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hello wonderful humans and welcome back to the bliss bean in a recent video i shared how i use
different digital planning tools to organize my life and that was a pretty long video but
i actually still had a lot more to say about how i manage my content calendar so in this video we are
going to talk about how to be a professional blogger with a professional content calendar
so first of all a content calendar is just a schedule of what content you're going to publish
on your blog so if you have a blog you're probably managing a lot of different channels you've got
a blog post here a video there a newsletter pins tweets instagram stories peppered throughout
it's a lot and unless you're one of those effortlessly cool people who lives a super
spontaneous life and is always taking cute aesthetic photos and never runs out of ideas
you're gonna want a way to plan all that out in advance so that you can tie all of your
content together so for example say you have a video coming out in two weeks and then the week
before that you want to tease it on instagram you want to include a link to the video in a
newsletter that's going out a few days later you want to promote it again on all of your channels
a month after it goes live i don't know how anyone could remember to do all of that
without a content calendar now a lot of people think that being really organized is going to
kill your creativity but in reality it actually helps me to be more creative because i have a
system to capture every idea that i come up with and actually make it happen someone asked me how i
make sure to have enough flexibility in my content calendar so that i can still do spontaneous things
and the answer to that is that i use a digital calendar so let's move on to the next section
there are so many different tools that you can use for planning a content calendar i've seen
people do it on paper on spreadsheets there's tons of different apps out there the one that
i personally like to use is called trello trello is based on the kanban system and
kanban comes from the japanese khan meaning sign and pan meaning board so the kanban
board system was developed in the early 1940s to help make production at toyota more efficient so
generally you would have a project on each card and then the columns are used to track
the progress of that project from stage one to completion but what i use the columns for is
just categorizing the different types of content that i have so in trello you can drag and drop
cards between columns and each card can contain tons of different information like checklists
labels due dates attachments etc currently i use the free version because with the free version
you're allowed to have one free power up and the only power up that i use is the calendar one
so you can definitely have a fully functional content calendar without paying anything on trello
so basically i have one card for every piece of content that goes out so anytime i want to
create something new i will create a card from a template the template for videos is definitely the
most complicated so let's get that out of the way first i read the script on google drive because it
would take up way too much space if i put it in the card itself so instead what i have here are
these little headings for me to make note of any ideas that i have for the video so how am i going
to integrate that week's sponsor into the video what's the thumbnail going to look like the intro
any ideas for how to edit the video promote the video etc is there going to be a worksheet that
goes with it or anything like that what cards am i going to use throughout the video to link to other
videos and what do i need to make sure to include in the description when i'm writing that out so
this first checklist of things to do is stuff that is specifically related to working with a sponsor
so when a video is sponsored i write out the plan for the social media posts the video script the
pinned comment etc in advance so i can send that for approval along with the video itself before it
goes live in terms of actually creating the video well you gotta write your script plan out what
b-roll shots you're going to have film it edit it upload it to youtube get that all filled out and
ready to go with the tags the end screen the cards etc design all of your graphics blah blah blah and
then one thing i do for every single video that i upload is i make a blog post for it so if you
guys watched my video two weeks back on how i started the bliss bean and my vlogging journey
you'll know that i started out only doing blog posts and it wasn't until the bliss bean was
about a year old when i started doing youtube videos but i still post every single video that
i upload onto my squarespace website why even if your space is just on youtube or just on instagram
having one place to consolidate all of that is a really awesome way to establish a professional
online presence a lot of times if there's someone on instagram i admire i will google their name
and see if they have a website somewhere where i can learn more about them and just
see what other things they're doing i can be nosy like that and companies and people will be nosy
about you so you want to make sure that you are prepared for that and that you have your best most
professional foot forward so my squarespace site is kind of the hub of all things bliss bean it has
my videos my newsletter all my worksheets links to my social media etc so every time i'm uploading a
new video i go to my squarespace dashboard and i open up my blog page i duplicate the previous post
so that i can use it as a template and then i just change the title to the title of the new video
the squarespace editor is just this super simple block structure so i have an image block
a video block a button block to take people to my youtube channel so they can watch more videos
and hopefully fall down the bliss bean rabbit hole then there is a text block a newsletter block and
a summary blog that shows people some of my more recent stuff so all i do this literally takes just
a few minutes is i drop in the new graphics the video link i usually copy in just whatever i wrote
in the description and clean it up a little bit and then i can schedule the post which is really
nice because i can schedule it for the exact time that the video is scheduled for so that they go up
simultaneously so whether you want to start a blog or you already have a youtube channel
or social media presence but you just want to step it up and have that go-to
professional place on the internet that says to the internet this is what i am this is what i do
and i'm really good at what i do you can go to the link in my description for a free trial
and then use my code the bliss bean to get 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain so then
once the video is published on my youtube channel and on my website i have to promote the video so
all of these tasks are pretty self-explanatory and then these two lists are for when i'm planning out
my b-roll shots so after i write my script i kind of go through it and i try to imagine how
the video will look in my head what visuals do i want to have alongside what i'm saying
what b-roll am i gonna have to film and then what b-roll do i know i already have in my
