Hey everyone,
Hope you’re having a great first week of 2022.
So far, so good on my end. Super thankful for the 53 of you who decided to join the newsletter fam in the past week. Currently sitting at 183, and hoping to hit 5000 in 2022.
On our way :)
If your new, Thursday newsletters are meant to be quick and applicable. It should take you less time to get through than a Monday case study.
Today, I want to quickly go over one crucial question to ask yourself before creating any content.
Whether you’re...
A marketer running content strategy for a brand
A solo founder trying to get your social media off the ground
A creator trying to make a living off of content
...you need to be able to answer this question.
Well, you don’t need to. But — if you’d rather spend your first few months creating real traction and growing an engaged audience than spinning your wheels in the mud... you should.
Let’s discuss (we’ll keep this quick).
1 question to guide your brand’s organic content strategy
What’s your content’s value proposition?
In other words: Why should a random viewer care about your content? What is the specific value or outcome that the viewer gets from consuming your content? Whats going to get them to stick around after being showed your content in their feed?
And thus... why should someone consume your brand’s content over competitors?
This becomes even more critical if this is a faceless brand account.
Sure, if you’re running your personal Twitter account, show a variety of interests. You don’t have to be an AI that only knows how to converse about one subject (though having an overarching theme to your content will help).
But as a brand, users are even more skeptical about following. Be honest, how many brands do you follow on social media?
Now you might be thinking...
Cool, but how about some examples instead of the platitudes?
I got you. Here are two:
1) Duolingo
If you’re on TikTok, and haven’t at least heard of this account... you may be living under a rock.
Duolingo is leaning heavy into entertainment as a strategy for capturing attention, and driving brand awareness.
I’d imagine this works well since TikTok is very top-of-funnel. You might not be in the market for a language-learning app today, but when you are... you’ll remember the out of pocket TikTok videos featuring the giant green bird, Duo.
Interestingly, they actually tried more educational content earlier one, with little success. So another takeaway here is to be okay with pivoting your strategy and thinking outside the box.
2 ) The DTC Newsletter
Whereas Duolingo takes more of an entertainment-based approach, The DTC Newsletter takes a more educational approach.
The main value prop behind the newsletter (and its social content), is helping you become the smartest DTC marketer in the room.
The content strategy consists of how-to content, Twitter threads, insights from industry leaders, etc. This is in alignment with the value the brand is trying to give readers. Someone readers the newsletter and follows its content to improve professionally, not to have a laugh.
A meme will be used here and there, but it isn’t the driving force behind the 54% follower growth the account has experienced in the past 3 months — education is.
Another consideration
When you’re doing competitor research, consider what they’re already doing successfully.
You could take this insight one of two ways:
Imitate (not plagiarize) what has already proven to be successful in your target market. This is 100% fine, and probably ideal in many cases.
Take way they’re doing, and do the opposite.
Is your competition super educational? Go entertaining.
Is your competition super entertaining? Go educational.
Are they heavy on long form content? Focus on short-form.
Are they going hard on written content? Make video.
The second option is a bit more risky, but does likely have more upside if you can get it right.
Key Takeaways
Look, the above 2 examples don’t represent a fully exhaustive list of potential value props.
Many brands are a hybrid of education and entertainment, or something entirely different.
The core idea that I want you to walk away with today is that you need to know (and be able to articulate) the value that you provide your specific target audience.
Can you answer this question?
If not, you’ve got work to do. If I can help in any way, let’s chat.
1 resources to make you better at marketing
This thread from the former Morning Brew social media manager, Toby Howell, breaks down 22 principles to 10x your audience growth in 2022.
Once you have an answer to the question above, this thread is a great next step to formulating a high-performing content strategy:
1 account to follow to get better at marketing
If you follow me for strategy on growing your brand’s organic content presence, you’ll need a sound paid media strategy to pair with that.
Cody Plofker is someone I’ve been following recently who consistently puts out valuable content around paid media strategy (with context, which is hard to find these days).
Here’s one of his best posts:
You can follow him here.
One more thing
If you enjoyed this, and want to stick around for future editions (and get better at marketing), you can sub for free here:
Talk to you on Monday at 9am,
Tommy