
The goal isn’t a perfect plan. It’s a plan you can actually keep.
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR – Strategic Communications, LLC
A content calendar (also called an editorial calendar) is a planning tool that maps out what content an organization will publish, in what format, on which channels, and on what schedule—typically planned one to three months in advance. An effective content calendar balances evergreen and timely content, builds in flexibility for responsive publishing, and is designed around a publishing cadence the team can sustain—not around an aspirational schedule that collapses on contact with competing priorities.
Many companies and individuals these days continue to be focused on creating and distributing content in a never-ending cycle. It’s a cycle that demands new ideas, new copy, new images, new hashtags, new social media posts, new, new, new, new, new…
At the same time they need to ensure that their content is relevant and, to the extent possible, capitalizes on current events, news cycles, holidays, and emerging audience interests.
That can be a challenge.
Content calendars can help. Or hurt.
Continue reading “Content Calendars That Actually Work: A Practitioner’s Guide”

If you’re not on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites —and believe it or not, many people are not!—you may be missing out on some very important conversations. Some of these conversations may be about you!


Content marketing remains a high priority for organizations of all kinds today as they struggle to stay relevant to customers while keeping ahead of the constantly changing algorithms of search engines like 
The digital environment is quite cluttered these days and becoming more so. Consumers benefit from access to a massive amount of information literally available at their fingertips—and often being pushed to them by marketers yelling “pick me, me, me.” But with so much activity in the digital environment, sometimes it takes a different approach to stand out:
Whenever I’m called upon to offer a critique on or advice about a company or consultant’s copy – whether it’s on a web site, in a brochure, an ad, a blog, or whatever – the first thing I do is read through the copy to see whether the focus is on “we/me” or “you/your.” Most of the copy I look at is the former. A quick, easy and relatively painless way to improve it
Over the years I’ve noticed a dangerous tendency—among myself and others—to assume that we “know” our customers, or target customers. Because we think or believe something, we assume that—of course!—others think or believe as we do. They don’t.