Create an editorial brief

Define the purpose and audience of a story

Carmen Villanueva avatar
Written by Carmen Villanueva
Updated over a week ago

When you have multiple people collaborating on content, it's essential to provide an editorial brief in order to get everyone on the same page about the goal of the story.

With StoryChief, you can write editorial briefs and assign writers directly through the platform, allowing for efficient collaboration.

Watch our Academy video πŸ“Ή on using the Content Calendar and Editorial Briefs for a step-by-step guide.

There are two ways of creating Editorial Briefs:

  1. Directly in the calendar: Plan your content and assign it to someone in your team with clear instructions.

  2. Create an editorial brief in the story editor.

πŸ’‘ Tip: You can even use our AI Power Mode to generate the brief for you and help you define the blog post audience, objectives, tone/voice, and key message. Here's an example of an AI-generated editorial brief.πŸ‘‡

Don't have a StoryChief account yet but want to try this magic for yourself? Try 7 days for free!


1. Through the Calendar

Step 1: Go to the Calendar

Step 2. In the calendar choose a deadline for your story. Then, click on Plan a Story.

Step 3. Give your Story a title, a due date, contributors, and a campaign, and add an SEO keyword. Then, click on add an Editorial brief, to give clear instructions to your writer.

Step 4. Fill in the editorial brief with clear instructions. You can remove the text and use your own structure, and you can give your story a word count. Add necessary files: add a video, embedded rich media, excel documents, a PDF, photos, etc.

Step 5. Click on Edit story and you'll be taken to the story editor. Or, the person you've invited to create your Story will get an email with a link that will bring them immediately to the Story editor.

Step 6. Then, once in the Story editor, the editorial brief will already be open with clear instructions for the writer.


2. Creating the brief in the story editor

Step 1. Start by crafting a new story and clicking on the 3 dot menu. Then choose "Editorial Brief".Β 

Step 2. Now you can start adding information. Outline the WHAT, WHO, WHY, and HOW of your story, or just remove the text and use your own structure. You can also change the default template if necessary.

Add necessary files, like photos, Excel documents, PDFs, etc. Give an estimated word count, and a deadline, and then click on "Save and Assign to a colleague".

Step 3. Your co-worker will now receive a notification in their mailbox. The editorial brief will be displayed when the story is opened.

If you want some valuable tips on how to write Editorial Briefs, just click here.


πŸ“š Next steps

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