The theme of your content
Why do you want to say what you want to say?
Before you start thinking about the various topics that you want to discuss, spend time thinking through the question about why you want to communicate it? Understanding this why will help you to create the context around your brand image and your messaging. The why will also help you to understand your own motivation and how you will be able to help your customer audience.
How do you want to communicate what you want to say?
Choosing your content is important, but also the colours and aesthetic look that you are wanting your audience to associate with your content. When you communicate a message the colours and pictures that you use will go a long way to create a consistent theme and pull your audience into the conversation. By making use of the same look and feel your messages would build your brand and the perception that your client has around your brand.
What do you want to say?
Creating a central theme to your messages will allow you to create a strong reputation and a sense of trust with the audience you are communicating with. It will build the perception with your audience that you are the expert that they need to refer to when they think of a specific topic.
You might start by considering one or two main messages that you are seeking to communicate. These would be your main topics. Then you could think through some sub-topics that would sprout out of this. The subtopics will all be related to the main topic that you have chosen to communicate around.
Your main topics/ pillars
The main topics that you have will be the key areas around which you build your brand and your content. You always need to keep this in mind with your messaging as this will build consistency in your communication process. If you are going to develop some form of blog site then you want to link your other posts or sub-topics back to these main pillars. It will be from these main pillars that you will communicate the most important aspects of your brand.
Think through your topics by addressing the problems that the customer might be concerned with. This will make the topics more relevant. You don’t necessarily need to always have the answers to these problems, but it could be helpful to your customer to see some of the thinking that you have about this. It helps to also show that there is someone else out there that is thinking through this as well.
Creating an Idea Tree
Creating some form of message tree diagram or idea tree can help group and arrange the central themes. It also allows you to prioritize and rank the ideas or messages that you want to communicate.
Have a look at the below image to see how this can be done on a theme such as movies.
Once you have brainstormed the different topics you can then transfer it into Excel to start building your content plan. Have a look at the following video to see how this can be done: