Is it time to give your content strategy a shake-up?
Iterating your content strategy to do more of what works is how you’ll see more traction. But first, you need to know what your audience want more of.
In this blog post and podcast episode, I shared how we found out what our audience wanted and the content changes we’re putting in place in response. It’s a behind-the-scenes look at the hows and whys to our latest developments.
Plus, I share some exciting news about a launch coming later this year!
Hit play to listen to the podcast episode…
Or read on to find out more…
Ready to update your content strategy? Here’s how to get started
Before you can make any tangible updates to your content marketing strategy you need to know what to update.
You may think you know what your audience want, and what’s best for your content strategy. The likelihood is that you do! But I’ve spoken before about validating your ideas with some of the most important people involved in your content…your audience.
You must make sure you’re not making too many assumptions, or that unconscious biases are affecting your thinking.
When you’re updating your strategy, you don’t necessarily need to validate every idea but it’s good to find ways to get decent audience feedback before you dive into any big changes.
There are two ways you can do this.
1. Look at the data
As a digital marketer, you have the luxury of data. You can see how many visits your blog posts get, the engagement rate for your tweets, the number of podcast downloads, your video views on YouTube... and so on.
All this data and analytics tell a story that you can use to find out what content your audience likes, and what they’re less keen on.
But data is just half the story.
2. Ask your audience
Cold, hard numbers are a great place to start, but there’s nothing like real consumer feedback.
Going out there and actually asking your audience what type of content, formats and platforms are their favorite and which they couldn’t care less about is a great way to understand more about who you’re talking to and what they want.
Here’s a quick rundown of how we collected our audience insights:
Analyzed the Google Analytics for our website and checked out the highest performing blog post pages
Looked at the available data for podcast episodes – download numbers, demographics, listener behavior...etc.
Checked out available analytics for our YouTube videos
Dived into each social media platform’s analytics (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) to see which content format (video, audio, image, text-only) was getting lots of engagement vs. bombing
Surveyed our social media following using polls on the aforementioned platforms
Asked our email newsletter subscribers for their feedback and opinions
I also reached out personally to those people I know who are big fans of our content
TOP TIP: Make it easy for your audience to answer your question.
Polls are great for this as people only click to respond. If you’re asking for more detailed feedback, such as a response to an email blast, keep the questions direct and closed, with the opportunity to add in extra thoughts. Lots of yes/no answers are more helpful than zero responses at all.
Once you have all this information and feedback, then you can decide what changes to make – what will you start doing and what will you amend, put on the backburner, or scrap altogether.
That’s how we got started. Then we began making our updates with this feedback in mind.
Here are the five ways we updated our content strategy (keep reading to find out our exciting news!).
1. The Content 10x Podcast will focus on audio
One of our main goals at Content 10x is to make smart use of our time. So, we’re going to focus on recording high-quality audio-only podcast episodes for the time being.
Previously we also created video podcasts, and while these helped us produce lots of great social media video content (thanks to some repurposing magic) they were more time consuming at our end.
Now I stand by the fact that video content is the best type of content for repurposing all else being equal. But a key factor in our decision was listening to our audience. When asked if you prefer listening to the podcast or watching the video version, audio was the clear champion.
What does that mean for the podcast? It means we’ll still be producing an episode every week, but not as many video versions of each episode. So if you want to get all the tips, make sure you’re following The Content 10x Podcast on your favorite podcast listening app.
It also means we’ll have more time to focus on creating other value-add content outside of the podcast.
2. Guest expertise is welcome!
One thing that’s not changing is our commitment to sharing guest expertise every month.
I really enjoy and find so much value in the conversations I have with thought leaders and professionals from such a vast range of industries and backgrounds. And it turns out that you do too!
We’ll continue inviting special guests onto the show and repurposing all the best bits for sharing on social media.
Is there someone you’d like to hear on The Content 10x Podcast? Get in touch with me to let me know who.
3. More how-to content
Another thing that was crystal-clear from our data and feedback was that how-to content is a fan favorite.
You like practical, hands-on advice when it comes to repurposing.
It’s funny because when we first started creating content, we had a very focused how-to approach. We’ve never stopped providing how-to content, but we’ve been creating a lot of more theoretical and thought leadership-style content too, and broader episodes about content marketing. We’re almost going back to our roots because how-to content is going to be our main focus for The Content 10x Podcast.
If there’s a type of content you’d like to learn how to repurpose, then do let me know. We’ll add it to the list of future episodes for the podcast or YouTube videos as we expand our content library detailing how to repurpose X into Y.
4. A new video approach
Whilst we’re not doing as many video podcasts for The Content 10x Podcast, we’re certainly not planning to eradicate videos from our strategy. We’re just implementing a new approach.
Video content is powerful. You only need to glance at our library of content on repurposing videos to get an idea of how far this format goes. So we would never stop creating videos altogether. We’re just being smarter about it.
Our new approach is to populate our YouTube channel and website with detailed and useful tutorial videos showing you how to level up your repurposing.
And yes, we’ll be repurposing them onto our social media channels too! Which brings me onto the final update…
5. Optimizing our social media strategy
This isn’t really a big change to our content strategy, as we’re always keeping an eye on what works and what doesn’t. But it’s worth reiterating that your social media strategy is likely the part of your content strategy that needs the most frequent iterations.
Actually, I’d argue that there’s no such thing as a catchall “social media strategy” – as each platform, from the user behavior to the features, is so different!
What this means for Content 10x is that you’ll see more of our most-engaged with types of content on each platform, and less of the types that aren’t so popular. Something we strive to stay on top of and update often.
What works on your social media channels is unique to your brand, your audience, and your content. So it’s best to throw in a little experimentation every now and then, while regularly analyzing the outcome, so you can keep iterating and optimizing.
So they’re the five ways we’re updating our content strategy…now for the big news.
After over 4 amazing years of recording The Content 10x Podcast, it’s time for it to get a sibling!
Our new show will be an interview-style podcast where I’ll speak to founders and marketing leaders from some of the industries that we work with at Content 10x. There’s going to be a really specific focus to the show which I’m sure you’ll enjoy tuning into.
I can’t say too much more about it just yet, as we make our final decisions on the show, but look out for updates coming soon…
As you can see, we have both big and small changes lined up for our content, and we hope you’ll like them!
To make sure you never miss an update and be one of the first to hear about our new podcast and more, make sure you’re subscribed to The Content 10x Newsletter.
If you’re making changes to your content strategy and need some repurposing power to support you, get in touch. Our high-quality content repurposing services help podcasters and video creators maximize their content, and work smarter, not harder. Find out more about them here.