What Tools Are Essential for Managing Your Content Calendar?
Marketer Magazine
What Tools Are Essential for Managing Your Content Calendar?
In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, the right tools can make all the difference. We've gathered insights from Social Media Managers to Founders, revealing their indispensable tools for managing content calendars. From the simplicity of a classic daily planner to the comprehensive capabilities of CoSchedule, discover the top eleven tools that are transforming workflows.
- Cherish the Classic Daily Planner
- Asana: Streamlining Team Tasks
- Monday: Organizing Content by Brand
- Google Sheets: Custom Content Calendars
- AgoraPulse: Friendly Data Reporting
- Go High Level: All-in-One Content Automation
- Trello: Visual Task Management
- Ahrefs: SEO Content Strategy Tool
- Notion: Flexible Content Organization
- Airtable: Intuitive Content Database
- CoSchedule: Unified Marketing Calendar
Cherish the Classic Daily Planner
My one undeniable tool that I could not function without would be my daily planner. I am old-fashioned and use a planner I can write in by hand, but it ineffably keeps me organized and allows me to execute client work without missing a mark. Everything I need to complete is in one place, and the gratification from checking off an item leaves me with a smile on my face.
Asana: Streamlining Team Tasks
For improved efficiency, my team and I use Asana to keep track of tasks that need to be completed by each individual. This gives us the chance to create and review briefs for content-creation tasks and also monitor ongoing activities, like events we regularly hold company-wide. When publishing content, I use Asana's Calendar View to plan ahead and set specific dates either for a task deadline or for an article that needs to be published within a specific timeframe. It works like a charm every time.
Monday: Organizing Content by Brand
At Hville Blast, we use the content management system Monday to create our content calendars and organize our workflows. Every week, we have our content producers add their tasks to the calendar, organized by brand and content type (e.g., Instagram, WordPress, etc.). Then, when we meet together, we can look at a comprehensive view of all the content types we will be producing in the next week.
Monday is also a great tool for managing client content. It allows you to input dates and timelines for projects as well as update the status of the content (e.g., in progress, drafted, with client, etc.), so everyone can be on the same page.
Google Sheets: Custom Content Calendars
Google Sheets is our content calendar champion, and it's evolving fast. It's powerful solo, but unstoppable when paired with Drive and Docs. The real magic? Flexibility. Ditch pre-made templates and craft a calendar that fits your workflow precisely. Recent updates, especially custom in-sheet table formatting, are game-changers for content visualization. Yes, there's a learning curve to designing your own calendar, but the payoff in efficiency is massive. With real-time collaboration and cloud storage, your team stays in perfect sync. If you haven't explored Sheets lately, you're missing out on a content planning trick. It's not just a spreadsheet—it may just be your content strategy's secret weapon.
AgoraPulse: Friendly Data Reporting
I have loved using the software called AgoraPulse for the past six years since starting my marketing agency. It is specifically designed for content creators who manage multiple accounts, and it also has a great data-reporting system that is very user-friendly, and all of my clients love the key insights it gathers.
Go High Level: All-in-One Content Automation
Go High Level's marketing automation software has been a lifesaver for our team. It's an all-in-one control center for everything content-related: emails, campaigns, website stuff, social media—it's all there.
We can actually see the whole content journey, from brainstorming ideas to publishing and tracking its performance. It's like having a clear map instead of scrambling around with different tools for each task.
We can visually plan our content calendar, keeping things organized and avoiding scheduling conflicts. Plus, everyone on the team can see what's happening.
Repetitive tasks like sending emails or scheduling social media posts can all be automated by Go High Level. This frees up a ton of time for us to focus on the fun, creative parts of content creation and developing new strategies. The analytics are super helpful, too. We can see what content is crushing it on different platforms so we can keep delivering the kind of stuff our audience wants.
Overall, Go High Level has changed how we manage our content calendar. It's brought everything together in an organized, efficient way and lets us see what's working.
Trello: Visual Task Management
One tool that's been a game-changer for managing our content calendar is Trello. It's super handy because it gives us this visual setup where we can plan out all our content ideas, assign tasks, and track everything from start to finish.
Trello's like our digital whiteboard where we can see what's happening at a glance, which really helps us stay on top of deadlines and keep the workflow smooth. Plus, it links up with other tools we use, like Google Drive and Slack, making collaboration a breeze and keeping everyone in the loop without tons of back-and-forth emails.
Ahrefs: SEO Content Strategy Tool
Ahrefs is my go-to tool for creating my content calendar and optimizing it along the way. Creating SEO content without a strategy and keyword research would be like working without a goal or anything to measure.
Ahrefs is an indispensable tool in my work because I can plan and adjust the priority of content while receiving customer feedback. If an article performs better than another, I can add more internal links to boost its visibility. I can expand by writing more articles and building a topic cluster if a topic gains attention and traction. It's a tool where you can find plenty of ideas and inspiration. Learning how to use it to your advantage improves your workflow and delivers results.
Notion: Flexible Content Organization
Definitely Notion. Though it's not geared towards digital marketing per se, it's an incredible tool that allows me to organize and plan everything accordingly. From making calendars (with already-made templates) where I can plan out content for the next two weeks, to dashboards for content research—it's an incredible platform. Outside of content planning—the calendar itself helps me stay on track, improving my workflow through its many features, such as changing the status of a task. For example, I have a table feature on Notion that allows me to keep track of what goes out when and on what platform; I change each task to 'done,' 'ongoing,' and 'to-do' depending on where I am in the process—and a bonus is that it just looks good! It feels as though everything is in one place, which is why I love using Notion for digital marketing tasks.
Airtable: Intuitive Content Database
As a digital entrepreneur, I rely heavily on Airtable to manage my content calendar. Airtable is a flexible database tool that allows me to organize all of my content in an intuitive format. I have bases set up for email newsletters, blog posts, video scripts, and more. Within each base, I create records for each content piece, schedule due dates, assign owners, and track dependencies.
This has significantly improved my workflow. I always have full visibility into what content needs to be created and by when, allowing me to effectively allocate my time and resources. My team also has access to the content bases, so they know exactly what they are responsible for and when deadlines are. We can identify any scheduling issues in advance and make adjustments.
Using Airtable, I was able to launch a new podcast and newsletter, increasing traffic by 35% month over month. The time savings from streamlined planning also allowed me to restructure my agency's packages and open a course on content strategy, which brought in $42K in sales the first week. For any business relying on content, a flexible tool like Airtable that provides an intuitive interface is essential for scaling operations.
CoSchedule: Unified Marketing Calendar
I rely heavily on CoSchedule to manage my content calendar. CoSchedule is a marketing calendar that integrates with various platforms like WordPress, social media, and email marketing tools. It allows us to plan, publish, and promote our content all in one place. This tool has streamlined our workflow by enabling us to schedule posts, assign tasks to team members, and track the performance of our content. With CoSchedule, we can easily coordinate our efforts and ensure that our marketing campaigns run smoothly and on time. It has significantly improved our efficiency and productivity.
