Whenever I look at the stats to see how CMI’s content is performing (which I do more often than I like to admit), one conclusion is always clear: You LOVE templates. We published template roundups in and , which consistently receive a lot of traffic, even years later.
As I was reviewing the templates we have, I realized they fall into three categories: editorial planning, social media, and influencer marketing. If you are someone who loves Excel (and we know from our #CMWorld Twitter chats that many of you do), then this list is for you.
And, if you have a template you want to share with CMI, please let me know.
Social media planning
James Prideaux offers a content review template to document any analysis extracted from listening and analyzing the activity on your social networks.
There is a lot of potential value in participating in LinkedIn Groups – if you take the spam-free approach outlined by Joshua Rodriguez – but it can be super time-consuming as well. Here is his template to help you organize a system for your team.
If you are considering adding Twitter chats to your plan in 2015, this template from Cathy McPhillips will help.
Editorial planning
One of the first posts we published after CMI launched was our editorial calendar. That post has been viewed almost 200,000 times. And, fortunately, Jodi Harris provided an updated look and template for your editorial calendar needs that includes the best advice we have gathered since that original post.
Carla Johnson shares a different kind of template for editorial planning. This one helps you tell your brand story consistently with each piece of content you create.
As we often say, it’s critical to know your overarching goals for content marketing. Are you trying to drive subscriptions, sales? This simple template from CMI helps you track and present the metrics that have the most impact on your business.
While understanding high-level KPIs is important, tracking this information does not provide the insight to understand what content is contributing to your success. To understand what is working – and what isn’t – this spreadsheet is a great starting point for tracking all your content against the specific metrics identified as critical for your program.
Influencer marketing
Blogger assessment template
When brainstorming your list of possible influencers, consider building a template to help track the top people with whom you’d like to work. It’s likely you already have some kind of list, but having a consistent way to keep track and assess those influencers is an important place to start.
Template to assess possible influencer marketing vendors
If you’re performing a vendor analysis to identify the right company with which to work, consider a variation of this template. Whether you have a formal RFP process or are informally assessing vendors, a spreadsheet similar to your influencer management tracking will help you stay on target with your objectives. (Otherwise, all those shiny bells and whistles can get a bit distracting, and potentially could take you off target.)
Template to track success of influencer marketing program
Of course, you need to measure the impact of your influencer marketing program. Consider building a dashboard for your influencer marketing program (it doesn’t have to be too fancy; even Excel will work).
If you like templates, you may also like checklists. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post for the best checklists, scorecards, and worksheets shared by our CMI contributors.
Looking to score big points with your target audience? CMI’s 2016 Content Marketing Playbook has tips, insights, and ideas that can help increase your success with 24 of the top content marketing tactics.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
Author: Michele Linn
Michele Linn is the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Mantis Research, a consultancy focused on helping brands create and amplify original research they can use in their marketing. Before starting Mantis, Michele was head of editorial at Content Marketing Institute, where she led the company\’s strategic editorial direction, co-developed its annual research studies, wrote hundreds of articles, spoke at industry events and was instrumental in building the platform to 200,000 subscribers. In 2015, she was named one of Folio\’s Top Women in Media (Corporate Visionary). You can follow her on Twitter at @michelelinn.
This content was originally published here.