Managing content material at scale is a problem — staying organized, deciding what to publish, assigning writers and editors, and monitoring outcomes requires quite a lot of shifting elements. The extra individuals concerned, the extra complicated the system.
Editorial calendars simplify all of this. They supply a big-picture overview, making it a lot simpler to strategize and schedule out the week, month, or 12 months.
High editorial calendar templates in contrast
After practically a decade of managing excessive quantity content material groups, these are my favourite no value editorial calendar templates for numerous instruments.
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| ClickUp | |||||
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monday.com: A complete editorial calendar template
monday.com’s editorial calendar template delivers a pre-built content material calendar that’s straightforward to customise alongside crew collaboration options and process administration capabilities from top-of-the-line challenge administration options available on the market.
It’s nice for top stage technique, work administration, and centralized content material operations out of the field.
Extra on monday.com: monday.com evaluate | Asana vs monday.com | monday.com vs Jira.
This template can be utilized for any and all varieties of content material — from weblog posts and ebooks to social media and video, it’s versatile sufficient to help all your publishing exercise.
You’ll be able to arrange a color-coded system to prioritize your most necessary content material and use customized tags to filter every thing in a approach that’s straightforward to grasp. Regardless of how stacked your publishing schedule turns into, you’ll all the time know what’s forward.
In the event you’re a solo person, it’s probably overkill except you customise it. Nevertheless, it’s excellent should you’re working with a minimum of a number of different individuals or a full content material crew.
You should utilize this template, together with 200 others, without charge with monday.com’s free plan.
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ClickUp: A beginner-friendly editorial calendar template
Much like monday.com, ClickUp is an entire challenge administration answer. The 2 platforms are practically equivalent when it comes to options and capabilities, so selecting one over the opposite principally comes down to private desire and value.
That mentioned, ClickUp’s editorial calendar template is a bit simpler to make use of out of the gate, particularly for freshmen.
Extra on ClickUp: ClickUp evaluate | ClickUp vs monday.com | ClickUp vs Notion.
Except for the standard calendar, ClickUp provides you 5 extra views, together with an inventory view, content material request view, useful resource view, and key phrases view. Thanks to those additional views, preserving observe of deadlines and managing each facet of your manufacturing circulate is a breeze.
You may also add customized attributes to every piece of content material, just like the channel, publication date, editor, and even the CTA you’re utilizing.
When you add these, you may observe the efficiency of granular particulars for all of the content material you publish. Including customized attributes takes a number of clicks and you’ll add as many as you want.
As a result of ClickUp is a challenge administration device, you’re additionally getting the entire necessities for crew collaboration, assigning duties, and setting due dates.
Total, this template is nice whether or not you’re planning years upfront or just some weeks.
You can begin utilizing this template with ClickUp’s free plan within the subsequent 5 minutes. Plus, ClickUp’s paid plans are extra inexpensive than monday.com.
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Smartsheet: A template for brainstorming and managing content material
Smartsheet’s editorial calendar template contains an space for brainstorming content material concepts and shifting the very best concepts into your manufacturing workflow.
It really works properly for any kind of content material from movies and pictures to weblog posts, podcasts, and visitor posts. It additionally provides you every thing it’s essential to see your schedule by month or 12 months at a look.
Extra on Smartsheet: Smartsheet evaluate | Smartsheet vs Airtable | Smartsheet vs Asana.
You should utilize this template with Smartsheet, however the device itself doesn’t have a free plan. In the event you don’t wish to pay, you may obtain the template and use it with Excel or Google Sheets as an alternative.
Both approach, you’ll have the ability to assign duties, set publishing dates, take notes, go away feedback, and keep on prime of missed deadlines.
That mentioned, it doesn’t historically seem like a calendar except you utilize it with Smartsheet. As a substitute, you’ll see a desk with all your scheduled content material for every month.
In the event you’re a fan of lists and tables, it’s greater than sufficient.
Utilizing it with Smartsheet additionally provides you extra capabilities, together with a Gantt chart, automations, fundamental workload monitoring, attachment storage, and extra. Nevertheless, Smartsheet is on the dearer finish of challenge administration and relational database options.
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Airtable: A digital and print editorial calendar template
Airtable is a sophisticated relational database answer that provides you every thing it’s essential to construct a customized editorial calendar that matches your workflow. Consider it as a clean slate you may customise as a lot (or as little) as you’d like.
In the event you deal with print media, the print editorial calendar template permits you to simply handle print and digital media in the identical place.
Extra on Airtable: Airtable evaluate | Airtable vs monday.com | Airtable vs Notion.
In contrast to different templates to this point, this one permits you to manage content material by challenge and print schedule, permitting you to fulfill tight deadlines and keep on prime of publishing exercise.
You may also arrange totally different classes for every challenge. For instance, you would have separate duties assigned to totally different individuals with distinctive deadlines for information, way of life, and meals — all in your December 2024 print challenge which has its personal due date.
Airtable additionally makes it straightforward to take content material out of your print schedule and switch it right into a digital launch with a built-in relationship again to the unique print.
The pliability of this template means you may deal with nearly any situation you might end up in. You may also add extra fields and relationships, supplying you with full management to make your system work such as you do.
I wouldn’t use this template should you’re not working with a crew or dealing with conventional media, nevertheless it’s excellent for large publishers and information websites.
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Notion: A easy editorial calendar template for small groups and solo customers
Notion, like Airtable, gives relational databases. Nevertheless, Notion is simpler to make use of, extra inexpensive, and extra approachable for small groups and solo publishers.
The editorial calendar template is streamlined and easy, bringing all publishing exercise into one view.
Extra on Notion: Notion evaluate | Notion vs OneNote | Coda vs Notion.
