A good content calendar/organizer suggestion?

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Does anyone have a good content calendar/organizer/software/etc to help plan delivering and pushing out content? I haven't ever used anything other than an actual calendar, and that doesn't seem to help all that much. Is there anything better out there?

Any suggestions would be fantastic!

Much appreciated,

Ruben

[rflores]

You could try IFTTT.com. It is not a calendar but you coudl set a recipe for whenever you save a document on a folder it pushes it to a blog, twitter or facebook.

You could even combine it with bufferapp.com and google calendar, like it explains here

https://blog.bufferapp.com/the-big-list-of-ifttt-recipes-for-social-media

It is free and very versatile.

[EGOL]

I am usually working on a dozen to two dozen articles at the same time.  This is because I am easily diverted from one project to another.   But have found that I do the best work when I go with whatever energy is hot in my mind.   I need project management software for the scatterbrain. 

Articles can hang for months without being touched because I hit something difficult, need props for photos,  need to travel for photos, graphics are being made, license/permissions,  these things eventually get done and these delays almost always result in a better product.

So, I have a master spreadsheet in a google document that tracks each step of the content preparation job.  Each row in the spreadsheet is a page of content, and the columns are the various jobs that must be done for each of them.   I can tell at a glance what is missing or needed for any article.

Column headings include:  research, mind map, writing, photography, graphics, posting to html, online review, spell check, editing, tag checking, publish to the homepage, announce to subscribers, incorporate into category pages, locate places to link internally, monitor analytics (change thumbnails or graphics of not performing).

Some of those jobs are done by me, some are done by an employee who is here daily, some is done by a part time employee who works irregularly, some are outsourced.    The spreadsheet puts all of this in order and makes sure that important jobs are not skipped.

I also create a google document for each page of content and share with an employee who does photos, graphics and creates the html pages.   That is where I compose <title><description> and author the article.   The employee prepares the images and adds them to this document.  I write captions for each image.  When everything is finished a pdf of this page goes to an offsite editor, when it comes back I do final adjustments, the employees post the article to the website, a tag checker proofs everything, then we look at the spreadsheet to be sure that all jobs to promote the content have been done.</p></title>

[Andy-Halliday]

Agree we use Google Docs - its great for sharing with team members, if you put a due date column and then do a simple formula it can calculate how many days are left, a great way of keeping things on track.

[DonnaDuncan]

Hi KempRuge,

I, like others, have been using an excel spreadsheet. But you're looking for a shared tool, I recommend taking a look at the following articles that I previously bookmarked for when the need arises:

• https://blog.bufferapp.com/all-about-content-calendar - examples, tools, and templates;
• http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/editorial-calendar-tools/ - tools; and
• http://www.sproutcontent.com/blog/bid/148309/7-Editorial-Calendar-Tools-to-Keep-Your-Content-Marketing-on-Track - more tools.

I'd also consider something as basic as Trello, a simple, portable project management tool that would enable shared tracking of the various phases of content development similar to what EGOL has described.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Thanks, EGOL. I really appreciate the thorough outline, and I'm glad to know I'm not the only scatterbrain out there trying to manage everything at the same time.

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I appreciate it!

• Ruben

[EGOL]

Yes, Trello is nice.  Someone who knows about me being a scatterbrain recommended it.  I tried it and liked it, but found it cumbersome to use.  So, I figured out a similar way to do it with Google documents  and that is what I described above.  Lots of people use Trello.  It will help you understand the potential of organization.

[katobkato]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Asana yet. I've found this tool invaluable when it comes to managing multiple teams (content, development, outreach, etc.) True, it functions very similar to Trello, but I think the format is a bit more intuitive. It always seemed that my Trello calendar was always looking so cluttered... though that could be operator error