Jumpstart you Digital Content
Part I: Setting a strategy. Creating a roadmap for content to produce.
It’s the time of year for resolutions….
Do you have plans for producing content or starting or scaling your audience online that you didn’t make as much headway on in 2018 as you had hoped?
The new year means a new opportunity to start fresh. Begin a new project. Set new goals. Find a new framework to help achieve those goals. To actually hold yourself accountable to the ambitious goals you set.
In a multi-part series, I’ll talk through some of the key steps you can walk through to set yourself up for success in your digital marketing efforts. The discussion centers around content production — setting up a comprehensive strategy and execution plan — after all, “content is king.”
Who’s this for? Anyone who has is invested in creating top-quality content to get exponentially more exposure online.
There are specific action items in each section, designed to help you apply the ideas to your own needs.
Part I: Take a deep breath. Plan for the year.
Are you self-conscious? Has that prevented you from posting in the past?
Worries of being boring or un-memorable, self-consciousness, fear that no one is interested in you … those are natural. But are they preventing you from taking action? Are you sabotaging yourself before you start?
Instead of focusing on yourself and your own fears, how about you take a step back. Focus on your audience what you offer that’s of interest and value to them.
You are unique. Focusing speaking to the audience directly, addressing their hopes, dreams, or pain points, gives you all that you need to stand out.
Action item: list three ways you (or your brand) are unique.
To develop: What do you do that no one else does? What problem are you solving for your target audience? What are the key kinds of connections you plan to make with that audience? (educate, inspire, inform, evoke a sense of glamor etc). What is most exciting or empowering?
Now, what is your specific plan for the year?
What are its core components, and why? What does success look like at the end of the year? You’re going to need all of the confidence and motivation you can muster — and you’ll need the vision you’re working towards is a big part of that.
Action item: Write out your goal for the year in a few sentences, and be sure to describe what success looks like at the end of the year.
Now, what is your capacity for success?
Ideas and planning are necessary, but not sufficient, for bringing about change. You’ll want to flesh out the strengths and weaknesses you’re bringing to the project.
In the past, I’ve done a standard SWOT analysis for new projects. Going through this analysis, I tend to think through the SWOT questions along the lines of:
- Strengths— how skills and/or specific past experiences relate to the new project
- Weaknesses — gaps in experience, knowledge, or skills, this project is different in kind to what I’ve done in the past
- Opportunities — advantages/possibilities in the new project, for my own learning and growth as well as the potential for value creation for the project’s audience
- Threats — what could undermine my efforts? What the biggest risk? What factor(s) are most likely to prevent you from reaching your goal?
Action item: Write out a simple SWOT analysis. List the three things you’ve done in the past that are most similar to this goal — and how this project is different (for instance, maybe you’ve created one piece of content, now you want to make 10X more, so it’s a question of replication. Or you’ve done blogging but want to expand to doing LIVE videos on the same topics). How will you compensate for your weaknesses? Work to reduce the key risks?
These steps focus on strategy and planning. Subsequent steps — to be described in subsequent posts — are where the rubber really meets the road. A strategy is important, but the implementation is everything. So stay tuned!
I’ll continue to update this post as more parts in the series become available.
