When creating a new piece of content there are a lot of things to take into consideration. This simple diagram shows you just some of the elements to think about when trying to narrow down your ideas to then select the final piece.
Here are some bullet points on some of the things you need to consider:
- Target Market The first key thing to think about is identifying your target audience. This is really important, as this will determine what the piece will be.
- Purpose Why are you making the content in the first place?
- Company Guidelines Does the company that you are making the content for have guidelines that need to be kept to? There is no point in creating a fantastic piece if it doesn’t fit the company’s ethos and therefore will be rejected. So the style and tone of the company should be reflected in what you create.
- Timescale How long do you have to create the content? This will determine how big or ambitious you can go with it.
- Shareable Is the idea going to be something that you would tell your mates about?
- Engaging Does your content encourage a response or debate?
If your content is good enough then the hope is that it will be shared and gain links naturally but this doesnt mean that you shouldn’t do anything to help it along. You obviously want it to be as visible as possible. This means getting in touch with the right influencers, publications or authorities to give the piece an even greater chance of success.
Just like a real Hour Glass, the content hour glass can be turned over show how the distribution stage of content creation should also influence ideas generation. For example, you should contact influencers at the very start of the idea process to gauge whether your idea is interesting and worth spending your precious time on. They also may be able to help your idea by giving you tips on your subject matter or even contributing to it in some way and their early input on the project should mean that they are more likely to distribute it to their readers when it is published.
This is also the same for shares, likes and word of mouth. You of course want this to happen when your content is finished. So when you are at the idea generation stage, you should establish whether the ideas are something you would tell your colleagues at lunch about.
The key take away from this is that the outcome from the creation of the idea should determine what the idea is in the first place. In other words, keeping the distribution of your content in mind when you are generating the ideas and vice versa, is the best way to create a strong, successful piece of content that will gain valuable shares and links from targeted and relevant sources.
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