Steps to creating an effective editorial calendar for LinkedIn

An editorial calendar helps you plan and organize your publications, defining type, format, subject, tone, frequency and timing, according to your objectives and target audience.
It makes it easy to manage the production, validation, publication and promotion of your content, as well as tracking and analyzing results.
An editorial calendar optimizes your visibility by enabling you to :

• Create sharing tailored to your target and your objectives
• Regular publication of varied, high-quality information
• Maintain a regular publication rhythm
• Publish at the best time
• Optimize your natural referencing
• Interact with your target and start a conversation
• Measure and improve the effectiveness of your information

Essential to any content tactic, an editorial calendar helps you save time, stay organized, maintain editorial consistency and maximize your impact.
In the rest of this article, we’ll show you how to create an effective editorial calendar, following 7 phases.

Step 1: Analyze your target

To create an effective editorial calendar, it’s essential to know your target audience.
Do you know who is following your company page, visiting your profile or interacting with your shares?

It’s essential to determine their needs, interests and expectations, as well as the kind of sharing that captivates, informs and inspires them.
To do this, analyzing your target audience can be broken down into two main phases: segmenting your audience and understanding their needs and interests.

Step 2: Identify your target segments

An audience segment groups together individuals who share similar characteristics such as age, gender, location, sector of activity, function or level of experience.
This segmentation helps you refine your content and adapt your communication.

To segment your target audience, you can rely on the platform’s built-in analytics or on external solutions such as Hootsuite or Planable.
They provide you with valuable demographic and professional information on your visitors, subscribers, prospects, competitors and employees.

This gives you a better idea of who is interested in your company page, profile or ads.
You can, for example, examine the number and distribution of your subscribers according to different criteria such as country, region, industry, company size, function, hierarchical level, etc.

Comparing this information with that of your competitors or your sector can also reveal opportunities and avenues for improvement.

Step 3: Understand your audience’s needs and interests

Once you’ve identified your target segments, it’s crucial to understand their needs and interests.
What motivates them to engage with your page, view your profile or interact with your publications?

What problems do they seek to solve, what goals do they aspire to achieve, what information do they seek, what emotions do they wish to experience?
Identify the type of sharing that supports, educates, entertains or inspires them.
To achieve this, various methods can be employed, including:

• Observe your target audience’s behavior by analyzing your content’s performance indicators, such as impressions, clicks, reactions, comments and shares.
  Software such as Hootsuite or Planable can generate detailed, visual reports on your performance.
• Listen in on your target audience’s conversations using social intelligence solutions such as Mention or Brandwatch.
  These applications help you track mentions of your brand, products, competitors and keywords on the network, giving you an overview of your audience’s feedback, opinions, questions and suggestions.
• Interrogate your target audience directly with surveys, using solutions such as SurveyMonkey or Typeform.
  These platforms let you create and distribute surveys to gather quantitative and qualitative data on their needs, interests, preferences and satisfaction levels.

By carrying out an in-depth analysis of your target audience, you’ll be able to produce content that’s tailored to your target audience, meeting their needs and expectations, and thus boosting the attraction, loyalty and conversion of your target audience on this professional network.

Our customer, wanting to understand the interests of his audience, used several MirrorProfiles accounts to contact his target on a large scale.
Using his ten avatar accounts, which he rebranded as Student, he contacted his target audience by asking them questions for a term paper.
In this way, he was able to gather a lot of relevant information on the issues and problems faced by these targets.
Feedback was collected in just 2 months, and all this was made possible by the deployment of prospecting campaigns on the customer’s 10 MirrorProfiles accounts.

In the rest of this article, we’ll look at how to define your sharing expectations, in line with your audience and your overall tactics.

Step 4: Define your content objectives

Once you’ve understood your target, it’s essential to set your expectations.
What are your goals on this network?
What results do you want to achieve?

How will you measure your success?
To do this, it’s crucial to separate your personal objectives from those linked to your company, by establishing precise, measurable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

Personal brand objectives vs. corporate objectives

The network allows you to publish either personally or on behalf of your company, with varying expectations.

Examples of objectives according to profile:

• Personal branding: expand your network, increase your credibility, showcase your expertise, share your vision, seize professional opportunities, etc.
• Business: increase brand awareness, promote products or services, generate leads, build customer loyalty, recruit new talent, etc.

