How to make a content calendar for your online business

Choosing to pursue entrepreneurship was probably one of the most exciting things you’ve ever done, but no one likely told you that running an online business meant that you were going to have to be a constant content-cranking-out-machine did they?? From social media posts, newsletters, sales funnels, and blog posts… nearly everything on your marketing to-do list is content creation so it’s crucial to make sure you keep it all organized and learn how to make a content calendar for your online business.

Creating a content calendar for your online business has more benefits than you may realize:

• it’s the written plan of action for your content marketing strategy,
• it will help you plan out other appointments, projects, etc around your normal to-do list,
• it will help you quit creating content on the fly, and
• it will help you promote and post more consistently.

 

No doubt having a content calendar for my online business has been a HUGE help in ensuring that I consistently add value to my audience AND  build brand awareness, authority, and hype around the products I plan to sell. #contentthatconverts. And now, you can too 🤗.

How to make a content calendar for your online business:

Choose a calendar host for your content calendar

There are so many great free options to host your calendar on but I can’t recommend Asana enough.

Asana is a free project management software and I use it for all my marketing to-do’s, but I especially love it for creating my content calendar.

It lets me create a list of all the content tasks I need like “create social media caption for blog post promotion”, add due dates, and gives me places to attach files and leave notes.

PLUS, for every task and due date I create in there, it creates a calendar view for me and the best part?

It syncs to Google calendar which is LIFE for me and my biz.

So whether you choose a Google calendar or a straight paper desk calendar, the important part is that you just choose a place for your content calendar to live on.

Make a list of all the channels you plan to promote your content on

Make a list of all the channels you plan to promote your content on so you can create a pretty, color-coded calendar that you can easily distinguish tasks on. These channels include things like:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Podcasts
• Youtube
• Your blog
• Your newsletter
• Paid advertising
• etc

 

I also like to add other content that I know I need to create for the month like new lead magnets or opt-ins to make sure all my content is strategic and cohesive.

Once you have a list of the ways you plan to promote your content you can then start creating the tasks that you need for each, which will talk about more here soon.

Choose your scheduling frequency for your content channels above

Choosing the frequency you plan to promote your content will help you understand the amount of content (and therefore tasks) that you need to fill your calendar with.

Choose a frequency that you know you will be able to achieve consistently. Don’t fill your calendar with daily Instagram to-do’s if you can only really commit to 2-3 days a week right now.

Same goes for all your other platforms. Just choose a frequency that you can CONSISTENTLY show up with so your users know when they can expect to hear from you.

Once you choose the frequency, you can start assigning your tasks and due dates, which brings us to the next point.

Plug your tasks and due dates associated with each of your content channels above into your calendar

For example, if you know you’re going to post content to Instagram next month at least 3 times per week, you would need to plug in 12 (3x’s per week x 4 weeks in a month) tasks onto your calendar.

 

Then repeat the same step for each additional channel and when you’re done, you can plug in more specifics like the topics of what each task will need to be about so you can see a full overview of your entire month’s content and to-do’s.

Pro tip: color code each channel for an easier overview.

Pretty easy, right?!

More tips for creating a content calendar for your online business:

1)Create “themes” for each day of the week to make content planning easier.

Content theme ideas could be something like:

• Motivation Monday for Mondays
• Tip Tuesday for Tuesdays
• Web design Wednesdays
• Inspirational Quotes
• Portfolio/client work feature

 

I love using content themes for my social media in particular because I can focus on one central topic (usually my blog post) each week, and then I use the content themes to quickly create relevant content around that main topic to drive even more traffic to my website and add even more value by elaborating on the same topic each week for my readers!

2)Plan your content due dates a few days to a week out ahead of publish dates to account for any unforeseen content changes, proofreading, or surprise tech difficulties. (Ugh, Convertkit and WordPress 🤦‍♀️)

3) Create and promote your content at a speed that works for YOU.

Just because you see everyone else posting on social media every day or blogging every week, doesn’t mean you necessarily have to. Will it keep your content fresh in your reader’s mind and ahead of the competition with that kind of consistency? Absolutely.

But worry about quality over quantity if you’re new to entrepreneurship so you can get a feel for what kind of content your audience is even engaging with before you add even more to your calendar.

4)Lastly, make sure you double check your calendar against important holidays, vacations, or special dates.

You may want to add additional content around seasonality or add promotional content to your calendar for an upcoming holiday sale so make sure you account for those as well during planning.

For even more tips and exclusive workbooks and trainings, make sure you’re signed up for our Monday Motivation newsletter.

And if you wanna jumpstart your content calendar even quicker, download my excel content calendar template that you can easily upload into Google Docs to customize AND you’ll also get that Monday Motivation I was just talking about. You know you want it 😉