The editorial line of a brand determines its communication direction. It is essential for framing all communications and ensuring consistency with a clearly identified target. Editorial pillars, employed tone, wording, visual signature, are all strategic axes to work on to guarantee content production that aligns with the brand's objectives and identity. The management of social media accounts is no exception. To integrate social networks into its brand strategy (we discussed it here), it is crucial to rely on the editorial line. In this article, we share our method for building an editorial calendar and offer a tutorial for using Trello as a download.

PREPARE THE FUNDAMENTALS OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA EDITORIAL LINE

To begin, you need to be equipped! You have defined your brand platform which details the company, its mission, its personality along with its values, preferences, and expression territory. 

As part of your social media strategy, these ingredients are essential supports for telling your story in a relevant way that reflects what you wish to reveal. 

It is time to dive in and define your editorial line by laying the first foundations : what is the goal(s) I dedicate to social networks? Who do I want to address? How? What story do I want to tell? On what platforms? And in what tone?

Once these foundations are well determined, the idea is to frame this line around a few major themes (4 or 5 at most) in which you will define the subjects that stem from them, giving them a certain importance, this is what we call the distribution of themes. Some will talk more about the company, while others will focus on their product and service offerings. The communications of our client Banquet d’Or are gathered around products, the company, creative cuisine, and the latest news in the bakery-pastry sector. It is therefore about meeting the established objectives and, at the same time, addressing the challenges faced by the company. 

This framework will serve you, in the long term, to guide the content, form, and rhythm of your publications ; and not only that, because it must be thought out globally for the company to establish and maintain a true identity coherence, whatever the communication supports. 

TO YOUR EDITORIAL PLANNINGS! DIVE INTO THE GREAT POOL 

The editorial calendar must first gather all the subjects you will address on your social platforms, over the course of the year. Moreover, it should centralize all the elements you will need to address these topics, whether in terms of writing, visuals, or human resources. It is your everyday tool for feeding and conversing on social media hence the importance of choosing it wisely.

Now, it’s time to get serious and adopt a competitive tool to organize your editorial calendars!

Simple agendas or Google Sheets are often used to organize planning. After testing various methods, we have settled on Trello.

Originally, it is a project management software that proves very suitable for creating editorial calendars dedicated to social media. It is free (for basic use) and intuitive, allowing for easy and quick handling for all user levels. 

Its advantages will make you swim in happiness!

✔ ︎ Calendar view.

✔ ︎ Global view.

✔ ︎ Organization, planning, and integration of all elements related to publications (photos, documents, links).

✔ ︎ Collaborative by integrating the relevant persons by topic. 

Splash, all on one single platform! 

In a stroke of the arm, your Trello calendar is created. Then lay out your monthly topics, specifying the represented themes and the engaged platforms. In one glance, you will have a global view, for the month, of the topics to be shared, allowing you to assess the balance of your themes, your formats… 

You can obviously readjust as needed, either to stay true to what you previously defined in your editorial line or because your audience is waiting for certain content identified by analyzing your previous posts. 

So, ready to leap? Follow your lifeguard on Trello.