Content Engine Questionnaire

For serious content creators.

Use this questionnaire to help kickstart your new content engine.

This will help shape your thinking, writing style, and the goals you’re looking to achieve will be valuable.

Get started below 👇

“Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too.”

— Mark Twain

Part one: Identify your audience and stage

Audience

  • Who are you trying to reach?

  • How did you pick this audience?

  • How scalable is this audience?

  • What type of content are they looking for?

  • Are you writing up, sideways, or down in your content? 

    • Up = senior to you

    • Sideways = your peers

    • Down = people coming up to your level

Content 

  • What type of content are you best suited to create?

  • What content types are easy for you to produce (text, video, audio, ATB)

  • How often can you produce this type of content?

  • How easy will this content scale? Can you do it daily, even 2x a day?

  • What process or structure do you need to build to create this content?

  • How many topics will you create?

Measure

  • How will you know this is the right content?

  • How will you know this is the right audience?

  • How will you get active feedback on your content?

  • What does success look like?

  • What will be your NorthStar KPIs?

  • What tools will you use to measure?

Channel

  • Where does your audience spend their time socially?

  • What channel is best suited for your type of content?

  • What does that competitive landscape look like today?

  • How will you be different from other content providers on this channel?

  • What is a common cadence of content publishing on this channel?

Creators

  • Who else is creating similar content, how are they doing it, and what does the reception to this content look like?

  • What topic/channels do you think other creators are missing so that you can create new value 

  • How have other creators monetized their content/channel?

  • What type of engagement have these creators seen every week on their content?

  • How likely will these creators share insights/tips with you before you start?

Part two: building the content habit

Habit

  • When will you create content?

  • How often will you create content?

  • What time of day/night will you post on your channel?

  • How often can you be in the channel to engage with your audience?

  • This is critical to the success of your content (do not underestimate this)

  • What will you do to ensure content production, sharing, and engagement consistency (daily / weekly)?

Feedback

  • Who will proof your content before sharing it with your audience?

    • What will your backup plan be if your editor isn’t free?

  • How will you listen/track content feedback and apply it to new content moving forward?

  • How will you keep your tone/voice with third-party content editors?

  • What type of turn-around will work best for your schedule, and how will you find someone (people) to fit into that?

Ideation

  • What will be your ongoing source of inspiration for new content?

  • Where will you take notes/reminders when new ideas come to you?

  • Who will be your content ideation audience? Testing before you share.

  • How much of a content bank will you need to have in order to reduce stress?

  • How will you overcome writer's block?

Part three: Branding your content

Branding

  • What is unique about your content?

  • How will someone know it’s your content without your name next to it?

  • What are common words, phrases, and other branding components that will allow your audience to recognize your brand?

  • What are words, topics, and styles you will never use?

  • How will you ensure all areas of your presence online are using the same tone and voice (brand)?

  • Are you branding your own name or companies?

    • *Always focus on your own name; it’s about building a legacy that will live well beyond the name of a company.

Engage

  • How often will you reply to your audience?

  • How will your audience know it’s actually you replying, not someone else?

  • What are do’s and don’ts you’ll hold yourself accountable to while replying?

    • (ie, never openly attack someone in your audience, no matter how frustrated or upset they might make you. How you show composure)

  • What are simple sign-offs or words you can use to continue to build your brand even within your comments?

  • Will you reply to all comments on your content? If yes, how quickly?

Topics

  • How can you “own” a style of content or topic of the post?

    • This is where others will reference you when replicating your style of content with their own audience.

  • Will you produce consistent topics or post randomly as you see fit, on any day or time?

  • Who else creates content for your key topics that you could elicit engagement from on your content?

Part four: Scale and success tracking

Milestones

  • What are stretch but attainable goals you can set weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually as you grow your content engine?

  • What are vanity metrics on your channel, and how will you stay away from them?

  • What KPI do you need to hit in order to have a real impact on your career/life/financial position?

    • How will you identify the levers or inputs that drive this KPI?

    • How easy is this KPI to track/measure effectively?

  • What roadblocks will you need to overcome in order to achieve your goals?

Scaling

  • Now that you’re hitting your goals, and building a large audience for your content, what’s next?

  • How will you monetize your content?

  • How will your content improve the conversion rate in other areas of your life?

    • Landing a better job, new client, more book sales, etc?

  • How can you rewrite your best content in 10 different ways?

  • If you were to hire someone to help you scale your content engine, what type of work would they do, and how much would it move your Northstar KPI?

    • What risks do you create by hiring someone else to support your content engine? How could you mitigate those risks at scale?

Distribution

  • Long-term, will your content be best distributed on a third-party social platform or your own property (website, email list, etc)?

    • If you're your own asset, how will you bring people from your social platform today to your property over time?

  • What other social media platforms can you cross-post on with minimal effort?

  • How much effort does cross-platform take and what value does it unlock?

  • How have others done this successfully?

I hope this was helpful 🙏

Sean Hurley, CEO of Pathright

If you'd like to:

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