Lessons Learned: Write an Editorial Calendar

by Serena Ehrlich, SVP Social Media on December 8, 2009

Editor’s note: This is part 4 in the series of Lessons Learned: Easy tips on how to create and grow a social media program. This series includes a discussion on the following topics:

Create a Social Media Policy
Research your business
Set goals
Write an Editorial Calendar
Create content
Start the program
Grow your social media program and overall web presence
Handling mistakes and attacks

Write an Editorial Calendar

One of the most helpful steps in this process continues to be writing out an approved Editorial Calendar of topics and replies for commonly asked questions, allowing a company social media team to act quickly and consistently when dealing with online audiences. Use this as an opportunity to provider clearer information on topics that results in bad service complaints. Weave in industry updates and you have a smart posting calendar and schedule that will help you start conversations and trigger real interactions.

Calendar information includes data from:

Website FAQ
Sales force customer feedback
Customer Service Dept feedback
Outbound marketing emails
Previous press releases
Industry updates/industry news
Vertical market news
Key message documents
And most importantly, topics that are of interest to your customers

I use an excel sheet for my calendar. Column A is the topic, Column B-D are messages written that support the topic, broken out by platform. Additional columns include links to supporting sections of the website and available multimedia.