Creating an Owned Media Content Calendar for Your Business

What is an owned media content calendar?

An owned media content calendar is a type of editorial calendar to organize all the content you plan to post or send out on channels you own. Your business’ owned media content calendar will include information about the corporate blog posts, website content, social media posts, newsletters, and emails to be disseminated in a certain timeframe. 406 Strategic Communications generally suggests starting with a yearly content calendar. As you flesh out your ideas, you will move on to creating a monthly and then a weekly owned media content calendar.

Before you break out the calendar…

The best place to start in creating your owned media content calendar is by getting all your owned media ideas and strategies out on the table! Before you get your calendar out, start by jotting down your answers to the following questions: 

• What SEO keywords would I like to focus on for upcoming content?

  • 406 Strategic Communications includes SEO keyword research as part of our content packages

• What topics do I want to make sure I cover in this year’s owned media content?

  • What products or services are most important for current clients or potential customers to know about?

  • Are there specific events or special deals I would like to post about throughout the year?

    • For example, a business may want to do a 20% off Black Friday deal and showcase it in a blog post about “10 Best Black Friday Deals in X Town”

A yearly owned media content calendar: Creating themes

Once you have a list of owned media ideas, it is time to start sorting them into categories, themes, and months to post. Start by organizing content into what seems like broad themes. For example, you may have a few post ideas about a specific product or line of products. Group these together and decide if there is a month that makes most sense for this specific content. 

For example, Black Friday deals would logically go in the November section of your yearly content calendar. A product that launches in March may need to be the theme of February content to introduce the product or instead as March content to announce its launch. The yearly calendar is where you make decisions like these!  

Stay out of the details until you create a weekly owned media content calendar. Instead, focus on ensuring each month has a clear theme and a few specific keywords you would like to focus on. For example, you may have notes like this for your yearly owned media content calendar:

• January: Focus on X product, keywords: Y and Z

• February: Focus on C service, keywords: A and B

A monthly owned media content calendar: Choosing post types

Your month-to-month content calendar is where you create the structure for your business’ owned media content. 406 Strategic Communications recommends that each month features the same specific post types for different themes. 

For example, you may have a specific FAQ you tackle in the first week of content that’s related to the monthly theme. Week two may focus on a customer guide to the product/service featured in the monthly theme, and week three could be a customer success story or employee spotlight related to the monthly theme. 

Let’s say your monthly theme is “owned media content.” You may decide this is your line-up of content for the month:

• Week 1: Owned media FAQ

• Week 2: Guide to owned media services your company offers

• Week 3: Customer story on using your owned media services

• Week 4: Spotlight on an employee who creates your owned media content

A weekly owned media content calendar: Fleshing out the details

Now you have themes and topics for your owned media content calendar, it’s time to flesh out these ideas week by week! In this stage of the planning process, you’ll add details as to what will be posted each week and where. Here’s an example of how week one in a content calendar may look: 

• Week 1: “What is Owned Media Content?”

  • FAQ blog post

  • Instagram and Facebook post and graphic (with link to FAQ post)

  • YouTube explainer video

  • Explainer blog post (with link to the YouTube video)

  • Instagram and Facebook post and graphic (with link to explainer post/video)

  • Newsletter (with links to the social media graphics, blog posts, and video)

Keep in mind, the amount of content on your weekly calendar can be scaled based on your business needs. For example, you may only have one blog post a week or five. You could only have a monthly newsletter, instead of weekly. You may or may not feel the need to have video content.

Time to craft your content!