You may also simply manage content material by kind, author, standing, due date, and extra. There’s even a area for illustrations and visuals and one other for the viewers you’re focusing on. The viewers area means you may simply see the pipeline for every phase of your viewers to make sure a balanced publishing schedule.
Considered one of Notion’s built-in views is a calendar, so it’s straightforward to modify between a regular checklist of content material and a high-level editorial calendar any time.
Alternatively, you should use Kanban view for a visible indication of the standing of every piece.
Regardless of its simplicity, you and your crew can view all your content material in no matter approach works finest for you.
You should utilize the template by itself or join it to different Notion workspaces you’re planning to arrange or have already got. Though it’s not as scalable as others, it’s an excellent place to begin with loads of room to customise and add on as you develop.
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Asana: An approachable editorial calendar template for bloggers
Asana is a extra conventional challenge administration answer in comparison with the opposite instruments we’ve talked about to this point. It’s less complicated and rather a lot simpler to make use of with out sacrificing necessities.
The streamlined nature and ease of use of Asana’s free editorial calendar template make it an excellent choice for busy bloggers, small content material groups, and enterprise web sites who don’t want something fancy.
Extra on Asana: Asana evaluate | Asana vs ClickUp | Basecamp vs Asana.
The most effective half about this template is how seamlessly it really works for people or groups. Regardless of how you’re employed, it’s straightforward to plan months, quarters, or perhaps a 12 months upfront and assign work to everybody at every stage of the publishing course of.
On prime of that, it really works for almost any kind of content material – blogs, movies, photos, information tales, podcasts, and print to call a number of.
You’ll be able to arrange a easy color-coded system on the calendar based mostly on content material kind or distribution channel, so you could have a birds-eye view of your total schedule.
As a challenge administration answer, Asana additionally makes it straightforward to set deadlines, observe duties, and collaborate along with your crew. You may also modify due dates or re-assigning work based mostly on useful resource capability or precedence shifts in a number of clicks.
Asana gives a beneficiant free plan that’s greater than sufficient to get began.
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HubSpot: A low-volume template for Excel and Google Sheets
In the event you’re publishing at low quantity and wish a easy solution to see upcoming posts for the week or month, this free template from HubSpot covers all of the fundamentals.
This template is about so simple as it will get — there are columns for publish date, due date, title, particulars, key phrases, and a CTA. For publishing a number of items of content material per week or month, it’s greater than sufficient.
Extra on spreadsheets: Free Excel alternate options | Excel ideas and tips | AI author for Google Sheets.
You’ll be able to obtain it as an Excel file or open it in Google Sheets. The formatting is equivalent for each choices. HubSpot additionally not too long ago added an choice to make use of it along with your Google Calendar should you desire that as an alternative.
There are three major sheets — one for all your content material, a weekly view, and a month-to-month view.
The most effective method is duplicating all three tabs earlier than you begin so that you all the time have a clean model of every for the next month. This fashion, you may also plan a number of months forward.
The largest disadvantage of this template is what makes it nice within the first place. It’s easy. However there’s no solution to view a quarterly or annual schedule. You’ll be able to set this up if you already know your approach round spreadsheets, however at that time you may as properly use a distinct template.
Total, it’s an excellent place to begin for low quantity publishing. Whereas the template itself is free, you’ll have to present an e-mail handle to obtain it.
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What’s an editorial calendar?
An editorial content material is a high-level useful resource that outlines publishing schedules for the month or 12 months. It’s an effective way to plan various kinds of content material and guarantee your publishing exercise aligns with enterprise goals.
Because the title implies, an editorial calendar sometimes seems to be like an precise calendar — displaying days, weeks, and months over the course of a 12 months.
However most trendy editorial calendar templates embrace different views like desk, Kanban, Gantt, and checklist.
I like to think about editorial calendars like a blueprint or roadmap. They’re designed to point out the place you wish to go, and the way you’re going to get there.
Who makes use of editorial calendars?
Regardless of the title, editorial calendars aren’t only for editors. They can be utilized by any skilled who oversees content material manufacturing or creates long-term advertising plans.
That may very well be the proprietor of a small weblog or YouTube channel or a challenge supervisor dealing with the schedule for dozens of channels.
Different examples embrace:
- Web site house owners.
- Impartial bloggers.
- Social influencers.
- Small enterprise house owners.
- Weblog editors.
- Content material entrepreneurs.
- Social media specialists.
- PR groups.
- Undertaking managers.
- Media coordinators.
As a result of the primary advantage of an editorial calendar is a high-level overview of planning and publishing exercise, they’re principally utilized by managers and supervisors in an expert setting.
Outdoors of that, they’re a great match for anybody who needs a prime down view, whether or not or not they’re assigning work to different individuals or doing every thing themselves.
What’s the distinction between an editorial calendar and a content material calendar?
The phrases editorial calendar and content material calendar are sometimes confused with one another, however they’re not the identical factor.
Content material calendars are sometimes used for day-to-day content material administration — like assigning duties and shifting content material by way of your workflow. Editorial calendars are for big-picture planning and managing strategic targets.
That mentioned, a lot of the editorial calendars you’ll discover right this moment (together with a number of on my checklist) embrace content material administration options. Somewhat than having to make use of a number of instruments and templates for every, you can begin with an editorial calendar and slowly flip it right into a full content material calendar with assignees, due dates, classes, and different areas you wish to preserve observe of.
For instance, you would have a high-level calendar in a single view for planning and technique with a separate Kanban board that organizes the identical data in a approach that’s extra helpful for writers and editors actively engaged on content material.
That’s why a lot of the templates you’ll discover are constructed utilizing challenge administration software program.
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