It’s vital to define your expectations, taking into account your profile, business sector, positioning, target and overall strategy.
They must be in harmony with your vision, mission and brand image.

Your objectives must also be specific, realistic and achievable to motivate and guide your content design.

Step 5: Set clear, measurable KPIs

Once you’ve defined your expectations, it’s important to determine KPIs to measure your success.
These indicators, whether quantitative or qualitative, should enable you to assess the effectiveness of your method.

They must be precise, measurable, relevant and aligned with your expectations.
Examples of KPIs:

• Brand awareness: number of subscribers, visitors, impressions, views, mentions, etc.
• Consideration: number of clicks, reactions, comments, shares, posts, recommendations, etc.
• Conversion: number of leads, customers, sales, revenue, conversion rate, etc.

Analysis tools, whether native or external such as Hootsuite or Planable, can help you track and analyze your KPIs.
These solutions offer detailed reports on your performance, enabling you to adjust your content according to the results, and thus optimize your return on investment.

Step 6: Plan content types

Once you’ve defined your objectives, it’s essential to choose the types of content you’re going to publish.
What formats and themes will you cover?
What tone will you adopt?
How will you captivate, communicate effectively and encourage interaction?

It’s crucial to select the type of content that best matches your desired results, your target audience and your professional identity.
LinkedIn allows you to publish different content formats: articles, textual shares, content with text and image, posts with text and video, as well as posts with text and PDF.
Each format offers specific advantages and is suitable for different types of content.

Here are three suitable categories: educational and informative, promotional and event-driven, and content designed to reinforce your employer brand.

Educational and informative content

It aims to add value by providing relevant information, advice, tips, testimonials and case studies.
It’s an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and share your know-how, responding to your audience’s needs and questions while building trust and loyalty.

Formats vary according to the level of detail required and the media used.
You can opt for :

• Articles: a detailed format for covering a topic in depth, with elements such as paragraphs, headings, images and links.
  Publish on LinkedIn Pulse to reach a wide audience and benefit from good visibility, or share articles from your website or blog.
• Text and image posts: a brief format ideal for summarizing a topic with a relevant image. Post to your news feed, company page or personal profile, and explore the use of carousels to present multiple ideas or examples.
• Text and video: a dynamic format that combines text and video for a visual and audio presentation.
  Use it on your News Feed or during LinkedIn Live to interact live with your target audience.

Promotional and event content

Its purpose is to promote your products or services, announce your offers, promotions and events.
It serves to arouse interest, create desire and incite action, helping to convert prospects into customers and boost your sales.
Various formats can be used to showcase this type of content:

• Text: a direct format to communicate a succinct message with a call to action.
  Ideal for surveys and opinion gathering.
• Text and images: a short format to capture attention with an image that highlights your offer.
  Carousels are ideal for presenting a range of products or services.
• Texts and videos: an engaging format to visually demonstrate your offer.
  LinkedIn Live are effective for promoting in real time and creating a sense of urgency.

Content to strengthen your employer brand

It aims to highlight your company, its culture, its values and its people.
It’s about highlighting what makes your company unique in order to attract talent, build employee loyalty and build an engaged community.
Several formats can be used:

• Textual shares: simple and direct, they allow you to share testimonials, anecdotes or values.
  Also ideal for polls.
• Text and image shares: short and to the point, they use an image to illustrate the mood of your company.
  Carousels offer an overview of different aspects of your company.
• Text and video shares: dynamic, they tell your company’s story and share your mission and values.
  LinkedIn Live shares add proximity and authenticity.

By carefully planning your shares, you can align your tactics with your objectives, target effectively and maximize your impact on this professional network.

Step 7: Creating the editorial calendar

Building your editorial calendar involves listing all the shares to be created and published over a certain period (week, month, quarter, year).
It’s essential to determine the frequency and timing of your publications, in line with your desired results, your target audience and your overall tactics.

To build your editorial calendar efficiently, follow two main steps: choosing the right planning platforms, and structuring the calendar in an organized way.

Selection of planning tools and platforms

A good scheduling tool allows you to view, adjust and share your schedule.
Several options are available, each offering a variety of features such as template design, integration with other applications, automatic scheduling of publications and performance tracking.

