This post originally appeared on Loyal.

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Are you a community manager that’s responsible for managing content?

I’ve previously written about developing a content strategy and the importance of establishing a process to overcome the challenges that many content managers face when getting started.

Equally important as developing a process, is the thoughtful planning that goes into a well-executed and smoothly run content strategy.

I’d like to share some insight into our company Loyal‘s approach to content planning for both our clients and ourselves.

1. Align with your business goals

Similar to a community strategy, a content strategy needs to align with business goals.

At Loyal, these goals are identified and further defined through a series of workshops. During these, we identify goals for business, community, and content, assuring that they all align for business growth. This process is important as it defines the purpose of the content strategy within the community; the campaigns crafted in the following steps must align with the goals and interests of the community members. In other words, content should be used as a tool by which to engage with a community.

Although every brand’s approach to a content strategy will and should be different, there is a certain set of considerations that are helpful in defining the goals of each campaign:

• Product story
• Content goals
• Content values
• Brand interests
• Community interests
• Available and desired platforms + distribution channels (based on community interests, of course)
• Brand voice and tone (on-brand and off-brand)
• Campaign inspiration (favorite campaigns seen in different industries)

2. Create a framework

After each of these is discussed and fleshed out, a framework can be created. Assuming a content strategy is a good fit for the brand (it isn’t always), our general rule of thumb is to identify:

• 3-5 original content campaigns that are going to take more time and resources to execute, but are going to have a lot of impact on building credibility and thought leadership, and
• 2-4 curated campaigns that will take less time to execute and will not provide the same knowledge share as the original campaigns, but will increase reach and engagement while forming new relationships with audiences.

After ideas have been agreed upon for each, all considerations and opportunities should be listed out for everyone involved in each campaign  the content manager, editor, contributors (staff, guest bloggers), leadership (approval process), etc. Complete team buy-in should be secured before moving forward.

3. Build an editorial schedule

From there, an editorial schedule is built. Since your campaigns are regularly occurring series over certain lengths of time (3 month, 6 month, one year, etc.), this should be relatively straight forward. Pick the days that make the most sense for each campaign in terms of resources required for implementation and for audience interest. Have each piece of content due by its author to the editor at least a week in advance for original, and four days for curated, if possible. You can manage this in a project management system if you like; we use a Google spreadsheet. A content calendar can look something like this:

It may be helpful to add more columns in your spreadsheet where you can develop blog and social content in advance. Try crafting as much of your messaging ahead of time as possible to avoid falling behind schedule.

4. Track and measure the results

Another very important element to content success is measurement. Measure how your community is reacting to your new content both curated and original. Is the content converting? Is it engaging users in conversation, or providing insight into their interests? All of these are important metrics to consider, in addition to your typical share and visitor count.

This is a very high-level, simplified approach to content planning, but it’s a start. I’d be happy to go into specifics with anyone interested. Just leave a comment or drop me a line!