Finding the right system for content creation projects is not that easy, especially if the project is written in more than one language. I run a blog about wellness and fermentation in 2 languages. The process has many steps. From the initial idea, keyword research, writing, translating to social media posting in both languages and more.
"You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
If you want better results, forget about setting goals, focus on systems instead"
James Clear, Atomic Habits
As a system lover, James Clear’s words really resonated with me. Personally, a good system should have steps that are clear in an easy to follow manner. Otherwise it defeats its purpose.
I have tried many tools, such as Asana, Trello, Airtable, Google Docs/Sheets, etc. But I have found that I needed to somehow combine some of them in order to form an ideal system for me. I find it very distracting to switch from one application to another.
A blink of an eye
For me it is important to have a good mix of media and content, as well as to have a good overview of the whole process in a blink of an eye.
Another important thing was to find a way to collaborate with other members of your team such as editors, translators, etc. Even if you don’t have a team, knowing which part of the process each item is can be really helpful and you will be mindful of your content ideas.
I have finally found the perfect tool for my blog content creation system: Notion. I’ve been following Notion wizards for some time and I have been using this tool for small projects. At first I only created very simple pages. The more I learned about the powerful database relations and how visual and engaging it is, I realised that it was the perfect solution for me and started creating my own templates.
The more visual the process, the more creative it is
Notion is a system that is visual, but at the same time it is a database that can be created in a way to suit your project needs. The databases can be shown in many different ways, from boards, calendar view to gallery (similar to instagram). You can also have a simple list of items such as a regular database. I personally feel the more visual the process is, the less boring and the more creative it feels.
As with databases, you can sort the information in different ways. In my template, I can sort by language, date, members assigned, or by any other property created. Actually, it is up to you to decide what you want to add and how you want it to be displayed.
In the video you can see a board view and a calendar view of the same database. Each item of the database can be a single page. I created a template page that contains prompts related to SEO and social media. From keywords, hashtags, research, internal/external links, embedded documents, media files, description metadata and to the content itself. This way I won’t forget anything because everything is in one place.
Dashboards, databases, galleries, pages, all in one application
To complement my process, I created a dashboard for each language, where the content schedule is displayed, as well as a second database with snapshots of anything related to the performance of the website and the social media accounts. From the social media insights to any other analytics report in order to see the trends of each specific website.
As you can tell, I really love making use of this application, and if you were wondering, I am in no way associated with them. I have just recently started creating a learning hub where I can keep my resources and to keep tab of what I am learning in a way that is easily accessible so that I can share it with my awesome team and we can learn together.
I see so many possibilities using this application, not only for me, but for my clients as well. I can now offer them a new way to visualise the information I share with them, from documents, tables, links to inspirational landing pages screenshots and the best part, I only need to share one link!
If you are interested in this content calendar template in Notion, I am happy to share it to you, just send me an email.
