How to create a community content strategy

[Shawn Gossman]

A community content strategy will help you keep your community active and engaging.

The first step is setting goals. Every strategy for anything should have goals. What would you like to get out of your content strategy? The goal could be a vanity metric if that's what you want or something else. It's okay to have multiple goals and change them here and there.

The next step is deciding how consistent you want to be. How often do you want to publish new content? Typically, one great topic a day is best, but not everyone can do that (myself included) so try to create at least a good topic every other day or something like that. There is definitely such a thing as being too consistent.

Create a content calendar. Stay ahead of the game by having your topics planned out. It's easy to get writer's block, so beat it by adding to your calendar every time you get a new idea. I utilize the Notes app on my iPhone as my calendar of ideas.

Measure the impact of your content. If it does well, try to mimic more content like that. If it bombs, move on to something else.

Are any of you using this kind of strategy at all?

 

[joelr]

I think we should unpack his topic, because you're combining both strategy (what do I want to do and why?) + execution (how do I go about it?), which is a lot to digest all at once.

To focus exclusively on the strategy part, independent communities really need to think about offering content of unique value. This drives to the heart of your communitys value proposition and mission: what are you offering better than anyone else? Are you offering:
-Speed: you post breaking news in your niche better than everyone else
-Exclusivity: you post news that no one else has accessed or seen yet
-Authoritative: you post news from experts
-Comprehensiveness: you offer the widest selection
-Nostalgia: you remind people of the past
Etc.