It took months, but senior management bought in. You’ve been given the budget and authority to head your brand’s social media marketing program.  Yes!

You’ve claimed the domains. You’ve designed the templates. You’ve written the policies. You’re training the employees when annoying Bob from accounting (you never liked him anyway) raises his hand with a question. Cue the record scratch.

“What are we going to actually post?” Bob asks in that nasally tone.

With that simple question, those fluttering Twitter, Facebook and RSS icons encircling your head fall harmlessly to the floor.

Content generation is the tornado that forces most social media marketers off of the road of good intentions into the ditch. Fortunately, there is a tool to stop Bob dead in his tracks and ensure your social media plan doesn’t find itself discarded in the pile of “seemed like good ideas.”

The editorial calendar.

At the recent Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) Summit, Patty Radford Henderson delivered a tremendous presentation on constructing an editorial calendar, available on Slideshare, called Constant Content: Creating an Editorial Plan That’s Relevant, Timely and Integrated.

According to Henderson, the goal of an editorial calendar is “to facilitate the constant delivery of fresh content that engages and builds relationships with your prospects, ultimately driving sales.”

In other words, it’s your strategy for what your brand will say, to whom and where your brand will say it, and why your brand is opening its yap in the first place.

In even plainer English, an editorial calendar is a document that details what post you’re going to make on Twitter, on what day, and why you’re doing it.

There are three steps to making an editorial calendar, Henderson reports. No, setting up and decking out a Facebook page is not one of them. Neither is copying offline coupons or brochures in preparation for a full frontal spamming assault.

1. Keyword Research

According to eMarketer, search engines remain the overwhelmingly dominant tool people use to begin purchase decisions online.  Rather than relying on preconceived notions, keyword research can help you learn and understand what topics your consumers are really interested in.

Keyword research is an art unto itself, but if you want a basic starting point, use the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool. You’ll be rewarded with approximations for how frequently users are searching for terms relevant to your business.

The key when researching is to do it by month. Don’t be lazy. Why? Keyword search can vary by month. Check out the chart from Google Trends illustrating U.S. search volume for “tax preparation.”

Contrast this to searches for “tax penalty,” which peaks a few months later.

Conversely, “tax attorney” has strong interest year-round.

Use this research to determine when is the appropriate time on the editorial calendar to discuss the topics your prospects are interested in.

2. Social Media Audit

So you’ve nailed down what you’re going to say and when you’ll say it. Knowing that, where will you post it?

The real beauty of social media is how content can be repurposed and syndicated throughout a variety of mediums. But that doesn’t mean all formats are the same! Twitter users, Facebook users and blog readers have very different expectations regarding media consumption in their respective habitats.

Henderson recommends performing a social media audit. Once you’ve discovered the most popular keywords regarding your products and services, you need to figure the exact context in which those keywords are arising in conversations.

What are you looking for exactly? Consider the following chart from eMarketer:

Why does this matter? These are some of the more common reasons consumers will flock to social media channels to engage with brands. Your research may uncover that consumers are looking for coupons via Twitter, reading blogs for news and looking for free content from Facebook.

Understanding your prospects’ expectations throughout different social media platforms is paramount in creating an editorial calendar that resonates with your target audience. Henderson used the following chart in her presentation to illustrate how frequently fishing topics were discussed throughout different networks.

3. Put It All Together

So you know what people want to talk about and where they want to have the conversation. Now is the time for strategic execution.

The key word, of course, is “strategic.” Just because consumers want to talk religion and politics doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. When formulating your editorial calendar, you must never lose sight of your business objectives and marketing strategy.

As Henderson stated in her presentation, consumers exist at both ends of the swimming pool. At the shallow end of the pool, consumers may require courtship through differentiation from competing brands. Conversely, consumers at the deep end have a thorough knowledge of your brand and can be engaged in greater depth.

As the following chart illustrates, to achieve business goals, your editorial calendar must understand the consumer’s path to purchase. What needs do they require before reaching the next step in the process? What role does editorial content play in facilitating the journey?

Take inventory of your existing assets. Do you have promotions that can encourage trial use? Do you have brochures that detail your brand’s exclusive, differentiating process? Do you have someone on staff who flat-out knows more about your industry and can just plain sell the category?

Once it’s all pulled together, as taken from Henderson’s presentation, the final product may look like this: (Names have been blocked to protect the innocent.)

Of course, the format, content and level of detail will vary based on your industry, scope, resources, and a host of other factors. Regardless of whether your brand is a Fortune 500 or small mom-and-pop, if you’re looking to employ social media as a marketing channel, the editorial calendar is an indispensable tool in ensuring that your social content is on-target, effective and relevant.

@NeilAndrewJames