content flow

Do you have some awesome topic ideas and great content marketing planned out, but you accidentally forgot to write it down? Or, you might have hundreds of sticky notes around your office? 15 Tips for Staying Organized with Your Content Organization is key to having successful content because you are going to have a hard time remembering everything if it isn’t organized well. Just how do you get organized with your content ideas and flow? Let’s look at a few tips that will help. Use Programs Such as DropBox. If you are looking for a great way to keep things organized but want to be able to access it whether you are on your own computer or not, programs like DropBox are perfect. You can easily put your content folders into this cloud-based system, and be able to do your marketing from anywhere in the world. This is also great because, we all know computers like to be finicky, and might just crash one day. If that happens, all of your ideas are not only saved on your computer and an external hard drive, but also on DropBox. Utilizing List Apps and Programs. One of the best ways to stay organized, whether it is for personal life things or marketing, is to keep a list of everything you need. A big mistake many people make with lists, however, is having a master list for every single thing both business and personal, and all the little things in-between. By using list programs such as the Reminders app on iPhone and iMac, or Remember the Milk, can help you create multiple lists for multiple things. I love lists, because they help me get through my busy content days and helps me remember what I need from the store or other non-work life related things. Try some lists out today and watch that organization and flow improve! Planning Out Your Schedule for the Next Week or Two. Another thing that helps me immensely with getting organized is not just having a plan for the upcoming month (which I will talk about later) but is also scheduling out my week and two weeks. This helps because you don’t just have content marketing going on, you have other things pertaining to your business, and, again, personal life. When you sit down and plan everything out, you will be able to delegate time to different tasks and know when you should start and finish something. While this might not always go to plan, you will find that you will be more productive and get things finished on time. You will also notice things aren’t quite as stressful if you already have a plan in place! Using an Editorial Calendar to Keep Your Topics Organized for Months. When it comes to content, you need to make sure that you are not only prepared for the current month, but also for the next few months. A great way to do this is to sit down with your topics and campaign ideas and implement them into an editorial calendar. This will help keep your thoughts and topics organized, and you will be relatively stress-free for the next few months. Many places suggest having an editorial calendar set up for about six months or having one in place for the entire content year. Are you not sure how to create an editorial calendar? Don’t worry! Hubspot offers a great, free calendar!  Create a Content Inventory. A content inventory helps you keep track of the content you’ve done, as well as what areas you haven’t covered. It can even show you areas you have covered some, but not enough. A content inventory is also a great way to keep track of every web page you have from your about section to a contact page or anything else you have or need. What you can do is open an excel sheet or a Google Doc and catalog each page you have by name, link, and a small sentence about why you need it. This can help you figure out new pages you need and how you can also organize your web page. It can also help you see if you might have a landing page or two that you don’t really need. However, it will take quite a bit of time to create a content inventory, so be sure you have enough time set aside to do this. Don’t Hesitate to Use Good Old Fashioned Paper and Pencil. Technology is great and can really help you get organized, but you shouldn’t ignore good, old-fashioned practices of staying organized. Consider getting a planner and writing down your content schedule or what you need to do in the future. Keep notes of your different topics or simply use pencil and paper to brainstorm. Many times, this can help people stay more organized than a calendar on a computer because writing it by hand can commit it to memory easier. I know that writing down things on paper is quite a big help for me and I find that I get a lot more done that way.  Use a Sitemap to Keep Your Flow Organized. Sitemaps can be incredibly helpful when you are trying to stay organized. This can show you which pages are the most important and that you want more clicks to, but it can also show you which pages you need to change and improve to make them more impactful. It can be a simple thing to make either on your own or with a program. You will find that, when you have this written out in a diagram format, it will be easier to see what you need to do and make necessary changes. A sitemap will also show the relationships between pages. However, this can be difficult to decipher, which can make a sitemap a little harder. You should still give it a try and see how it benefits you! Use a Post Tracker to Help Stay Organized. A … Read more