This morning I gave a talk at the Content Strategy Workshops in Vancouver, and a member of the audience said that this particular idea I shared was particularly meaningful to them. I thought I’d share it with you, too.
Audience Need+Business Goal=Content
So, once you’ve identified a need that your audience has, and you can match it with a goal for your organization, then you know what kind of content to create.
Once we have the hammer in your hand—the tools and ability to create content—it’s awfully easy to fall into a trap of seeing content nails everywhere that you can attack with your content hammer.
Never, ever create content just because you can.
Create content for a business purpose that aligns with your audience needs.
What’s wrong with a little extra content, anyway?
- Every piece of content you have that costs you to store, manage, archive, and review.
- If you aren’t managing, archiving, and reviewing it, that content is just sitting around waiting to bite you in the ass.
- Also bad, that extra content may be making promises to your customers that your brand can’t cash.
- And it’s also helping obscure the content that DOES have a business purpose.
How to prevent accidental content? Have an editorial plan and calendar. Work from them. And use your audience needs and business goals to create those plans.