{"id":263041,"date":"2025-05-29T22:26:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T22:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/marketing\/how-to-curate-a-timely-content-marketing-calendar\/"},"modified":"2025-05-29T22:26:42","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T22:26:42","slug":"how-to-curate-a-timely-content-marketing-calendar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=263041","title":{"rendered":"How To Curate A Timely Content Marketing Calendar"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Remember when every brand seemed to be having a \u201cbrat summer<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m being a little facetious \u2014 I enjoyed the chartreuse memes and apple dances as much as anyone. But in recent years, the concept of timeliness in a content marketing calendar<\/a> has become less about utility and more about jumping on trends for the sake of relevancy.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong: there\u2019s a time and place for incorporating memes and internet discourse into your content strategy. Staying \u201cwith it\u201d is important. But timely content doesn\u2019t need to (and, in my opinion, shouldn\u2019t) pander. Building timeliness into your content strategy also doesn\u2019t require spending endless hours scrolling through social media just to make sure you don\u2019t miss what the kids are talking about. With enough forethought and intention, you can easily put together a content marketing calendar that makes space for timeliness without adding more onto your already-full plate.<\/p>\n

Plan around your industry-specific seasonality<\/h2>\n

While timeliness does not necessarily mean jumping on every and all conversation happening around the internet, it also does not necessarily mean bland acknowledgments of public holidays. Timely content should exist for a clear reason; sharing a social media post<\/a> wishing your clients a happy and restful Labor Day is a nice gesture, but it\u2019s not what I\u2019m talking about here.<\/p>\n

Seasonality, in regards to content marketing strategy, means aligning your content with what your audience is naturally thinking about. Below is a great example from Becker<\/a>, a professional education organization with a core audience segment of CPAs and aspiring CPAs. By providing specific tips for accountants looking to manage the exhausting workload of tax season, they\u2019re further positioning themselves as an expert resource for professional development while seamlessly directing readers to their larger library of resources.<\/p>\n

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And the best part? Tax season happens literally every year. (And don\u2019t we all know it.) Not only is this seasonal milestone easy to anticipate, but Becker doesn\u2019t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel with their content every fall.<\/p>\n

When it comes to your own seasonal content, anticipating industry-specific seasonalities means you\u2019re also not reinventing anything with your own marketing content calendar. You can even use these moments as an opportunity to refresh existing content. Let\u2019s use a tax season example while we\u2019re on the topic: since tax brackets, contribution limits, filing dates, etc., change every year, updating this information in your company\u2019s existing tax resources every year is a straightforward way to keep your content marketing timely and relevant. You want to be there for your audience whenever you can anticipate a larger demand for information.<\/p>\n

Yes, stay on top of trending topics<\/h2>\n

Please don\u2019t interpret my downplaying of meme utilization in your brand strategy as encouraging you to avoid social media trends altogether. I think every content strategist should be aware of emerging trends<\/a>\u00a0within their industry,<\/em>\u00a0but that doesn\u2019t mean being on top\u00a0of every <\/em>trend out there.<\/p>\n

Take skincare, for example: remember when every other TikTok on your feed was a young woman sharing her slugging routine? (Just me?) This was a great opportunity for dermatologists, skincare brands, and health experts to weigh in on this \u201cnew\u201d trend. Not because they were hopping on the bandwagon of something everyone online was discussing, but because this topic was actually relevant <\/em>to their business.<\/p>\n

Below is an example of how heritage skincare brand CeraVe did just that<\/a>. Not only were they able to add their expertise to the slugging conversation, they were able to use it as an opportunity to organically highlight one of their core product offerings.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

But, of course, how do you stay ahead of the discourse in your industry in an oversaturated online community? Delegating social media research to a team member can be a worthwhile move, but that doesn\u2019t mean they need to spend half their workdays scrolling. Social listening tools like Hootsuite<\/a> and Brandwatch<\/a> and trend reports from Google Trends<\/a> can easily cut down the time spent researching social trends. I also recommend subscribing to industry-specific channels and newsletters; as a freelance writer, I am deeply tuned into Freelancing With Tim<\/a>, a Substack run by a former New York Times <\/em>editor. And, of course, there is also good old-fashioned checking in on the competition. The more you understand your competitor\u2019s strategy, the better you can curate your own.<\/p>\n

Build a flexible content marketing calendar template<\/h2>\n

As I mentioned earlier, putting together your content calendar for digital marketing does not have to be the daunting task it sounds like. You\u2019ll want to start by outlining the cornerstone events or seasonal themes that you can anticipate ahead of time, which you can plan bigger-lift content around (things like white papers with industry research<\/a> or larger newsletter campaigns). Then, you\u2019ll want to leave placeholders for more timely content \u2014 social media<\/a> videos or blog posts that allow you to jump on trending topics, because they ideally don\u2019t need as much lead time. It\u2019s also always a good idea to have a backlog of evergreen content ready to post (or be updated<\/a>) at any moment.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example content marketing calendar template that a travel agency might use to help get ahead of timely content for the year ahead:<\/p>\n