Ready to apply the content cycle? Here’s your step-by-step checklist:
Step 1: Take responsibility and acknowledge the situation as a leader.
Answer these questions in a public post:
What is your personal perspective on the crisis?
How has it impacted your business and industry so far?
What specific changes have you made in response? What can customers and team members expect to change?
Step 2: Commit to a frequency.
How much content will you share with your audience each week?
Step 3: Gather data-informed inputs.
Set up Google Alerts for your industry keywords, alongside crisis keywords too.
Run your keywords through Google Trends. Look for popular topics: Has there been a sharp spike in the last 90 days or 12 months?
Use your insights to identify the most important news to share. Assuming you’re sharing one piece of content per weekly cycle, if you were limited to sharing one valuable insight this week, what would you choose?
Step 4: Add your personal perspective.
What can you share that will be valuable for your audience? Ask yourself:
What went well this week? What didn’t go well?
What else have I learned this week?
How is our business adapting to this new market? What changes have we made?
Step 5: Be a model, not a mimic.
Crisis content formula: Model, don't mimic
Step 6: Craft your proactive observation.
Identify the most important news to share. Assuming you’re sharing one piece of content per weekly cycle, if you were limited to sharing one valuable insight this week, what would you choose?
Where there is overlap between the most relevant news from this cycle and your personal learnings?
What’s the goal of this content? What are you hoping it will achieve?
Is it personal? People learn from people. Is there a hero, heroine or anti-hero we can learn from?
What’s the one big lesson you’re giving your audience?
Step 7: Communicate with precision.
Is this word absolutely necessary? If not, delete it.
Step 8: Bias towards over-communication.
When in doubt, share.
Step 9: Review.
Measure your content’s performance. Why do you think it performed as it did? What changes will you make next cycle?
Done? Onto the next cycle.
Interested in getting support implementing this framework with your own content? Contact me to find out more.
