A funny thing happened to me this week. A bright, talented web developer and I had decided that we needed to create a content calendar to plan our social media activity for my company’s ecommerce webstore.
Both of us made our topic list by month through the end of the year. I chose to focus on increasing knowledge. He focused on themes based on holidays and special events in each month. When each list was viewed, they both looked complete and actionable. We both congratulated each other on the list we created.
Then I decided to spend a few hours watching youtube videos about creating content calendars. What came through as a common theme in the videos was the need to include what brand messages we want to emphasize, who the target customer is that you want to reach, what keywords to target in what you write, and so on………. All technical aspects of creating a calendar that, we , the amateurs were unaware of.
What’s fascinating abou this experience was that even though we thought we had produced a finished content calendar list (and would have gotten a high grade for doing the homework by amateurs like us) it was woefully short in things that were needed to make it much more effective. If we had not known this as soon as we did, we would have invested a lot of work and time in the execution of creating this content. Six months or so would have gone by and our results would only, at best, have been average.
The scary part of seeing this unfold, is I now wonder how much of my work is of the amateur type. Where I don’t have enough context to make sure that I have considered everything that is needed around a specific work project. The old adage, measure twice and cut once, applies to much more than just carpentry.
We can never be all knowing. But we do have the ability to be curious. When someone gives us a project, we shouldn’t assume we know what was asked of us. Yes, I had a definition in my head of what a content calendar was and proceeded to fill one out based on my definition. As you have read, was I wrong!
Being curious enough to come to a new understanding now makes this project more difficult, less comfortable and certainly less expedient. My hope is that my work now, in the end, can be more effective. Taking this same approach, can help you as well if you try.