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Source: Editorial calendar

An editorial calendar, or publishing schedule, is used by bloggers, publishers, businesses, and groups to control publication of content across different media, for example, newspaper, magazine, blog, email newsletters, and social media outlets.
Publishers also extract some of their editorial calendar data and make the data publicly available to attract advertisers. Public relations professionals also use these abbreviated editorial calendars to try to place stories for their clients. However, the primary purpose of editorial calendars is to control the publication of content to ensure regular appearance of content that interests readers and advertisers.
Traditional print publishers have used editorial calendars in some form for centuries to manage the publication of books, magazines, and newspapers. The internet has dramatically increased the number of publishers, who also need to organize content and ensure content is published at regular intervals.
Editorial calendars are used to define and control the process of creating content, from idea through writing and publication. An individual or small business might have this publishing process:

Brainstorm content ideas to publish, where to publish, and when to publish
Write each piece of content based on the publication schedule
Edit each piece of content
Publish each piece of content
A larger group might have this publishing process:

Brainstorm content ideas to publish, where to publish, and when to publish; include backup content items for each piece of content; include dates to determine whether to delay or kill each content item (for example, if a writer becomes ill or an interview subject is unavailable)
Assign each piece of content based on the publication schedule
Write each piece of content
Review the first draft of each piece of content
Give "go" or "no go" decision based on first draft edit and other criteria (then adjust the publishing schedule as needed)
If you go, finish writing each piece of content and submit draft content to the layout team, so they can plan their work
Perform final edit, copy edit, fact checking, and rewrites as needed
Submit piece of content for review by legal team
Make changes if or as needed based on legal input
Submit piece of content formally to layout team for their creation of artwork to be included with the published content
Post content on a development or test server and make final changes if needed
Publish content on the production server or other media
Whether the publishing process is simple or complex, the movement is forward and iterative. Publishers encounter and cross a number of hurdles before a piece of content appears in print, on a website or blog, or in a social media outlet like Twitter or Facebook.
The details included and tracked in an editorial calendar depend upon the steps involved in publishing content for a publication, as well as what is useful to track. Too little or too much data make editorial calendars difficult to maintain and use. Some amount of tweaking of editorial calendar elements, while using the calendar to publish content, is required before they can be truly useful.