CONTENT STRATEGY SALON Q&A

After our recent salon on content strategy, there were some questions that were left to be answered. We decided to share some of those questions, which come from our Q&A session at the salon.  

Question: How do I best maintain a pipeline of content?

• Form a content committee, but name it something all others can relate to.  Content is a buzzword that is really only understandable and meaningful to those of us in marcomm.  Choose a universally understood name for your committee that everyone can get excited about: “Knowledge Sharing Task Force” or “Thought Leaders Forum” may be good options.  Get creative but keep the title weighty.

• To ensure efforts remain focused and deliverables happen, a qualified leader should be in place. This person should have collaboration and writing skills.

• Be realistic about internal resources. Evaluate external sources like agencies, freelancers, outside thought leaders.

• Start with a solid strategy. Keep your strategic filter front and center during the meetings, so that participants can see the message matrix and provide ideas that support proposed topics you’ve identified in advance.

• Emphasize the importance of the group – let participants know they’ll be the collective voice of the institution.  Share the goal, which is ultimately to drive business by maintaining a valuable, external dialogue with communities important to the success of the company.

• Get executive team members involved in selecting people to invite to the group, which will elevate the importance of the initiative.

• Illustrate the content route – by whiteboarding or with an infographic.  Show how content flows through channels, finds users in the format that speaks best to them, is engaged with and shared, and how you measure a piece of content’s effectiveness in supporting the objectives.  The content light bulb should shine brightly over every participant’s head, and they’ll be more likely to try out your content strategy by feeding it with information.

• Give context around content needs, by highlighting your personas in detail with participants.  Keep a prototype poster or stand-up cut-out of your persona in the room, so that you can continually reference it with a nudge for participants to always screen ideas through the persona filter:  “Will Howard be interested in this information?  Will he find it valuable in his decision-making?  Will he find it compelling enough to engage with?”

• Bring back feedback.  Highlight how certain content generated engagement, a conversation “gap” opportunity to speak to, or a competitor’s published point of view that may beg for a counterpoint.  People in your group will participate more enthusiastically if they see how their contributions are faring out in the open.

• Ask members to bring external “artifacts” to meetings.  What are competitors up to?  Was there a recent good review from a customer?  What did a salesperson overhear from visitors to the recent trade show booth?  External soundbites help the group stay current on what people are talking about, which will help inform how and where to jump in with a valuable bit of content.

• Underscore with your group that they need not be good writers.  After all, their content ideas (if they make it to the final round) will likely be written by someone in your department; so it’s okay for them to bring an idea that they can be interviewed about, for the final piece of content.

• Let them know how they can amplify content to publish to their own networks, or share via a speech or media interview.

Got another question about content strategy?  Comment below or send it to us @gagegroup, and we’ll answer it.