This Content Creation and Calendar Airtable base is the one repository to rule them all!
Here are the tables you’ll be working with in this base ::
- CONTENT CREATION :: This where you’ll house the content that you’re actively working on.
- CONTENT LIBRARY :: This is everything you’ve already published.
- AS FEATURING IN :: This is where you’ve been published by other.
- OFFERS :: This is where you’ll document both your paid offers and your freebies.
We’ll tie all of these in together but for now, you can see how all of your content creation will happen under one roof. However, content creation doesn’t actually start with content; it starts with the reason for which you’re creating that content.
YOUR MESSAGING
The reason you create content is to promote your specific and unique message. Cool beans! But let’s get clear about what all that messaging is so that all of your content creation follows suit, shall we?
The first table is dedicated to your message and defining what I’ve identified in this Airtable base as YOUR PHILOSOPHY. Every great brand has some messaging, philosophies, beliefs that they promote – usually about two to five of them.I want you to go ahead and list whatever it is that your message – that your brand – is trying to communicate. What kind of beliefs and philosophies keep it such that you are on-brand? Once you have that covered, you can go ahead and build out your philosophy here.
If you want more information on how to build brand stories and connecting with customers through the way you communicate, Building a StoryBrand is a book that has been hands down one of my personal favorites. It definitely delivers when it comes to speaking about your business and who you are and what you do. Highly recommend!
All of the other tables – your content creation, your content library, where you’ve been featured as well as your paid and free offers – are linked to this table. Why? Because it allows you to have a big picture view of how the content you’re creating directly relates to the messages you’re trying to promote. For instance, it answers questions like ::
- What message does the content I’ve created and I’m working on reinforce?
- Is there one message that is being promoted more than another?
- How are my offers relating to the beliefs I’m publishing?
- Am I giving more attention to one message over another?
- Am I creating enough content and making the right offers to support my brand’s philosophy?
Your Messaging table is designed to keep you honest and accountable for what you are investing your time in to publish. Let’s move onto the actual content creation, then, shall we?
YOUR CONTENT CREATION
Let’s say we have a genius idea (because genius ideas are what you do best!) By establishing a CONTENT CREATION table within your Airtable base, you can ::
- Give your brilliant ideas a place to live
- Keep your genius organized by defining what type of content this would generate (i.e. blog post, YouTube video, newsletter content, podcast episode, free resource, etc.)
- Identifying how it reinforces your brand’s beliefs… or quickly being able to decide that it doesn’t and you won’t waste another moment on content that doesn’t actually matter to your business messaging
- Seeing exactly how this idea relates to your offers. After all, an idea isn’t aligned to collect on contact information or generate sales isn’t worth pursuing.
Airtable allows you to link all of your tables to see how they relate to one another. This provides you with the superpower of quickly and easily being able to identify what content is worth your while to create.It doesn’t matter how great your content is if it isn’t building your business or getting your paid. Furthermore, you won’t have the foundations to build a strong business present if you aren’t consistently on-brand with the messages you’re promoting. This Airtable base keeps you accountable to all three.
Once you move your content from being an IDEA to being something you’re working on, you can separate that as being a WORK-IN-PROGRESS (or WIP).
When an idea turns into a work-in-progress, you may want to start fleshing it out. For instance, if you work with a team, you’ll identify who the COLLABORATORS are. You can establish PUBLICATION DATES. You can create a sort of workflow for the editorial phase and the graphics. You can track once a piece of content has been scheduled or where it is stored. However it is you work to create content, it will all be tracked in your CONTENT CREATION table.
What separates Airtable from other project management tools is how customizable it is to view your information. Let’s say you want to view your content creation GROUPED BY CONTENT TYPE. Not only can you do that but you can add and save that view for your convenience.
Once your content has been created, then what?
YOUR CONTENT LIBRARY
I’ve created my CONTENT LIBRARY table to have the first few fields set up the same way as I have them in the CONTENT CREATION table. The reason for this is that once I’ve published or broadcast my content, I want it to be easy to copy-and-paste into my library. All I have to do is add the URL as to where that content now lives happily ever after.
This makes it stupid-simple for me to keep my library updated. Why bother? There are a number of reasons you’d want to keep a content library to refer to, including ::
- Being able to quickly copy-and-paste a link when you need to promote or refer someone to a specific piece of content;
- Having an inventory of content you can easily recycle or expand on for your next product launch;
- Identifying if you need to diversify the way you’re promoting a specific message or offer;
- Knowing WTF it is you’re saying, you’ve said and owning your position as the visionary boss who sees everything she needs to see to make the right decisions.
Transfer your information from the CONTENT CREATION table to your CONTENT LIBRARY. Then, you can delete the record from creation to maintain that table exclusively for creation purposes.
Remember that views are your friend and you should use them to see your status as you see (get it?! SEE?!) fit. Prefer to a see each entry as its own card? Check out the GALLERY view. Want to list stacks based on the content type? Try the KANBAN view on for size. Want to see when everything is supposed to go out? You have a CALENDAR view for that.
YOUR OFFERS
Much like your CONTENT LIBRARY, your OFFERS table puts everything at your fingertips. Lord knows nothing makes me feel more like a waste of time than searching for a link to promote a specific offer, amirite?
You have an easy referral systems here for your opt-in links, your sales pages, your pop-up forms, your images, direct links to resources – basically everything that relates to finding, promoting + publishing that offer will be stored here. For your paid offers, you’ll include details about costs or rates of service, how many are available, when they become available, details about payment schedules and things of that nature.
Of course, your offers are content, too – whether they are free or paid resources, whether they serve to get you paid or grow your list. But you see how this web all ties right back into that first table. So that’s your content creation and calendar Airtable base.