Your Blog’s Editorial Calendar can change your blog from some scattered musings…to a marketing & community-building powerhouse.

But its real strength lies in how it will affect you!

I have the tendency to go on tangents as a storyteller. *pause for laughs* I know! It’s something that you’ve probably noticed already, but you don’t even know. It gets so out of hand in person. It’s actually a joke with a lot of my friends & my kids…and I know that it can be a distraction for them & for me.

It also leaves me with some weird social anxiety. I’m not really into personality tests, as a rule, but were I tested, I am sure I’d be an ambivert. I love to stay at home with blankets, books & cups of tea, but when you pull me out of the house? I can go a little bananas & fully embarrass you with my excitement and lack of self-consciousness.

When I think about how I misfire as a conversationalist…I get major palpitations.

You see, I start a story & it could go anywhere. Nobody knows what’s going to happen next; I don’t even know where it’s all going. Because I get partway into one great story & get distracted by another great story I want to share with you…& then we’re off to the races & nobody knows when or where it’ll end.

That can get awkward if I teeter off toward those kind of subjects. You know what I mean: the real party-killer topics. My thoughts on educational reform or the story of the pivotal moment I decided to become a vegetarian…are not the right stories to tell at a school Bar B Q.

But somehow we end up there anyway, & everyone’s as confused as me about how it happened.

Somehow, my unexpected & spontaneous twists seem to be vaguely endearing most of the time (probably because my friends & family have great coping skills & I smile a lot), so it usually serves me fairly well in person.

But that kind of shoot-ready-aim strategy won’t work well here, because I want to know that I’m helping you really get the Value of my message…without distracting side-trails & rants.

I want you to leave my post each week & feel another step closer to me; I want you to have found some help or entertainment or inspiration in what I write – not by accident, but with purpose & consistency – and I want you to feel like you belong.

So I rely on my editorial calendar to make sure that I stay on task & don’t find myself off in the middle of another tangential story that won’t help you to learn how to cope with copywriting or blogging or the basic madness of being a creative entrepreneur.

I spend time on my plan: I look at my own year, and I try to imagine yours. I brainstorm all of the things we might have fun talking about & all of the things you may need my help with.

Then I build a calendar that keeps me on track & creates a really consistent & clear message for you as a reader – offering you what you need to know, when you need to know it – in a Kris With a K kind of way…but without all the tangents that could distract us from the good stuff.

Last year, I built a really cute Editorial Blog Calendar for my office. It took my basic planner to a whole other level. I still use it to keep track of what is coming up on the blog & how I want to offer you more interesting or valuable things. If you want to see how to make it, follow that link & grab the printable planner you find there too.

Editorial planning has played a huge part in making my blog a successful one – I’m sure of it – and it’s actually made this whole blogging process a really fun one.

First of all – I can totally testify to the advantages of using an editorial calendar. 

There is no question that my blog has been a more effective marketing tool & community builder, as a result of my plans. I went from zero views to over 20,000 in a year, and I’ve built relationships with influencers in my industry like April Bowles Olin, Mayi Carles & Etsy Canada (I’ll tell you more about that one later). My community has become as vibrant as my colour choices, and I’ve gotten to know some amazing friends.

Because I planned this shizz, kitten. I planned it carefully & fun-fully, and I made all of the preparations I could to create a world here that you would love as much as I do.

The biz-specific advantages have been huge, and they can be for you too:

• You can create a strategy to communicate your whole message really effectively & with consistency.
• You can be magical at anticipating & answering your readers’ questions or helping them conquer their resistance.
• You can use the year ahead – from holidays to industry events – to generate really timely content that your readers will be drawn to.
• You can create a unified brand – across all platforms – & even manage & schedule your social media content more easily.
• You can plan – and prepare for – vacations! I’m serious, kitten. Vacations.
• Your photoshoots can be planned ahead & batched, according to your calendar (see this blog image organization post for more on how awesome that can be).
• You can plan to support your launch schedule (or straight-up create one), so that your readers are ready to become your customers just when you are ready to offer them something new.

Not too bad, right? But we all know those benefits; we’ve been hearing for ages that creating an editorial calendar is the only way to really hone our message & create an effective blogging strategy…but it doesn’t seem very fun, does it?

It is fun though! I love my planners. I love thinking about them & printing them out & filling them in, and I love the way they’ve changed my blog from a scary & intimidating place – to my happy little corner of the internet.

That’s the part that doesn’t get shouted from the rooftops nearly as much, and it should be! Because blogging can actually become something that is enjoyable for you…when you take away some of the panic & add in some pride with a great editorial calendar.

Because the you-specific advantages are even more important & powerful than the biz-specific ones:

• You will no longer feel topic panic; your creative mind will know what type of topics you need to write about, and the ideas will come far more easily.
• You will be able to choose & develop a message that feels good to share. You will feel like you’re building a legacy & offering real value to people you care about.
• You’ll know in advance if you will need help – and you’ll know which one of your blogging or biz friends to ask, based on what kinds of topics you’ll be covering.
• In fact, you’ll be able to engineer your plan to involve more community & more friends. Your blog will start to feel like a social activity, and you’ll look forward to the weekly conversation & comments.
• All of those things – those effects above – will become more fun to accomplish.
  • Your blog image photoshoots will be a fun & creative activity for you, instead of a last-minute, emergency rush to just get a shot.
  • Your topics will become more important to you & your reader, so you will enjoy exploring them each week, and you’ll find yourself learning even more about the things you care about already.
  • You’ll start to play with segments & features that simply make you & your readers smile.
• And you’ll start to feel “in control” of it all. You’ll be on top of your blog & proud of its content, instead of feeling the weight of it on top of you & the guilt or shame of having a blog that doesn’t speak to your readers the way you want it to.

Believe me! I am as scattered and procrastinate-y as the next guy, but when I’m using my calendar & following my plans, I really really love this place, and I can’t wait to get on here to talk to you.

Think about how great it would be for you to be able to start saying that about your blog. Yeah. It’s a game-changer, and I want it for you.

That’s why I am madly designing something right now that will help you get there. I can’t tell you much more about it right now (because what would be the fun in that?), but I will tell you that by next year, your blog will feel totally different for you, kitten!

See you next week!

xo
Kris