A Career Backstory, in Brief

I'm studying product management right now, which feels like an entirely natural development in a career path that began something like this:

To cut a long story short: after graduation, I took my postgraduate degree in journalism and creative writing to COSMOPOLITAN magazine and a couple local newspapers. That was a lot of (unpaid) fun, at first.

But it didn’t take me too long to figure out how much easier it'd be to monetize my work if I started calling it "content", and selling it to these shiny new things called "startups", in this exploding thing called the "tech industry" — which is how I landed my first job as a "Content Creator" at a fast growing edtech.

"It's all marketing. Marketing is the bedrock of business, and the cornerstone to making a living from 'creative' pursuit." — Jess Henderson, Offline Matters: The Less Digital Guide to Creative Work

That startup was called GetSmarter, and, fittingly, it was at GetSmarter that I started I reading and sharing HackerNoon stories with colleagues in both the sales and dev teams.

At the time, HackerNoon was the only place publishing in-depth articles about the very new work I needed to do — for which there was no degree, no certificate programme, not yet even a MOOC.

As it turned out, I had a talent for it. People loved my copy. People thought that — in print, at least — I was hilarious (something I've never really been called IRL).

And I've thought about that a lot, in hindsight, because it's not something I had a conscious process for, at the time.

When I started studying product management and design earlier this year, I realised there are a lot of connections between the way great content creators work, and the way great product managers, well, manage.

"Why are stories so important to building a product? Telling stories is one way to cut through the noise and speak a common language. Stories help solidify who your users are, what they need to do and how you might help them achieve it. Most importantly, storytelling is one way to ask and illustrate your ‘why’." — Clarizza Fernandez, 'Writers: So you want to be a product manager?'

So when I thought about what I would like to share with you — all of HackerNoon's already very talented writers currently on the Blogging Fellowship — I thought about Product Management processes and frameworks.

I think product management provides helpful strategic tools not just for software, but for the product that is your blog, your writing career, and your personal brand, if you want to go freelance, for example.

Let's dive in!

Plan and Roadmap Your Content Strategy to Achieve Your Goals with This Super Simple 5-Step Exercise*

*strongly inspired by principles involved in product management

Step 1: Formulate a clear VISION for your career in content.

Outline the specific challenges your content is intended to solve, for who, why, and when.

Go with the first things that come to mind here, and don't be afraid to get really specific.

Remember: when you try to talk to everybody, you end up addressing nobody.

Here's a content strategy statement template to help you out:

I create content ABOUT _____________________ and _________________________

[ YOUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE ]

to HELP _____________________ and/or _________________________

[ YOUR IDEAL READERS ]

achieve / solve / DO _________________________; and/or _________________________

[ THE ACTIONABLE VALUE YOU CREATE ]

when they need/want/have _________________________; and/or _________________________.

[THE MOMENTS WHEN, AND WHERE, YOUR READERS NEED AND DISCOVER YOU].

Example: "I create content about blogging, design, and product management to help people in tech and marketing learn to use Notion, Figma, and other remote collaboration tools to better communicate strategy, ideas, and new processes with dev teams, especially when they need to set project goals and OKRs, launch a product, or ship new user-first features."

Step 2: Create Your Ideal Reader PERSONAS.

This is a crucial documentation exercise in empathising what your ideal readers pain-points are, and knowing what their needs are so that you can address them.

Creating at least 3-5 Ideal Reader Personas help you define not only the finer elements involved in voice and tone, branding, and design; but also your overarching content strategy, calendar, and monetization avenues.

If you don't yet have access to any real analytics about your readers, it's okay to make these up entirely, at first.

You can also hack some quick long-tail keyword research just by guessing the types of questions your ideal readers might be asking, and then seeing what comes up in the question boxes and related searches; or by using tools like AHRefs and Answer the Public.

Ideally though, you can use GA to give you a creepy amount of information about the people already reading the work you're putting out there.

Step 3: Pick Your PROTO-PERSONA and Start Detailing

From the 3-5 Ideal Reader Personas you've created, you're going to want to pick one character to represent the majority of your ideal "market".

From there, use your imagination to flesh out the following details:

• What are the facts you know about this person? What's their age, education, location, demographic, occupation?

• What are their problems and pain-points? Do they need to earn more money? Change careers? Have more time in the day? Master a skill? Be the first to know about everything?

• Individual traits and behaviours: Introverted or extroverted? What are their rituals and routines? Where do they hang out IRL and online? What do they eat? How do they learn — visually, audibly, by reading?

• What are their current, practical needs? Do they need to learn how to start a business? How to attract and retain customers? How to use a product or specific software? (Here's a hint — check your own search history:)

Putting this all together, you should have a really clear map of who it is you're creating content for — which is always a smart place to start the content planning and writing process.

Step 4: Sketch Out Your Reader Journey Map

This is an exercise that'll help you define your content distribution strategy by putting yourself in the shoes of your readers, and understanding the pathways they'll take towards you meeting their needs.

• Start with your vision statement, and the goals you outlined for your ideal readers. AKA: what are these people probably searching on Google? Make a list of potential search phrases and long-tail questions that you could target with your content.

• Ask yourself, how will my ideal audiences discover my content? For HackerNoon, for example, we get a lot of direct traffic, and we get a lot of organic traffic. That tells us two things: first, our brand is strong enough in the market that people type hackernoon.com directly into their browsers, or bookmark us, or whatever; and second, people are discovering our content because they're searching for answers to problems we publish about.

• Try to imagine how your ideal readers would most enjoy engaging with your content, in order to reach their goals. Does your blog post need a YouTube tutorial embed? How might you atomise this content to be consumed entirely on social media? What about a newsletter or podcast? Should you create an ebook?

Here's an example of what a product management user roadmap traditionally looks like:

And here's the same principle, applied to content marketing's inbound methodology:

📌 Step 5: Define Your Content Strategy, Goals, and Focus

The purpose of this exercise is to gain clarity on your longer-term strategy; establish your USPs for branding and differentiation; and foresee any potential blockers to success.

Documenting your goals is a decision you make about the most important parts of the project that is, in this case, your writing career.

Here's how to start getting clear on your content strategy, goals, and focus:

1. What would the outcome of my content creation efforts look like, if I was wildly successful?

   1. In one month:
      1. [ Goal 1 ]
   2. In three months:
      1. [ Goal 2 ]
   3. In six months:
      1. [ Goal 3 ]

2. Write our six month goal out as a statement, as though you've already achieved it.

   for example: In the last six months, I published 100,000 words and created 3 months reading time. I also started a podcast/super niche TikTok account/LinkedIn community, built my personal website, and got my first 100 signups on my newsletter..!

3. Play the pessimist for a second and ask the hard questions:

   1. What are the potential blockers to my success?
   2. What are my current challenges?
   3. What do I need to prioritise to overcome them?
   4. How can I turn the daily challenges I face into #relatable-content?

4. What sets me apart from other creators in my niche?

   1. Whats the most meaningful thing I could focus in order to rise above the noise?
   2. What unique perspectives and experiences do I bring to this subject?
   3. Which influencers and creators could I collaborate with to reach relevant audiences?

💭 I’d love to hear your feedback on this approach to developing brand and content strategy.

Why not get your commentary published on HackerNoon? 😉

See you around Planet Internet,

Natasha ✌️💗 ✨