Creating content worth publishing
Start with empathy and curiosity to understand your audience:
What do they care about?
How much do they already know?
What influences them?
What topics do they devour online?
What do they want answers to?
What’s holding them back?
What situations are causing them a lot of pain?
What are all the things they struggle to figure out?
The name of your idea is just as important as the argument behind it.
When we collapse our thinking into a phrase, meme or name that’s easy to pass on, we give our ideas the best possible chance to spread. The best names feel like inevitable
additions to our collective vocabulary (“1000 True Fans”, “Radical Candor” even “web3”). They spark interest... See more
When we collapse our thinking into a phrase, meme or name that’s easy to pass on, we give our ideas the best possible chance to spread. The best names feel like inevitable
additions to our collective vocabulary (“1000 True Fans”, “Radical Candor” even “web3”). They spark interest... See more
Tell the internet a story
Before you make a claim or argument, ask, “So, what?”
Your whole audience and your ideal customers are asking, What's In It For Me? Why should I care?
Anticipate and address skepticism or disinterest from readers, and write and edit with the skeptical reader in mind.
How do you get them to listen to you? Why should they?
If you were arguing with them
Every next question you ask and every next thing you publish is a chance to further develop your IP and become known for your ideas. Those ideas and that IP supersede every project or offering for your business. In other words, upstream from what you're selling and the content you create is the premise you wish to own and the surrounding material... See more
Jay Acunzo • A Prompt from John Mulaney: How to Come Up with Better Ideas for Content in Less Time
Pressing your curiosity through a premise
Three questions to ask yourself before posting anything ever:
Why am I posting this?
Why do I care?
And why does my audience care?
Ideas become insights when they meet the following criteria:
Novel—is this idea new or is it at least a fresh take on an existing idea
Actionable—can my audience immediately act on the idea?
High-leverage—when my audience acts on the idea, can it meaningfully change their work or their lives?
[Julian Shapiro]
Under this definition, quality is not stated preference or value judgment, it is revealed preference. It is not an inherent property of a product but an emergent outcome of how consumers implicitly weigh its attributes in a particular context.
Doug Shapiro • Quality is a Serious Problem
Research topics and angles. What are people in your audience talking about on LinkedIn? Use the search functionality on LinkedIn to search about specific topics you know your audience cares about and see what people are saying. Which posts get the most engagement? What are people saying in the comments? Who are the common players posting about it?... See more