Description
The purpose of a Content Mindmap is to identify potential content opportunities based on the editorial strategy for your brand. As marketers continue to embrace content marketing, there is a growing need to publish even more posts, articles, and podcasts. It is easy to find yourself creating content that feels stale or unfocused. The Content Mindmap help marketers to stay focused on the core topics, while also exploring new tangents and adjacencies. The Mindmap is commonly used as a facilitation tool with a group to brainstorm new ideas within a construct that reflects the brand strategy. The radial nature of the framework visualizes how close or far away a new idea may be to a core topic of your editorial strategy.
Question
What topics make up our content marketing strategy and what might we publish?
Steps
To start, make sure that you have a clear focus of the editorial strategy for your brand. This is best captured as a concise ‘North Star’ statement describing why someone will engage with your content.
After capturing this statement in the centre of the map, capture the related sub-topics. These sub-topics represent the different subjects or themes that you cover through your content. Capture these as keywords.
Now that you have the structure for your Mindmap, start to explore new content ideas. Spend time on each of the sub-topics and brainstorm different ways they can come to life through content from your brand.
Capture each new content idea on the Mindmap and illustrate the connection it has to a sub-topic. If a new content idea has a connection to more than one topic, illustrate multiple connections.
Once completed, review the Mindmap with your team to vet and prioritize new content ideas. If new sub-topics emerged as a result of the activity, make sure that they are captured for future plans.
Considerations
Recognize that your ideas may become less relevant the further you move away from your core topics
Remember to explore and vet new ideas through the lens of the customer you are intending to engage
Determine when a new idea may actually be a potential new sub-topic, and capture it accordingly on the Mindmap
References
The Mindmap concept is credited to Tony Buzan