Do you keep reading articles that tell you that in order to be successful with content marketing you need to have a content schedule?

Planning what and when you are going to share content with your audience can be beneficial, especially when starting out. However, in the long run it may stifle your creativity and lead to producing poor content that is irrelevant to your customers.

Are you still undecided on whether to develop a content schedule? Find out the good, the bad and the ugly sides of content scheduling before you make your decision. We sum up the arguments for and against having a content schedule, allowing you to make an informed decision.

The Good

“Without a calendaring system, especially at first, its extremely difficult to get better at this thing we call blogging and content marketing. Why? Because it never becomes a culture” (p.137 Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy, Marcus Sheridan)

To be successful, content marketing needs to become a habit, you need to build consistency. In the beginning, as Marcus points out, content marketing needs to become a culture, a way of working. A content schedule can help you make content marketing a culture in your business by structuring and focusing your efforts.

Dispersion and diversity of content

Having a formal plan for managing the distribution of your content can help you control the dispersion and diversity of your content. Updating your website and social media at regular intervals can appear to routinize your content and give you some control and consistency.

Writing assignments

If you have a team of people who write content for your business a content schedule can help then and much as you. You can provide them with details ahead of time and give them deadlines to work towards, ensuring they get the work done in time for it to be published. It can also help you to keep track of what everyone is working on at the one time.

Keyword strategic planning

You may have many keywords that your customers use to search for you or information on your industry. By scheduling your content, you can develop a strategy that ensures you include all the keywords you need to rather than just always focusing on a few.

Co-ordinate promotions with content

If you are running a promotion or contest for your customers, using a content schedule will allow you to coordinate it with your content marketing. The release of blog posts or podcasts can be timed to ensure your customers know about the promotions you are running and help you increase its success.

Keep track of published content

You can use your content schedule as a checklist, ticking off when a piece of content has been published. This gives you more control over your content marketing on your end and allows you to look back later on and see what was published and when. This then allows you to decide if its time to release an updated version of a previous blog article or re-purpose it, such as turning it into a podcast.

The Bad

The “garbage content” we see online is primarily caused by content production schedules. This is what Tom Webster thinks anyway.

Christopher Penn wrote a post about the sorry state of content marketing and cited Webster, who points out in a blog post, that to get rid of garbage content the solution “is to abolish the content production schedule entirely and only share content when you have really great ideas to share. “But for many businesses, that’s not a step that’s viewed as realistic”.

This is taken from Marcus’ ebook Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy, and in it, he says he both agrees and disagrees with Penn’s thoughts, and with Tom Webster. I can see how Marcus is conflicted in his opinion as on the one hand having a content schedule can stifle your creativity. However, on the other hand only sharing content when inspiration strikes is not realistic for businesses, as this is too inconsistent and unpredictable.

The Ugly

“Editorial calendars suck the life out of “epic content” and “pillar posts” (p.137 Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy, Marcus Sheridan)

You know how it is when you get stuck in a routine, the tasks you carry out become monotonous and boring. Sticking rigidly to a content schedule can feel like you are in cycle that never ends. It can end up destroying your creativity and have you producing content because you have to, not because you want to.

Publishing and promoting content at inopportune times

If you are so focused on what you need to publish and when, you can sometimes forget about the wider context of what you publish. Producing and promoting content that is insensitive or offensive to what is going on in the wider context may result in backlash and bad publicity for your business. A great example of a company that reacted to live events in an awesome way and didn’t stick to a schedule is Oreo.

Oreo saw that the light had gone out during the Superbowl and created an image that said “You can still dunk in the dark”. This was clearly not scheduled, but by taking advantage of the situation that image was retweeted 15,000 times.

Somewhere in the middle

“I’m all for having a blog schedule and for planning ahead, but I’m also a huge advocate of allowing yourself to feel inspired and follow those promptings when they come…So be flexible. Allow inspiration. Listen always to your inner voice.” (p.182 Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy, Marcus Sheridan)

You need to be somewhat flexible with your content schedule. React to your audience, your industry and world events. Strike while the iron is inspired. Write when the moment takes you. Write for the reader but mostly write for you.

Your Turn

1. Are you for or against content schedules? Why are you of that opinion?
2. Are you using a content schedule? Is it working for you?
3. If its not working for you, why do you think that is?

Let us know in the comments section below!

Resources

• Straight North
• Eloqua
• Inbound and Content Marketing Made Easy, Marcus Sheridan