Business blogging: What is an editorial board and why do you need one?

If you have a business blog you probably know that it is crucial to publish posts on a regular basis and make sure the content is accurate. To achieve this, you need to have a bunch of authors (within your company and/or external consultants) who writes posts. You also need an organisation that supports and prioritise the blog. Additionally, it is crucial to have an editor and/or an editorial board.

What is an editorial board?

The editorial board is responsible for keeping the blog publishing going. The main task for the board is to ensure content production and that posts are relevant for defined personas — supporting business goals.

Board structure

The board should consist of an editor-in-chief and relevant representatives from the organisation. The board should meet on a regular basis, preferably every week and at a minimum once per month, depending on publishing frequency.

A typical agenda for the editorial board would be:

1. Analysis of recently published posts

Check what posts got the most views, were most shared, generated the most leads, etc. Analyse why. Learn and share with the organisation. The learnings will help you optimise coming posts and stimulate authors.

2. Review new drafts for future publishing

Check new drafts. Are they suitable for your personas? Are they written in the right tonality? Do they support your business goals?

3. Brainstorm ideas for future drafts and discuss ideas that have been generated in the organisation

You should try to focus your blog on about 5 relevant topics. Make sure you have a good balance of posts for different topics every month.

4. Plan the content creation 

This should be discussed within the board, however, the editor-in-chief will make the final decision on what is scheduled, produced and posted for the coming weeks. There are different tools for how to create a schedule. You can set up an Excel sheet with the publishing dates, blog titles, authors, etc. Or you can buy a publishing tool or perhaps your blog tool has a project calendar and schedule function that could be used.

The role of the editor-in-chief

The editor-in-chief needs to be working actively with the blog every day; not primarily to create all the content him/herself, but to edit, proofread and approve all posts before they are published.

The editor-in-chief should also be responsible for the publishing plan, gathering blog ideas from the organisation to be discussed within the board and coach the authors to find suitable topics to write about. He/she should also be a speaking partner in the writing process.

Legal aspects should also be kept in mind; regarding both copyright and fact checking. The editorial tasks can be done by one person, but they can also be shared to some extent by board members.

Without an editor-in-chief and/or an editorial board, it will be difficult to ensure the content of your business blog is aligned and supports your business values and goals. It is also hard to get the blog machine going without a dedicated group working on the lubrication.

Good luck with the blogging and get in touch if you want to learn more!