As you prepare to draft your next blog post or advocacy update, ask yourself a simple question: Do my advocates and prospective advocates really care what I’m writing about? If the answer is, “I’m not sure,” it’s time to tackle your organization’s advocacy content strategy.
Content strategy is the important work of planning, creating, delivering, and publishing content, as well as managing the content development and distribution process. The individual responsible for content strategy is called the content strategist - the arbiter of what content is really needed, who should create it, how it will be maintained, how often it will be disseminated, and how success will be measured.
A good content strategy creates, delivers and distributes content such that your messages are more likely to be found, read and acted upon by the very people you want to engage. Here are some tips on how to ensure you’re maximizing your content strategy efforts.
1. Identify your ideal supporters, and do your homework.
Before you can build a content strategy, you need to identify your audience. Conduct research to map the online habits of the people whose attention you seek: the sites where they hang out, the voices they trust, the topics they like to learn and talk about. Look at competitor sites covering your issue area. Is there a content gap in the marketplace of ideas that you can fill? Take the time to survey your stakeholders to find out what they want to know, from whom, and how they want to receive the information.
2. Develop your advocacy voice.
Your advocacy voice is, essentially, how your words sound on the page. They might be friendly and familiar, formal, humorous or dramatic. The voice you choose says something about your organization and your target audience. Be sure your advocacy voice is in sync with your organization’s overall brand and mission - and applied consistently across media.
3. Integrate, integrate, integrate.
We all want the same thing: content that drives traffic, interest, understanding, and positive actions on behalf of our issues. One way to help ensure you are delivering your content into the communication stream is by integrating it with other social media. For starters, you can integrate social media feeds into your website. You can incorporate “like” buttons to your content. And, you can add opportunities for discussion on your blog.
4. Create an editorial calendar.
An editorial calendar can help you create order out of content chaos. Use it to strategize content for known events, like legislative recess periods and key election periods, as well as to create a regular schedule for developing and disseminating content about your proactive issue agenda. Your editorial calendar should consider educational content opportunities as well as advocacy activations, and address your website, e-newsletter, employee Intranet, Facebook presence, Twitter, blog, and other communications devices.
5. Be responsive.
If a reader takes the time to comment on your blog post or website, take the time to respond. Feedback is valuable, and you can use it to improve your content over time.
6. Make someone - or a group - responsible.
Content strategy takes time and resources, and that’s why someone must take responsibility for it. Yes, a group can take turns developing content or identifying keywords or tracking results - but someone must hold the team accountable. Your “point person” is the content strategist - and he or she may be employed by your organization or outsourced. An advocacy website or blog or Twitter account or Facebook group can’t live on graphic design alone. Fuel it with solid content strategy and reap the rewards.
There are a lot of moving parts to a content strategy. If your organization needs help strengthening its content strategy, please contact 720 Strategies for more information.
Michael, a political scientist, is the author of two books about the Internet and American politics. He currently serves as an Adjunct Professor at The Graudate School of Political Management at George Washington University.
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