A good content creation strategy should be community-driven.

I always preach the three C marketing model!

Content is King. Consistency is Queen. Community is the Kingdom that holds it all together. Without the Community Kingdom, all will fall. That’s my analogy of it, at least.

So, to be effective with consistent content creation, you must have community integrated into it.

You do this with a community-driven, community-first content creation strategy!

 

A Content Creation Strategy Starts with a Knowing the Community

The first thing you need to know about when crafting your content creation strategy is the actual community that you’re targeting.

You can’t just create the strategy and expect the community to appear out of nowhere.

You have to seek the community out and study them until you know them and understand what they desire.

 

Understanding the Niche of the Community

The best way to understand your community is to understand the niche you’re trying to portray.

What is your niche, and can you niche down even further?

A niche can be defined as a topic that you create content about. You could even call it your industry. It is the specific topic of what you write about.

It helps you when you niche down as much as you can. This means you get specific with your topic and focus on a particular thing within the topic.

For example, I create content for hiking and outdoor recreation in a niche. But I’ve niched down even further by making it primarily about a regional National Forest and state parks. My niche is hiking and outdoors, but specific to local markets.

The more you niche down, the easier it will be to find and target a specific community.

 

What does the Community want?

Next, you need to understand what your community wants from experts in your niche.

What can you provide them that they would consider valuable?

I feel that we often assume what they want rather than research what they want. This is why we need to research the community better so we can understand them better and what their needs are.

In most cases, in almost every community, some problems and questions remain unanswered.

First, you need to identify those. Second, you need to ensure they are issues for the community. Sometimes the community will give up and ultimately lose interest in the answer. Don’t waste time on something that will result in nothing.

 

Where is the Community online?

Part of creating your content creation strategy in terms of the community you wish to target is knowing where the community is on the internet.

There are tons of places where the community could be lurking about.

Social media is the big player!

The community might be on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, and they will most likely be on TikTok if you target a younger audience.

They could be on discussion forums or even on Reddit.

Maybe they are on the blogosphere or article-based websites.

You need to research and pinpoint everywhere you can locate and engage with the community you wish to target with your content creation strategy.

 

How to be All In Community with Your Content Creation Strategy

Remember what I said above, the community is the kingdom that holds your royal family together.

Without community, content and consistency may fail in most circumstances.

So, creating a content strategy that is all in with the community is essential.

Let’s look into how we can do that!

 

Build Your Brand Around the Community

The best way to invest in the community is to build your brand with the community in mind.

I did this from the start with my hiking brand.

I first focused on developing a community and then creating products to sell to the already established community.

It might not be that simple for you if you already have a brand and products.

You have to pivot from whatever you’re doing to focusing on community development and integration into your brand’s activities.

But to be successful, everything about your brand should result in community integration.

 

Build Your Products and Services Around the Community

As I said above, you should build your products and services around your target community.

For my hiking brand, I chose products and services based on the demand of my community.

I offer many free products like YouTube videos, trail guides, articles, and media.

But I also offer paid products based on the demand of my audience in the community.

This includes guided hiking services, itinerary planning, and official Hiking with Shawn merchandise.

I didn’t make products before the community because I didn’t know what my community wanted in the first place. Create what they want, and it won’t be hard to sell.

 

All Strategies Reflect Being Community-Driven

Any strategy, not just a content creation strategy, should be geared toward the community.

I repeat this because it’s essential!

Everything has to be about community; otherwise, it isn’t community.

You can have opinions, positions, and support causes and still be a community-driven brand.

I support a cause for the protection of rattlesnakes. Yes, venomous rattlesnakes! I built that cause around a community of people who adore and want to protect snakes, often called “herpers” because the study of snakes is herpetology.

So, you can support different things and still build it on community.

But all strategies should easily integrate into the community. If they can’t – scrap the strategy and find one that will be integrated.

We can’t be shopping cart community-driven brands. You’re either all in or not in.

 

 

What Does a Community Do for a Content Creation Strategy?

The best part about the community in content creation strategy is that it makes the content.

There is nothing worse than not knowing what content to create in the first place.

You have the answer right in front of a community-driven strategy.

Create the content that your community demands.

 

With Engagement, Idea Generation is Unlimited

Engage with your community as much as you can!

The more you engage, the more ideas will be unlocked for you.

Engagement will result in ideas for content. Your community will tell you what they want to see. But you must be attentive and listen to what they are saying.

With their responses, you can have an endless supply of content.

Blog posts. Social media. Videos. Photos. Everything!

Let your community create your content through engagement.

 

An Opportunity to Create Loyal Fans

A community will give you much value.

It will give you many followers.

And it will even give you loyal fans.

But to build a loyal fan, you must be all in. You have to build everything around your community. You have to make choices based on what your community wants. You must have a content creation strategy driven by your community.

Once you have all that, you’ll create loyal fans.

They are a community within a community—a sub-community. And you should spend extra attention on ensuring they enjoy every bit of it.

Those people! They are your brand ambassadors.

 

A Community Expert Becomes a Niche Authority

And finally, the best way to become a niche authority is with the community.

You’ll get three main results if you search for most things hiking in the Shawnee National Forest or southern Illinois.

The US Forest Service. The State of Illinois. And Hiking with Shawn.

I’m Hiking with Shawn.

Sure, I definitely used search engine optimization tactics to get my website links to page one on SERPs, but I also used community to gain the authority to get me there.

My website is linked to educational and government sites because I developed a community that allowed me to network with these entities.

I couldn’t have done this without a community.

Community matters.

 

And that’s my post! That’s my argument, and my plead to you to engage with your audience and develop a community around your brand based on your niche. Use the recommendations above, and it’ll be a simple task. If you enjoyed this article, share it with someone else who might also enjoy it.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.