.)

That said, attention to hot/trending topics in the publications and and social-media communities of practice also provide clues to the timeliness of a topic.

Here are a couple links that provide some solid thoughts on the practice:

This link focuses on the content and timeline and also notes some different ways to use tech to aid calendar creation and management:
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/11/content-marketers-checklist-editorial-calendar-essentials/

This one offers a free Template: http://offers.hubspot.com/blog-editorial-calendar

Wordpress also has an editorial calendar plug-in. In discussing it's use with a colleague, she noted it did not work the way her brain does, so she has not used it. Which brings us back to the key point about the calendar--the tech is a product that might help you capture your thinking, but most important is the process of thinking about the topic, the audience, and the prime timeline related to their interests.

And now, looks like I'd better set myself some dates around my content.