The content on this page shows some of my experience as a creator and manager, providing insight into my processes from start to finish. For finished content examples, visit my social and writing pages.

Plan & organize

One of my favorite things about content marketing is brainstorming and leading brainstorming sessions, letting the collective imagination run wild with possibilities. It always starts out messy, and then it starts to come together as everyone contributes and you determine what will and won't work.

When I'm approached about creating content and helping a brand develop content strategy, I first ask two things: 1—What’s your goal? And 2—Do you have a content calendar? The first is often a tough question to answer, but the second sometimes helps uncover the goal or “why.”

There are tons of programs for planning and developing content, but I prefer a simple spreadsheet with rows and columns, like the samples below.

Creating content

Some sort of written brief is essential to every creative process. It's the instructions, the written visual of what an infographic, illustration, or video is supposed to look like. I've created templates using Google Forms for creative brief submission ("Have an idea? Fill this form out so we can get started on it."), and for the occasional one-off project, I've simply sent content with instructions, followed up by a meeting of some sort to review the details.

Here's a sample piece of content/instruction I created for Create More Flow, a client focused on speaking and business coaching. The final product was formatted separately for Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

Content instructions:

Final infographic for Pinterest:

Wire frames

Sometimes a written document isn't enough to get the point across, and you must provide as much detail as possible, down to rough sketches. I like to leave room for artistic expression, but typically, I draw and spell everything out with wire frames to accompany detailed briefs.

To accompany detailed instruction over email and phone, I sketched out the following wire frames for a client's new website:

Similarly, I like to sketch out my vision for infographics and illustrations:

Analysis

After the piece is published (and re-formatted for different channels and published there, too), it becomes a numbers game. 

Usually conversions or leads are the top metric to focus on, but that doesn’t always tell the whole story about what works, nor does it indicate future content or strategic opportunities.

I look directly at individual posts and ads, including user comments, to get an idea of how on-point a piece of content is, but I also utilize metrics provided by Google Analytics, Hootsuite Reports, and SocialMention (among others) to gauge performance. Then I share those results with any designers, copywriters, and creative minds who are involved. That's how we make better content the next time.

EXAMPLE: A client in higher education was running a 2-minute video ad on Facebook, but it wasn’t gaining much traction—low clicks and conversions, specifically. I reviewed the metrics and noticed that people were dropping off the video within the first three seconds. So we cut it down to 0:30 and swapped in a more engaging intro—including subtitles—and performance picked up almost immediately. To date, that short video edit drove the most clicks and conversions across all their campaigns.

Click here for additional content examples, including performance metrics.

Other fun stuff

I was lucky to work with a passion at Aeronaut Brewing Company in Somerville, MA. It's a really great space with a lot going on, and sometimes, when I wasn't pouring beers and talking with fellow beer lovers from behind the bar, I got to pretend to be a real artist and make chalk signs. Here's a handful of some of my favorites.