vast archive of b-roll footage on my hard drives that i just need to go and find and the reason
i love doing this on trello is because i can drag and drop these so after i've written my shot list
i can put it in order of how i plan on filming it so let's say there is a shot at the beginning
of the video of something on my computer screen and then there's a shot at the end of the video
of something on my computer screen so it only makes sense to film those two at the same time
here at the bliss bean we like to work smarter not harder friends my newsletter template is
super simple i use the description to draft out the content i have space here to write down what
my little piece of actionable advice and what my five recommendations for the week are gonna be so
at any point in the week if i think of something that i want to recommend in my next newsletter
or even a newsletter a few weeks out all i have to do is go to that card and type it in there and
then i can just forget about it for the to-do list gotta write it in google docs format the email
design the graphic and add it to the archive instagram posts are also generally really
simple usually it's just write caption take photo edit photo instagram success is as easy
as one two three if i have to design a graphic or do some prep work in advance i can add that
and then in the description is where i write the caption and also just a quick description of what
the photo will be and if i don't know yet just question marks i got a question about whether
i schedule my social media posts so i do not i do schedule my youtube videos and blog posts i do use
a feed planning app but only to check if the photo that i'm about to upload will look good against my
feed and then i can make adjustments if it doesn't quite match but honestly i don't think my feed is
that cohesive anyways but it's okay instagram stories are even more simple i usually don't
even have a checklist so really the card is just there to remind me that i need to post something
but also most of my stories are spontaneous because i feel like that's just kind of the
point of instagram stories it's a more casual way to share so having all these cards is all good and
fun but what is it is it just like a jumble of cards how do you organize these cards beatrice
so each card is assigned to a column and as i mentioned i have a column for each type
of content and then one column for behind the scenes reminders and stuff like that
i usually have the card sorted by due date so then i can look at this and be like okay these are the
next few newsletters coming up these are the next few videos coming up this is what i need to focus
on you don't have to have a due date assigned to a video which is nice because say you film
a video and you're not sure when you want to post it you don't have to pick a day but you can still
see it alongside the rest of your video cards personally i don't even use the column layout
that much so i mentioned that i use the calendar power up instead if i click up here it'll show me
all of my cards on the due date that they're assigned to having these color labels makes
it really easy to see what's what so aside from labeling the type of content that it is
i also have an orange label for stuff that's related to the book club which you should join
wink wink nudge nudge link is in the description and then dark blue first off related to my 21 days
to productive flow course which you can also check out wink wink nudge nudge and then aqua is for
sponsors so you can have multiple labels under the same color usually i do have the minimize because
i just want to see which video has a sponsor but if i do want to see who exactly the sponsor is
or if i happen to forget what the rest of the labels mean then i can just click to expand them
okay okay between so that's what your calendar looks like but how does the planning actually
happen the title said how i plan my content calendar and we feel kind of click-baited
do not worry that is the next section of the video so the key to the system actually working
is setting aside time to do that creative work of planning writing captions brainstorming ideas etc
etc and most of that work happens within my weekly vlog tasks so i have a card for this
process each weekend and it goes in the behind the scenes column so on saturday i will take a look
at the outlines for my next two newsletters i'll add any ideas oftentimes i end up almost writing
the entire newsletter in there so by the time monday rolls around i don't have very much to do
i'll glance over my calendar for the next month or two see what videos are coming up
i'll work on planning out in detail what the next week's calendar will look like so working
on captions coming up with new ideas making sure that everything is cohesive together it makes
sense i'll check off all the tasks that have been done do some brainstorming for content ideas based
on things i've been learning about or that have captured my interest lately or that people have
asked to see videos about i also use this time to plan out any photos that i might need to shoot
for upcoming posts so i have this card here that just kind of floats around the board it has two
checklists so photos that i need to shoot and then the photos that i plan on shooting the next time i
have a little photo taking session and anytime i finish one of these it gets hidden so that
the list doesn't get cluttered up again i am not a cute spontaneous photo person so i need a plan and
like i said at the beginning of the video having that plan doesn't necessarily squash my creativity
or anything like that it really only helps because with this list i can set aside a few hours of time
to take photos and just be purely creative and really think about the props that i'm using and
the lighting and the angles and whatever after that is just maintenance stuff so answering emails
updating my media kit checking up on statistics re-pinning stuff on pinterest and then any little
random things that i might think of i also will use that behind the scenes column for any little
reminder so i might write something like oh i need to send that week's video for approval by tuesday
or i need to film my week in the life video this week or on that day there is a holiday that i want
to create something about so yeah that is my whole system i hope i didn't make it sound too
complicated because it really isn't it has made blogging so much easier and so much more enjoyable
for me it's so important to be organized and have a cohesive online presence as a blogger or as a
business owner so trello helps me to figure out what i'm going to create and put out into the
internet and squarespace helps me bring it all together in one place and have this beautiful
professional looking front page for myself on the internet again there is a link in the description
to try out squarespace and you can use my code to get 10 off your first purchase of a website
or domain so please be sure to take advantage of that if you have a system for planning out
your content calendar let us know in the comments what it is because i'm really curious to see how
other people manage all of this mess that comes with blogging so thank you so much for watching
this video please be sure to like it and subscribe to my channel and i will see you next week bye