AI Skill Report Card
Leading Content Strategy & Research
Markdown--- name: leading-content-strategy-research description: Conducts comprehensive content market research and oversees the full content production pipeline (writing, design, editing, social media) to produce data-backed content strategies and topic recommendations. Use when a user needs market/competitor/audience research to generate content topics, wants a content audit, needs to build an editorial calendar, or requires oversight guidance for a content team's writing, design, editing, and social media output. --- # Leading Content Strategy & Research
Quick Start14 / 15
When asked "I need research for content and give me content topics," don't ask a dozen clarifying questions — run the full research stack with reasonable assumptions and produce topic recommendations with rationale. If key inputs are missing (industry, audience, competitors), state your assumptions explicitly and proceed.
Minimal output structure for a topic request:
Recommendation▾
Add a third example showing a less-common scenario, e.g., team oversight briefing output for a writer/designer
Content Research Brief: [Industry/Brand]
Assumptions Made
- Industry: [inferred or stated]
- Audience: [inferred or stated]
- Goal: [awareness/leads/SEO/etc.]
Key Findings
- Competitor gap: ...
- Audience pain point: ...
- Search opportunity: ...
Recommended Topics (prioritized)
| # | Topic | Buyer Stage | Rationale | Format | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ... | Awareness | ... | Blog | High |
Workflow15 / 15
Progress checklist for a full research-to-topic engagement:
- [ ] 1. Content Audit (what exists, what's working)
- [ ] 2. Audience & Persona Research (pain points, search intent)
- [ ] 3. Competitive & Category Review (gaps, differentiation)
- [ ] 4. Channel & Data Ecosystem Mapping (performance signals)
- [ ] 5. Synthesize into prioritized topic list
- [ ] 6. Assign format + owner (writer/designer/editor/social)
- [ ] 7. Build/update editorial calendar
Step 1: Content Audit
- Inventory existing content by type (blog, video, whitepaper, landing page, social post).
- Score each asset: Relevance (1-5), Accuracy (1-5), Performance (traffic/engagement), Business Alignment (1-5).
- Map assets to buyer journey stage: Awareness / Consideration / Decision.
- Flag gaps: journey stages or topics with thin or zero coverage.
Step 2: Audience & Persona Research
- Go beyond demographics: document daily workflows, preferred content formats, trusted sources.
- Pain point mapping: pull exact phrasing from support tickets, sales call notes, forums (Reddit, Quora, industry groups), and reviews.
- Search intent: identify informational vs. commercial vs. navigational queries relevant to the funnel stage.
- Output: 3-5 persona pain points, each tied to a verbatim quote or query pattern.
Step 3: Competitive & Category Review
- Benchmark 3-5 competitors: publishing frequency, estimated organic traffic, top channels.
- Identify their content pillars (the 3-6 core themes they consistently own).
- Find "white space" — subtopics competitors haven't covered or cover poorly.
- Note 1-2 differentiation angles or contrarian "moonshot" ideas that break category norms.
Step 4: Channel & Data Ecosystem Mapping
- Pull available performance data: traffic, conversion rate, lead gen by channel/asset.
- Social listening: sentiment and trending conversations in the space.
- Consolidate into one dashboard/table so topic decisions are traceable to data, not opinion.
Step 5: Synthesize Topics
For each recommended topic, specify:
- Title/working headline
- Buyer journey stage it targets
- Rationale (which finding from steps 1-4 justifies it)
- Format (blog, video, guide, social series, etc.)
- Priority (High/Med/Low based on gap size + business goal fit)
- Owner (writer, designer, editor, or social specialist)
Step 6: Team Oversight Layer
When acting as the manager over writing, design, editing, and social:
- Writers: brief them with the topic, angle, target keyword, persona pain point, and CTA.
- Designers: specify format needs (hero image, infographic, carousel) tied to the content's distribution channel.
- Editors: check against brand voice, SEO on-page basics, and factual/business alignment — not just grammar.
- Social specialists: repurpose each core asset into platform-specific formats; brief them on the sentiment/trend findings from social listening so posts fit current conversations.
- Maintain a single editorial calendar as the source of truth; every asset traces back to a research finding.
Recommendation▾
Include an example of a 'bad' output (e.g., generic topics without evidence) to contrast with good outcomes
Examples16 / 20
Example 1: Input: "I run a B2B SaaS project management tool. Give me content topics." Output:
Assumptions: Mid-market B2B audience, goal = lead gen + SEO, competitors = Asana, Monday, ClickUp
Key Findings:
- Competitors heavily own "how to manage remote teams" — saturated.
- Gap: "async decision-making frameworks" has search volume but thin competitor coverage.
- Support ticket pattern: users struggle with "cross-team dependency tracking."
Recommended Topics:
1. "Why Async Decision-Making Beats Daily Standups" — Awareness, Blog + LinkedIn carousel, High priority (untapped gap + trend)
2. "Cross-Team Dependency Tracking: A Practical Framework" — Consideration, Guide + template download, High priority (direct pain point)
3. "ClickUp vs. Asana vs. [Brand]: Which Fits Async Teams?" — Decision, Comparison landing page, Medium priority (competitive positioning)
Example 2: Input: "Audit our existing blog content." Output: A table scoring each post on Relevance/Accuracy/Performance/Alignment, grouped by buyer stage, with a callout: "60% of content targets Awareness; Decision-stage content is nearly absent — recommend 3 bottom-funnel comparison pieces next sprint."
Recommendation▾
Add guidance on how to handle very limited/no data availability scenarios beyond stating assumptions
Best Practices
- Always tie a topic recommendation back to a specific piece of evidence (a query, a competitor gap, a support ticket theme) — never recommend topics on vibes alone.
- Prioritize by intersection of business goal + audience demand + competitive gap, not just search volume.
- Keep persona pain points in the audience's own words — verbatim quotes make better headlines and ad copy than paraphrases.
- Treat the editorial calendar as the single source of truth connecting research → briefs → production → distribution.
- When overseeing the team, give writers/designers/social specialists the "why" (research finding) alongside the "what" (deliverable) — it improves output quality more than a bare brief.
- Revisit the audit quarterly; content decays, and competitor positioning shifts.
Common Pitfalls
- Don't recommend topics that only mirror competitors — always pair benchmarking with a differentiation angle.
- Don't skip the audit step and jump straight to new topics; you'll duplicate existing assets.
- Don't treat social media as an afterthought — brief social specialists with the same rigor as long-form writers, including sentiment/trend context.
- Don't present research without prioritization — a list of 20 undifferentiated topics is not a strategy.
- Don't let editing be grammar-only; missing brand alignment or SEO basics at edit stage is a managerial gap.