Communication Is The Key To A Successful Editorial Calendar

This week, we have been going through applications for our CoPilots program. This program seeks to find some of the best examples of a team publishing workflow, and incorporate them into the process of building CoSchedule. Do you you know what we learned?

Editorial teams are diverse. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Sure, many teams share a common set of goals and steps required to publish a blog post, but no one does it exactly the same way. And we think that's ok.

There's No I In Team, Or Calendar

One thing that is clear, however, is that content publishing is a team sport. Most editorial teams are made up of three or more people with some being half a world away from each other. And, more often than not, they are reliant on tools and software to help them communicate. A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about the rules for building momentum. I have been thinking a lot about momentum lately as we are making a big push to launch CoSchedule in the next couple of months. Rule number six on my list was "conversations unlock direction." It was a rule that emphasized the value of continuous communication, and embraced it as an essential part of building momentum. This same rule applies to editorial teams. Teams work best when they communicate. It doesn't need to be anything special or fancy, just good old-fashioned communication.

The Communication Nightmare

Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares is one of my favorite shows. While the show itself is entertaining, the lessons that he teaches are meaningful and practical for nearly every type of business. More often than not, Gordon finds that a chef and a team that can't communicate is behind almost every nightmare. A team that won't communicate won't work. It turns into a nightmare. As Gordon unlocks the team's strongholds on communication, things improve. Communication brings realization. It also brings results.

Focus On Communication

Businesses are always in need of "key objectives" and goals to help make them better at what they do. They need something to be working for. As Jim Collins taught us in his book Good To Great, the teams that constantly change objectives often perform the worst. So, with that in mind, what would happen if your content writing team only focused on one key objective? What if that objective was communicating more, and better?

• Would your writing improve?
• Would the quality of your content improve?
• Would your publishing consistency improve?
• Would your engagement skyrocket?

I am willing to guarantee that all of these things would improve simultaneously. A few months ago our writing team began a process that we call peer review. This process simply required two people in the office to review and critique a blog post before it was finalized. The positive results were immediate and undeniable. Our posts get more traffic, more comments, more shares, and more appreciation because of our peer review efforts. Our writers have also grown more than ever in the quality of work that they are able to produce. When writing as a team, communication is the key objective, but what would happen if it was also the catalyst for reaching that objective? After all, teams can’t work together if they don’t talk together. So, how can you improve your team's communication? We believe that CoSchedule will help improve this, but it won't be the only piece of the puzzle. CoSchedule will work best for teams that are already communicating regularly and that currently have a habit of communication. We'll release a great tool that will help grease the wheels of communication, but only if you promise to start improving your team's communication right now. What have you done to improve the communication of your writing team? How has it helped?