My Approach To Content Strategy
After 10+ years building content strategies across technology, education, and media, I've learned that the most successful content professionals aren't just creators—they're systems architects. Instead of simply deploying and managing assets, they develop “multiplication engines” to ship content at scale that adds immense value to their ICP (ideal customer profile).
This distinction has become even more critical in the AI era. While most content leaders use AI as a productivity tool, I've reconceptualized entire content architectures around three fundamental principles.
The Three Pillars of Modern Content Strategy
1. The Human Touch Advantage (HTA)
Scale was once a competitive edge—today it's table stakes.
AI has democratized content creation, stripping it down to its studs. When anyone can generate decent blog posts with the right prompts, the question isn't whether you can create content at scale—it's whether you're adding genuine value to your audience.
This puts a microscope on your content's strategic alignment. Every piece must justify its existence beyond "we publish three times a week because that's what our previous content leader established."
That’s why I use the “Human Touch Advantage” as my strategic compass. HTA identifies opportunities where most brands aren't willing to invest the human effort required, despite proven effectiveness. For instance, YouTube is becoming the new "Blog SEO" precisely because fewer companies commit to high-quality video production than publish AI-generated articles.
The key insight: In a world where everyone has access to the same AI tools, the human touch becomes your differentiating factor.
2. Taste is the New Talent
Prior to AI, being able to CREATE content was an advantage. Now, success comes from being able to direct AI effectively—being the editor rather than the columnist, the conductor rather than the flutist.
I've transformed from a craft specialist to a creative director who guides AI toward innovative solutions, and many of my peers in the content space have as well. Nowadays, the most valuable skill isn't writing or design—it's the ability to articulate creative vision clearly enough to communicate with machines.
When I tell AI "I want a Matisse-style image" or "create copy in the voice of early Malcolm Gladwell," I'm exercising taste built through deep generalism and longitudinal craftsmanship knowledge. The content professionals who thrive in our AI-driven industry will be those who can succinctly express their vision to AI tools while maintaining the strategic thinking that machines can't replicate.
3. First Principles Over Playbooks
Here's something I learned that completely transformed my approach to my profession: Don't be the content strategist who can execute an AI-optimized editorial calendar (or a [insert any content asset]). Be the content strategist who can determine whether we need an AI-optimized editorial calendar in the first place.
This shift elevated my role from tactical implementer to strategic business partner. Instead of asking "How can I execute this better?", I now ask "Should we be doing this at all? Does this align with business objectives and audience needs? And if so, what’s the projected impact of this action?”
First principles thinking means breaking down complex problems to their fundamental truths, then building solutions from those foundations rather than relying on industry conventions. It's questioning whether your legacy blog-social-SEO trifecta actually serves your specific audience, or if resources would create more value elsewhere.
Know Your ICP Like Your Best Friend
Before any strategy, framework, or tactical execution, I found there’s one fundamental requirement more impactful than the rest: intimately knowing your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). I don't mean knowing their demographics or job titles—I mean understanding their daily media consumption, their decision-making patterns, and what keeps them up at night. What books they read, what outlets they browse, what their deepest desires are.
I practice what I call "ICP Feed Reads"—spending 20 minutes each day consuming the exact media my target audience consumes, from subreddits to industry publications. As I often say, "if your browser history and YouTube ads aren't riddled with ICP content, you're doing it wrong."
Without this deep ICP understanding, even the most sophisticated content systems become elaborate exercises in missing the mark. Every framework I use—from the Human Touch Advantage to the 70-20-10 allocation (more on that below)—is worthless if it's not built on a foundation of genuine audience insight.
The question to always ask: Does our community data tell the same story as third-party research? Often, the disconnect between what the industry thinks your audience wants and what they actually engage with reveals your biggest opportunities.
The 70-20-10 Framework
As a content strategy leader, you’ve probably heard these statements at least a dozen times…
“We always publish the same kind of thing.”
“Why don’t we do more of [insert latest social media trend]?”
“Our feed looks stale. Why don’t we do something more…you know…exciting?”
As disruptive as these questions can be to field, not only are they reasonable asks, they’re critical to your success and longevity in the field. You need to have these answers on hand and at the ready. Balancing your editorial calendar with content that is proven to work with big-swing, 10X content is a delicate dance. Here’s I structure my calendars and strategies:
70%: Proven formats that consistently deliver value (I mean REAL business results too, by the way. Not vanity metrics)
20%: New approaches testing emerging opportunities in and around your proven channels (Example: LinkedIn is your top-performing channel in terms of business impact, so you experiment with native features like creative polls or subscriber-only newsletter)
10%: Moonshot content that could redefine our strategy (This is the 10X content that, if it works, you’ll be a rockstar in your org)
This framework ensures stability while maintaining innovation potential. The data-driven core delivers reliable results while providing insights that inform experimental initiatives.
The Pizza Shop Principle
The internet is littered with uninteresting, uninformative, unoriginal content—ESPECIALLY from brands. Here is a principle I return to time and again for myself and the teams I have led: If you can't be the best pizza shop in town, be the best mushroom pizza shop in town.
Similarly, if you can't create the most valuable content on the internet for a specific topic, you NEED to narrow the focus until you can. Give it a try—the next time you are on the fence about whether or not to press ‘publish’ on a piece of content, ask yourself if it a case can be made that it is the most valuable asset on the internet for that topic. If your answer is “heck no”, either niche down the aperture until it is, or don’t publish it all.
Looking Forward
As AI continues evolving the content landscape, the most successful strategists will be those who thoughtfully combine automation with human insight. We're not competing against AI—we're learning to dance with it.
The future belongs to content professionals who can design systems that scale, identify Human Touch Advantages, and apply first principles thinking to novel challenges. It's about building engines, not just calendars. It’s a scary, yet so-very-exciting time to be a content strategy professional. Here’s to seizing the opportunity ahead of us!
