More content, better content
Changes are coming to think tank digital content — video, audio, social channels, data vis, blog posts and, yes, even reports. Changes in structure and format. Changes in production processes and commissioning. Changes in timing. Changes that respond to what users are really talking about. Changes in volume and frequency.
Four years ago I published an On Think Tanks post called ‘A Permanent Revolution in Think Tank Communications’.
In it, I characterised think tank comms as an ongoing journey towards greater professionalism, driven by the digital revolution. I singled out four elements as the next steps in the revolution: getting to grips with branding; understanding audiences; focussing on work that serves those audiences; and organising that work into campaigns.
But I also suggested that digital content production was a solved problem. That we knew what we needed to do and we just needed to get on and do it. Here’s what I said:
Digital first has unstoppable momentum and — while we still have a long way to go before we are actually producing content in this way as standard — there is a fairly good consensus on what the content will look like when we get there.
Yeah … the thing is … I might have been wrong about that.
Content and change
The truth is that high quality, prolific content and its production can transform an organisation.
Look around you: leading think tanks are turning into publishers of timely, relevant, evidence-based content on the issues where they have expertise. They are becoming media organisations with the in-house capability to produce knowledge and expertise.
Their influence and impact are determined less by their programme of research per se and more by the ways in which expertise and knowledge gained from that research can be brought to bear in debates across digital and traditional media channels and leveraged to set the political agenda.
Take a look at the social feeds of Chatham House, Brookings, the Council on Foreign Relations — you’ll see what I mean. And the World Economic Forum is explicit about the change. In a 2020 article WEF’s digital content head Mark Jones said this:
If you look at NGOs and international organisations … there tends to be an assumption that you can just write about yourselves, and people will want to read about it and share it … The WEF team asked themselves, why couldn’t the WEF platform become the most interesting things that are going on around the topics that we all hold dearest to our hearts?
Stop creating content that is about what your think tank is doing.
Start creating content, at volume, that advances the debates where you have expertise, that responds to what your audiences are talking about, where they are talking about it. Content that is engaging and helpful. Take a risk on publishing content that does not conform to your party line but pushes the discourse forward.
More content, better content, useful content.
The means of think tank content production
The key to any good revolution is to seize control of the means of production. So what is the means of production for think tank content?
Well that would be … errm … researchers, for the most part.
Sadly, as professionals, we cannot seize control of researchers. But we can certainly have influence and we can certainly revolutionise the modes of production — the way we organise, distribute and present think tank content.
And we need to do this in a way that empowers researchers not restricts them. The publishing platform Medium recently changed their editorial strategy away from building magazine style publications and towards finding and supporting independent writers. They said:
‘Trust is more important than ever and well-established editorial brands still have meaning. But today, credibility and affinity are primarily built by people — individual voices — rather than brands’.
Think tanks can be a platform for individual researchers to grow their personal brands. Find your ‘star’ people and build them up.
In addition, we can use the following five principles to shape how we work with researchers and define the tools and processes we use to create content.
1. Content should be strategic
A good brand strategy will define your positioning — your areas of expertise and those issues over which you seek to have ownership. Campaign strategy will define how that narrative unfolds across particular issues, programmes or projects.
Your content, whether it is responding to the news agenda or has been planned in advance, needs to reinforce both.
Know what the purpose and positioning of your think tank is. Know what the key messages around your issues are. Make sure you hit those points in your content until you are sick of listening to yourself.
Then do it some more.
2. Content should be ubiquitous and prolific
Every piece of content should serve a purpose and be linked to your comms objectives. Quality is key, but so is quantity — or, at least, regularity.
A drumbeat of constant content and a regular publishing schedule will build a loyal readership. Get your star researcher to write to a regular blog post each Monday. Get your director to send a personal email round-up each Friday. Publish a podcast reviewing news on your top issues every Thursday. You get the idea.
Oh, and while you’re at it, do you really need a report? Could it be a series of interlinked blog posts instead?
Put your content in more channels. But tailor it for those channels. Turn your blog posts into Twitter threads. Turn your key stats into Instagram posts. Turn your report summaries into YouTube interviews. Use your content to build a community of people who keep coming back to you. Connect with those people and, if you can, connect them to each other.
Sounds tricky? It is. But a lot of this is about tools and workflows. Think of it as taking research, conversations and thoughts that are already happening in your organisation and finding tools and processes that can open them up to broader audiences via digital channels.
3. Content should be responsive
Create content that responds to the news agenda. Day two of the news cycle — when people are looking for analysis and explanation — is the sweet spot for think tanks. Post frequently on your social channels and create workflows that improve your capacity to turn around quick explainer articles and videos. Increase editorial autonomy. Prevent the comms department becoming a bottleneck.
Create content that responds to the known events in the calendar and start preparing months in advance — SEI’s work for Citizen Science Month is a good example of this. Or work to create your own moment in the calendar, like the IFS Green Budget or the Legatum Prosperity Index.
Finally, try listening. What are your audiences talking about in different channels? How can you add to the conversation? There are plenty of great tools and services out there to help.
4. Content should be yours
Develop a tone of voice that reflects your brand. Develop editorial structures and templates that you can work into again and again.
Develop a comprehensive, digital-first visual identity — something that is distinctive to you. This could be a different graphic style, a different way of treating photographs or illustration, or a different style of video.
Think of your visual and verbal identity as a system with templates and options to help you brand your content wherever it is found. Evolve and develop this system when it comes into contact with new audiences and new use cases. But always keep it systematic and scalable.
5. Content should be engaging
It should go without saying, but reading a lot of think tank content, it seems like the message still hasn’t sunk in: please make your content readable.
Tell a story. Avoid jargon. Put the most important information first. Help Google by using titles and subtitles that real people might search for.
Go beyond that: produce video and audio content as standard every time you produce a report, hold an event or just want to explain something. Make sure the charts on your website are all interactive and the underlying data is downloadable. Talk about your work in a thread on Twitter rather than just posting a link and expecting clicks. Try out a data story, a photo story, an illustrated scrolling interactive story. Collaborate with film-makers, artists, poets.
Go on, take a risk.
John Schwartz
CEO | Soapbox
