It’s officially October I already have a pretty good idea of what I’ll be posting for the next month. Starting with Fall inspired content like this one above that I had ready to go for my Instagram! Pumping out constant content can be overwhelming if you aren’t organized and thinking ahead as much as possible.  If you’re at all thinking about getting into the blogging world, whether it’s for fun or as a potential career, one of the best things I can recommend to you is creating a content calendar. If you’re scratching your head wondering what that is, don’t worry! I wasn’t sure what a content calendar was either when I was first getting started, let alone why I needed to have one.

Essentially, a content calendar is where you can see everything you have planned from a content perspective. This can include blog posts, social media, YouTube videos – anything content! It’s a super simple and free thing you can do for yourself and I’ve found it to be pretty helpful, so thought I would share the why behind having one.

A place to organize your ideas

I don’t know about you, but before creating a content calendar I’d have random blog post ideas, photography tips I realized I wanted to share, etc. written down and saved in various places. From notes on my computer/phone to ideas on my planner. It got hard to keep track of where everything was so creating a central place to keep all my ideas seemed like a no- brainer. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t always do it this way because it has been a life-saver.

To give my ideas their own place to live, I created a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets that I update each month. If you take one thing away from this post, at the very least create an ideas doc so you have everything in one place – this has been so helpful for me! I like to just to a “brain dump” here of all my ideas for social, blog posts, reels, everything. Here’s a screenshot of what my ideas Doc for my content looks like blank. I have two of these: one for my IG ideas and one for my website. I have a whole other doc where I take these ideas further an draft up captions for IG as well.

So you can have a timeline of your current/upcoming work

One of the best things about a content calendar is it gives you an overview of everything you’re currently working on and what you have coming up. This makes it so much easier to keep track of the timeline of each post, especially if you’re working with a brand and you have a deadline you have to meet. In my calendar, I actually have a “status” column so I know exactly what stage a post is at.  I’ll write “draft” if I’ve started working on it, or if it needs brand approval I’ll write “sent to brand for approval”, and then once it’s scheduled and ready to go, I’ll fill it in with “published”.

Here’s a screenshot of what my calendar looks like blank so you can get an idea of how to create your own.

To help coordinate your content on all your platforms

I currently have my calendar set up to only reflect my blog content, but I want to start incorporating my Instagram content as well so I can see everything I have going on at a glance. I’ll probably add an “Instagram” column after the “notes” column but make it a different color so I know it’s a different platform as well as add “status” and “sponsored” columns so I can track IG deadlines.

To help you be more strategic in how you plan your content

Having content mapped out on a calendar can help highlight specific dates like holidays and public events like big sales or #nationalcoffeeday that you might otherwise overlook. Being able to plan in advance for these things gives me a bit more sanity, to be honest, and helps me be more strategic with the timing of my content. Who doesn’t want that?!

Lastly, I also like to double up and have a different calendar on my apple calendar on my desktop that shows dates where I should be writing content and when it should be posted just so I can see it all in a different view. I like to refer to both of these on the daily just to make sure Im extra on track. I have adult ADD and I’ve learned with time that it really helps me to have it all hyper organized.

What do you think? Have I sold you on creating a content calendar? Def give this a try and let me know what you think!

If you want more Blogging tips posts check out my “Blogging Tips” Section and feel free to DM me on IG or shoot me an email for requests!

Xx Francesca