Managing content material at scale is a problem — staying organized, deciding what to publish, assigning writers and editors, and monitoring outcomes requires lots of shifting elements. The extra folks 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.
After almost a decade of managing excessive quantity content material groups, listed below are my favourite no price editorial calendar templates for various instruments.
Monday.com: A complete editorial calendar template
Monday.com’s editorial calendar template delivers a pre-built content material calendar that’s simple to customise alongside crew collaboration options and activity administration capabilities from top-of-the-line venture administration options in the marketplace.
It’s nice for top stage technique, work administration, and centralized content material operations out of the field.
Extra on monday.com: monday.com assessment | 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 possibly can arrange a color-coded system to prioritize your most vital content material and use customized tags to filter all the things in a method that’s simple to know. Irrespective of how stacked your publishing schedule turns into, you’ll all the time know what’s forward.
When you’re a solo person, it’s probably overkill except you customise it. Nonetheless, it’s good should you’re working with a minimum of a number of different folks or a full content material crew.
You need to use this template, together with 200 others, without charge with monday.com’s free plan.
ClickUp: A beginner-friendly editorial calendar template
Much like monday.com, ClickUp is an entire venture administration answer. The 2 platforms are almost similar when it comes to options and capabilities, so selecting one over the opposite principally comes down to non-public 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.
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Except for the standard calendar, ClickUp provides you 5 further views, together with a listing view, content material request view, useful resource view, and key phrases view. Thanks to those additional views, holding monitor of deadlines and managing each facet of your manufacturing stream 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 monitor the efficiency of granular particulars for all of the content material you publish. Including customized attributes takes a couple of clicks and you’ll add as many as you want.
As a result of ClickUp is a venture administration device, you’re additionally getting all the necessities for crew collaboration, assigning duties, and setting due dates.
Total, this template is nice whether or not you’re planning years upfront or only a few 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.
Smartsheet: A template for brainstorming and managing content material
Smartsheet’s editorial calendar template consists of an space for brainstorming content material concepts and shifting the very best concepts into your manufacturing workflow.
It really works effectively for any kind of content material from movies and pictures to weblog posts, podcasts, and visitor posts. It additionally provides you all the things you should see your schedule by month or 12 months at a look.
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You need to use this template with Smartsheet, however the device itself doesn’t have a free plan. When you don’t wish to pay, you may obtain the template and use it with Excel or Google Sheets as a substitute.
Both method, you’ll have the ability to assign duties, set publishing dates, take notes, go away feedback, and keep on high of missed deadlines.
That mentioned, it doesn’t historically seem like a calendar except you employ it with Smartsheet. As an alternative, you’ll see a desk with all your scheduled content material for every month.
When you’re a fan of lists and tables, it’s greater than sufficient.
Utilizing it with Smartsheet additionally provides you further capabilities, together with a Gantt chart, automations, fundamental workload monitoring, attachment storage, and extra. Nonetheless, Smartsheet is on the costlier finish of venture administration and relational database options.
Airtable: A digital and print editorial calendar template
Airtable is a sophisticated relational database answer that offers you all the things you should 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.
When you deal with print media, the print editorial calendar template enables you to simply handle print and digital media in the identical place.
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Not like different templates thus far, this one enables you to arrange content material by problem and print schedule, permitting you to satisfy tight deadlines and keep on high of publishing exercise.
You may also arrange completely different classes for every problem. For instance, you may have separate duties assigned to completely different folks with distinctive deadlines for information, way of life, and meals — all on your December 2024 print problem which has its personal due date.
Airtable additionally makes it simple 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 flexibleness of this template means you may deal with nearly any state of affairs you might end up in. You may also add further fields and relationships, providing 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, however it’s good for giant publishers and information websites.
Notion: A easy editorial calendar template for small groups and solo customers
Notion, like Airtable, affords relational databases. Nonetheless, Notion is less complicated 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.
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You may also simply arrange content material by kind, author, standing, due date, and extra. There’s even a discipline for illustrations and visuals and one other for the viewers you’re focusing on. The viewers discipline 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 simple to modify between a regular record of content material and a high-level editorial calendar any time.
Alternatively, you should utilize 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 method works greatest for you.
You need to use 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 important place to start out with loads of room to customise and add on as you develop.
Asana: An approachable editorial calendar template for bloggers
Asana is a extra conventional venture administration answer in comparison with the opposite instruments we’ve talked about thus far. It’s less complicated and loads 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 important choice for busy bloggers, small content material groups, and enterprise web sites who don’t want something fancy.
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The most effective half about this template is how seamlessly it really works for people or groups. Irrespective of how you’re employed, it’s simple to plan months, quarters, or perhaps a 12 months upfront and assign work to everybody at every stage of the publishing course of.
On high of that, it really works for almost any kind of content material – blogs, movies, photographs, information tales, podcasts, and print to call a couple of.
You possibly can arrange a easy color-coded system on the calendar based mostly on content material kind or distribution channel, so you have got a birds-eye view of your complete schedule.
As a venture administration answer, Asana additionally makes it simple to set deadlines, monitor duties, and collaborate along with your crew. You may also regulate due dates or re-assigning work based mostly on useful resource capability or precedence shifts in a couple of clicks.
Asana affords a beneficiant free plan that’s greater than sufficient to get began.
HubSpot: A low-volume template for Excel and Google Sheets
When you’re publishing at low quantity and want a easy strategy 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 couple of items of content material every week or month, it’s greater than sufficient.
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You possibly can obtain it as an Excel file or open it in Google Sheets. The formatting is similar for each choices. HubSpot additionally lately added an choice to make use of it along with your Google Calendar should you favor that as a substitute.
There are three predominant sheets — one for all your content material, a weekly view, and a month-to-month view.
The most effective strategy 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 as well plan a number of months forward.
The most important disadvantage of this template is what makes it nice within the first place. It’s easy. However there’s no strategy to view a quarterly or annual schedule. You possibly can set this up if your method round spreadsheets, however at that time you would possibly as effectively use a distinct template.
Total, it’s an important 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.
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 identify implies, an editorial calendar sometimes appears like an precise calendar — exhibiting days, weeks, and months over the course of a 12 months.
However most fashionable editorial calendar templates embrace different views like desk, Kanban, Gantt, and record.
I like to think about editorial calendars like a blueprint or roadmap. They’re designed to indicate the place you wish to go, and the way you’re going to get there.
Who makes use of editorial calendars?
Regardless of the identify, 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 might be the proprietor of a small weblog or YouTube channel or a venture supervisor dealing with the schedule for dozens of channels.
Different examples embrace:
- Web site homeowners.
- Unbiased bloggers.
- Social influencers.
- Small enterprise homeowners.
- Weblog editors.
- Content material entrepreneurs.
- Social media specialists.
- PR groups.
- Challenge managers.
- Media coordinators.
As a result of the principle 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.
Exterior of that, they’re match for anybody who needs a high down view, whether or not or not they’re assigning work to different folks or doing all the things 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 means 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 now (together with a number of on my record) embrace content material administration options. Reasonably 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 monitor of.
For instance, you may 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 method 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 venture administration software program.
