Have you started planning for 2013?

 

Earlier this week, I wrote to you I was talking about planning for 2013. You may have felt overwhelmed, or perhaps you don’t understand the importance of doing the planning. I want to share with you that I have taken some time to begin my planning for the new year, and it is a very rewarding.

Once you begin the process and break down your tasks it might actually relieve some of the tension for you.

When I started my planning I decided to start with my blog posts, and the topics that I wanted to cover during the year. Once I managed to organize that, I thought it would be helpful for you if I shared my process with you.

1. Take out a piece of paper and write each month with two spaces underneath
2. Take a second piece of paper and  start writing out topics that you would like to cover.
   1. Leave five spaces under each topic
3. Under each topic how many sub topics can you think of?
   1. Begin writing the sub topics below each topic

Hopefully you have 12 topics with approximately 4 subtopics. Depending on your choices, you may decide to make 1 post per week dedicated to a funny, or inspiring topic, if that is the case you will only need approximately 4 sub topics.

For 2 blog posts per week you will need 104 different posts. That may seem like a lot of posts when you look at the whole number, but by using the above model you can break it up into smaller chunks and it becomes less daunting.

By using this model you will have enough leeway so that you can replace one of your posts with something that is related to a current event or an upcoming special.

Even if you don’t have all of your sub topics yet, make sure all 12 of your topics are figured out for this next phase. Take a piece of paper for each month and write the month’s name and the topic on the top of the page. Now you will write the dates that you are posting along the left hand margin. For example I write on Mondays and Thursdays so my margin for January has 3,7,10,14,17,21,24,28,31. Now next to each of those days you can have the name or idea of the post required.

Under that section of the page you now have room to write in the types of goals you have decided on to accomplish that month as well as any products that you are going to launch, or conferences that you are planning to attend. now you will have your monthly plan all on one sheet.

I also talked to you about taking a look at your vendors, make sure there are no duplications in what they have to offer, and make sure that you are using everything that you are paying for.

For me it can be difficult to concentrate on writing great content for you if I am unclear on what I want to share with you. There are an exponential amount of topics and ideas that I can cover and sometimes it is overwhelming, so having a plan makes it much easier to write these posts.

You can now take this information and create a social media campaign that will compliment your blogging. You will want to make sure that you incorporate pictures and content that will engage your followers. By including multiple types of content it will keep your followers interested, and give them something to look forward to.

Since we are on the topic of social media, make sure that you plan to update your social media channels multiple times per day and the other thing you will want to do, is create your posts according to the platform that you are posting on. For example, your post on Facebook should never contain hashtags from Twitter, and your Twitter posts should not be longer than 140 characters. So if you are cross posting make sure it is appropriate for all of the platforms that are receiving your post.