Here are some recommended planning platforms:

• Excel or Google Sheets: These simple, free solutions let you create a table containing the elements of your editorial calendar (date, format, subject, text, image, link, etc.).
  Customize your calendar with colors, filters and formulas.
  The file can be shared and modified online or offline with your team.
• Trello: This project management tool helps you organize your calendar using tables, lists and cards.
  Each card can include detailed information.
  Trello makes it easy to organize your calendar by production phases, content types and themes, and enables team collaboration as well as synchronization with other tools such as Google Calendar or Outlook.
• Planable: A specialized content planning and approval platform, Planable enables you to create, preview and publish your content directly to the professional network and other social networks.
  Create a calendar with images, videos, PDFs, etc., and collaborate with your team, customers or partners to approve content.
  Publication scheduling can be automated or managed manually.

Organizing the calendar: publication frequency and timing

The key to a successful editorial calendar lies in the right balance between publication frequency and timing, tailored to your objectives and tactics.
Here are some tips on how to achieve this:

• Post frequency: Posting regularly is essential to keep your audience engaged and improve your visibility.
  According to HubSpot, a frequency of 2 to 5 shares per week is ideal for company pages, while 2 to 3 shares per week are suitable for personal profiles.
• Publication timing: Publishing at the most opportune time maximizes your reach and engagement.
  Sprout Social indicates that the best times to publish are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, between 9am and 12pm.

By setting up a well-structured editorial calendar, you can better plan and anticipate your content, improving your organization and your results.

Stage 8: Production and preparation

Once you’ve established your editorial calendar, it’s time to move on to the design and preparation of your shares.
This process involves writing, formatting, proofreading and editing your shares, while ensuring that you follow the network’s best practices.
It’s also essential to optimize your content for LinkedIn’s algorithms to improve its visibility and reach.

There are two main phases to follow: designing suitable and captivating shares, and optimizing this content for the algorithms.

Creating relevant and engaging content

Designing shares that resonate with your target audience requires adherence to a few basic principles:

• Personalize your shares according to your objectives, your target and your profile.
  Select the format, subject, tone, style and vocabulary that best suit your message, your target and your brand.
• Bring value to your target.
  Offer information that responds to their needs, questions, problems, interests or emotions.
  Provide relevant information, advice, tips, testimonials, case studies and more.
• Grab your target’s attention.
  Produce information that catches the eye, arouses curiosity, challenges or intrigues.
  Use punchy headlines, quality images or videos, bright colors, emojis, hashtags, etc.
• Engage your target audience.
  Generate shares that encourage people to react, comment, share, recommend or act.
  Propose questions, polls, calls to action, special offers, promotions, events and more.
• Proofread and correct your shares.
  Make sure that the spelling, grammar, syntax, punctuation, consistency and readability of your information are correct.
  Solutions such as Antidote or Scribens can help you identify and correct errors.

Optimizing content for algorithms

This requires an understanding of how they work and the criteria used to evaluate and distribute your publications.
Algorithms are based on people, information and engagement.

Here’s how to optimize your shares according to these principles:

• People: LinkedIn considers your profile, your network, your activity and your credibility.
  To maximize your shares according to this criterion, you should :
• Complete and update your profile or company page, filling in all fields, adding a photo, a banner, a summary, skills, recommendations, etc.
• Develop and animate your network by sending invitations, accepting requests, joining groups, following hashtags, and interacting with your contacts.
• Publish and share information on a regular basis, respecting your editorial calendar and diversifying formats, themes, sources, etc.
• Improve your credibility by publishing quality, relevant, original and authentic information.
• Content: Algorithms evaluate type, format, subject, text, image, link, etc.
  To optimize it, you should :
• Choose the type of share best suited to your target audience and profile, following the advice given above.
• Opt for the most effective formats, such as videos, carousels, articles, polls, etc.
• Select the most relevant themes, using search and analysis solutions.
• Produce quality text, respecting the character limits specific to each format.
• Include a quality image or video, following the recommendations regarding dimensions and weight.
• Add a link to a relevant external source, checking its reliability and relevance.
• Engagement: The network takes into account reactions, comments, shares, clicks and time spent.
  To optimize your content according to this criterion, you should :
• Stimulate response with questions, surveys, calls to action, offers, promotions, events, etc.
• Encourage comments by soliciting opinions and feedback, sharing testimonials, case studies, etc.
• Promote sharing by creating original, exclusive, inspiring, entertaining or educational formats.
• Encourage clicks with catchy headlines, attractive images and relevant links.
• Increase time spent by offering quality, value and depth.

