Aligning Topics With Your Content Strategy

As an editor, it's important to check that content aligns with your brand's overall messaging and mission. Whether it's a blog post, ebook, case study, social media campaign, or something else, ensuring the content is relevant to your business is key to its success. Let's discuss some key areas to keep in mind that can help with this.​

​Begin with the topic by making sure it aligns with your content strategy. What does your brand stand for? What message do you want to share? Who are your customers? These questions are key to determining if the topic aligns with your content strategy and if your customers or readers will care about it. Nothing is more off-brand than publishing content that isn't relevant to your product, service, or audience. ​

​For example, REI is an outdoor apparel company committed to helping people tap into the joy and connection that comes from spending time outside. They even have a hashtag, #OptOutside, to encourage their followers to share their outdoor adventures. You can rely on their blog, ​Uncommon Path​, to explore equity and inclusion in the outdoors in an effort to ensure everyone feels welcome and safe outside. From tips for camping, climbing, and hiking, to gear reviews, campfire recipes, outdoor sustainability, and more, Uncommon Path is written for outdoor enthusiasts.​

​But, in an effort to reach a larger audience, what if they one day started to post about the best fine dining restaurants to visit on your cross-country road trip? How does that tie into their #OptOutside strategy? How would that make their current fanbase feel? What would happen to their engagement and follower count? Topics related to fine dining don't fit with their brand's messaging. While results may vary, this shift in content is likely to confuse their audience, leading to a lack of engagement and loss of followers.​

​That's why it's important to ensure your content speaks to your brand and what your audience is interested in. This will help grow both your engagement and number of followers, and any other metrics you're looking to track. If the topic doesn't align, reach out to the creator to let them know. You can remind them of your brand's mission, share resources to help them get aligned, or suggest new topics.​

​It's also crucial to check if the topic has been covered comprehensively in the past. If so, collaborate with the author to see if the original can be updated and republished. If not, determine whether the new topic will provide valuable information to your audience. It's always important to think about editing from the reader's perspective. Ask yourself, "What will they will learn from this piece of content?" ​

​This is especially true when content has learning objectives or goals. A learning objective is a statement that defines what an individual is going to learn. It can be something like, "The user will be able to pick the best hiking boots for the summer season," or "The user will be able to set up a tent." Make sure to confirm the content you're editing aligns with (or fulfills) the learning objective set by the author. Ask yourself, "Did I learn what I was supposed to?" 

If so, great! If not, connect with the author to discuss what you felt was missing, identify areas they can improve and suggest ways to better align with the learning objective. They can either adjust the objectives to meet the current content, or they can expand the content to meet the original objectives. 

Expanding the content will vary on a case-by-case basis depending on both your and the writer's bandwidth, if added content will impact the value for the readers, and if the content has objectives — it's okay if it doesn't. You can still ask yourself what you learned and if you think the content will resonate with your audience as it is.​

​The topics of your content are what build brand awareness and connect you with your customers. That's why editors need to be mindful of the content their companies want to publish, and encourage their creators to stay on-brand. Connect with your manager or marketing team to learn more about your content strategy and how you can help contribute to its success.