If you’re a content marketer (read all about what a content marketer does here), you’ve probably come up with some great ideas for articles, blog posts, or videos. But how do you know they’re any good?
You need to validate your content ideas because you need to know if they are worth your time and money. Content marketers often spend some time developing their ideas before launching them. If they don’t have proof that their work will be successful, they may not continue with the project.
In this article, I’ll show you some benefits of validating content, as well as 5 ways you can validate content ideas successfully.
Importance of validating content ideas
Validating your content ideas is an important aspect of content creation.
i. It reduces the risk of wasting precious time on creating the wrong content and also helps to create value for the content created.
ii. It also ensures that you create a solution to a particular problem in society, instead of it just being another “nice” content that no one really cares about.
5 Ways to validate your content ideas
1. Get familiar with your audience
It’s normal to research and know everything about your target audience before creating content. However, if you decide to skip that part of the process, and you need your ideas validated, here are a few things to consider:
- What types of users look for information on the subject; what is their age, employment status, and gender?
- What kind of reaction do you expect from your audience after viewing your content?
- What action do you want your audience to take after viewing your content?
When you have a clear picture of what your ideal audience should be like, you can then use that to validate your ideas.
Another way to get your audience’s interest is to be straightforward and ask. Once you get an idea, tweet it or post it on Facebook, and ask people if they will be interested in reading such e.g “Hi people, a few months ago I decided to lose some stomach fat, but I noticed I lost weight faster than I imagined. A friend mentioned that it could be my daily consumption of coffee. So I’ve been wondering, does coffee aid weight loss? I plan to write a nice article on this. Would you like to read it when it’s done? If so, leave your comments below. Thanks.”
You can also use your email list to send a survey to your regular readers. If a lot of people show interest, then that’s the validation you need to start creating. If you get fewer responses, then you need to check out other ideas.
2. Check out trending topics
If you have just started creating content, you can use some analytics tools to find relevant articles in your niche. Once you’ve done your research, you can come up with similar topics or start a series based on one of the popular posts.
3. Create a list of topics based on your research
Now you’ve figured out who your audience is and what topics interest them the most. Create a list of the topics; write “Coffee” as the main topic, then list subtopics that are related to coffee. Work towards using keywords that will rank high on Google.
Another way is to think of questions your audience might have in mind. You should provide relevant solutions to that. It could be the question of “when is the best time to take coffee?”, “Should I take coffee every day?”, “Can I serve coffee to my kids?”, etc. It’s up to you to determine how to respond to these questions. You can decide to write a blog post, create an animation, or record a YouTube video. Just try to look for a way to pass your message across differently. You can check out these resources and find out which works best for you.
4. Match your content to your target audience
When going through ideas, you also have to consider where you will be posting your content. For instance, your target market for coffee products is a community of working-class people, who are easily found on LinkedIn. Imagine you create your content and it has more shares on Facebook than on LinkedIn, the platform you actually had in mind. That means your content went viral but has no return value.
When creating your content, you should think of where you will be promoting it and the type of content that is loved there.
5. Test your content idea
Once you have a content idea, test it out. This method is similar to getting familiar with your audience, but this time you will use different tools to test your ideas and see if it’s worth it. Here are some of the tools;
- Titletester: Just as the name suggests, you can type different title options into the tool to analyze which one ranks higher.
- BuzzSumo: This tool analyzes how many times a link has been shared. You can do a quick analysis by checking for topics that are similar to your content idea so that you can see how well they’ve performed in the past.
- Blog/ Website Comments: Feedback from visitors and readers goes a long way towards validating your ideas.
What Platforms can you validate your content ideas?
I’ve explained the reasons why you should include validation in your content marketing strategy and how to validate your content ideas as a content marketer. One last thing I’m going to bring to your attention is platforms that validate content ideas and how you can make the most out of them.
1. Quora
One of the best places to validate your content idea is Quora, a question-and-answer platform where people go to find information. Here, content is created, edited, and organized by the same people that use the website. You can validate your idea by looking for someone that asks a question similar to your content idea. Then answer that question to the best of your understanding. You won’t need to do further research and there’s no need for a lengthy post. Instead, just write your reply as a short summary of your main idea. With this, you can view how well your answer performs and decide whether to go on with your content creation.
2. Reddit
One mistake people make when validating their ideas is that they spend too much time doing that. Instead of acting fast, you waste time in one spot, trying to fix something while the real opportunity slips away.
To avoid being this kind of person, immerse yourself in your niche. Go to communities, find your audience and get familiar with them. One such community is Reddit, a social website where content is created and promoted by members through voting. The name was culled from the words “I read it”. Reddit is a good platform to promote your content, but it has its pros and cons. If you are an inactive member, or the only thing you do is to promote yourself, the community will frown on you. The good thing is that it is an interesting community and you will be able to find a spot for your niche easily.
You can use Reddit to validate your ideas by creating posts and gauging the performance through comments.
3. Instagram
I bet you didn’t know that Instagram is more than just a photo sharing platform. You can also use it to validate your content ideas. There are two ways to do this;
By creating a very simple design( probably done on Canva or Adobe Spark). If you don’t have the luxury of creating your own design, you can repost one from another account(remember to give due credit).
The other way to validate your content idea on Instagram is to use your account like a micro-blog.
Even though it’s more of a visual platform, you have a 2,200-character limit within the caption of each post. How good? Now you can summarize your content idea under a post, and also check your audience’s interest based on the engagement your post receives.
However, Instagram still remains a visual app, so remember to create captivating posts that draw people to your captions.
Hera Marketing creates nice designs that make their Instagram page look appealing
4. Twitter
This right here is one of the biggest micro-blogging platforms. It’s also one of the best platforms to use to validate your content ideas as a content marketer. Twitter gives a 280-character limit within each post, but you can create threads as long as you want. There are different features that you can use for validation. They include:
- The search feature: You can always type your content idea in the search bar, and different results based on your content will pop up.
- Twitter Polls: Go straight to the point and ask your audience to vote for topics they would like to read about using Twitter polls. The results will determine your next step.
- Twitter chats: Find a Twitter chat that embodies your type of content and click on the hashtags to see the kinds of questions people are asking. That will give you an idea of the content you need to create for your audience.
Wrapping Up
Overall, an advice to content marketers is to pay more attention to content quality and relevance over quantity.
If you need help creating valuable content that will generate leads, then you should think of Hera Marketing. We are experts in content marketing services and we use the right tools and strategies to work towards your marketing goals. Want to take that next step in your business? Reach out to us today.
We have worked with over 24 startups to drive conversions through increased community presence and relevant blog posts that we help distribute. To understand our process, book a 15 - 30 minutes meeting with us.