By implementing these practices, you’ll be able to create content that’s adapted and engaging for your target audience, while optimizing its reach and visibility thanks to algorithms.

Step 9: Executing and managing the editorial calendar

The next step is to execute and manage your editorial calendar.
This involves publishing your content according to schedule, and monitoring performance to fine-tune your strategy if necessary.

Two main actions are required to successfully manage this process: adhering to the publication schedule, and adjusting the schedule according to the results.

Keep to the publication schedule

To ensure that you publish your content at the right time, on the right platform and in the right format, follow these tips:

• Schedule your publications in advance with Hootsuite or Planable, which enable automatic publication on various social networks.
  The network also offers LinkedIn Scheduler for company pages and LinkedIn Creator Mode for personal profiles.
• Ensure the quality of your publications by using previews such as Hootsuite or Planable.
  These solutions allow you to see what your content will look like before publication, and modify it if necessary.
  The LinkedIn Post Inspector is also useful for checking the display on different devices and detecting any problems.
• Tailor your content to each social network using personalization tools that let you modify the format, tone, style and vocabulary of your content.
  LinkedIn Content Studio, for example, helps you create specific content, such as videos, carousels and stories.

Adjusting the schedule according to performance

To optimize your editorial calendar, analyze the performance of your publications to identify what’s working well and what can be improved.
Take into account feedback from your target audience to enrich your strategy.

Here’s how to adjust your calendar :

• Hootsuite or Planable, offer detailed reports on performance indicators.
  Native tools, such as LinkedIn Analytics for company pages and the LinkedIn Dashboard for personal profiles, also provide valuable data on your target audience and engagement.
• Monitor mentions of your brand on other social networks with Mention or Brandwatch.
  This allows you to gather direct feedback from your target audience.
• Optimize your editorial calendar based on the results obtained by using optimization and recommendation solutions, such as LinkedIn Content Suggestions or LinkedIn Content Marketing Score, which help you identify content ideas that are attractive and effective for your target audience.

By taking charge of the execution and management of your editorial calendar, you ensure the consistent and effective publication of your content, while fine-tuning your content tactics based on the results you achieve.

Step 10: Performance analysis and optimization

Once your editorial calendar is in action, it’s crucial to evaluate and optimize your results.
This involves measuring the effect of your content strategy against your desired results, and adjusting it according to feedback and KPIs.
To do this, follow two main steps: exploit LinkedIn’s analysis tools and adjust your tactics based on feedback and KPIs.

Using LinkedIn’s analysis tools

This gives you access to valuable data about your business, your target audience and your content.
This information is essential for understanding your target’s behavior, and for measuring the effectiveness of your content techniques.

Here are some of the analysis solutions available:

• Analytics for business pages: This tool offers insights into your target audience, reach, engagement, conversions, and more.
  Access it via the Analytics menu on your company page.
• Dashboard for personal profiles: Provides information on your profile, network and activities.
  Access it by clicking on your profile photo, then on “View profile”.
• Content Marketing Score: This tool evaluates the impact of your content on your target audience based on various criteria, including frequency and type of publication.
  Contact a representative for access.
• Content Suggestions: Suggest relevant and effective content for your target audience.
  Available via the Content option in your company page menu.

Adapt strategy based on feedback and KPIs

Taking feedback and KPIs into account is essential for fine-tuning.
Include your target audience’s opinions, questions and suggestions, as well as the results obtained in relation to the defined KPIs.

Advice :

• Listen to your target: Take the time to respond to comments and messages.
  Use social monitoring solutions to gather feedback.
• Measure your performance: Track your KPIs and compare them with your expectations.
  Use LinkedIn or third-party analysis tools to evaluate the effectiveness of your content strategy.
• Optimize your content: Adjust your content according to the results obtained, and test different approaches.
  Use recommendations from LinkedIn or other tools to discover engaging content ideas.

By implementing these analysis and optimization practices, you’ll improve your content strategy on LinkedIn, helping to achieve your expectations more effectively.