10 WHAT IS A TROPICAL DISTURBANCE?
Now that we've discussed all the "disparate forces" that combine to form the optimal conditions for your Content Marketing Hurricane, let's assume you've found your points of intersection and your storm is starting to gain power and to move toward land.
You've reached the stage meteorologists call, "tropical disturbance".
Basically, once the storm begins building power from the exchange of heat and moisture from the ocean and the atmosphere, that power is released in the form of wind and rain. Once the wind picks up to a fast enough clip and the pressure exchange is regular enough, the storm begins to spin around a central eye, creating the famous whirlpool appearance that marks a gathering hurricane.
Now at this point, meteorologists are starting to take notice. It's nothing to jump up and down about because it's still way off in the ocean and it could very well peter out before it comes anywhere near land. Most of them do.
But they're watching it, just in case.
Meanwhile, it might pass over a scattered island here or there, and those folks are getting wet.
Your Content Marketing Tropical Disturbance
In the course of building your Content Marketing Hurricane, you'll hit "tropical disturbance" stage when you're ready to actually take action yourself and it culminates in creating and distributing your first several pieces of high-quality content.
But the actual production of content is surrounded by a cycle of events that needs to constantly spin like the winds in that storm. Here they are:
1. Initial decision making – figuring out which of the intersecting points is going to be your topic(s) of choice to build your content around.
2. Finding a niche – fitting that topic(s) into a marketable niche with an established or identifiable target audience and (possibly) competition.
3. Narrowing the focus – positioning yourself within that niche in such a way that you can successfully market to a broad enough audience while handling the competition.
4. Deciding on the media – choosing the channels and formats most effective for the content you want to produce and audience you need to speak to.
5. Creating your content – (we'll discuss this in far more detail in Section Three: Tropical Depression!)
6. Getting published – distributing that content effectively on your own or via one or more 3rd parties.
7. Re-evaluating – monitoring and analyzing the entire process with an eye for efficiency and efficacy; seeing what worked and repeating it, seeing what didn't work and eliminating it.
In Section Two, we'll take a deeper look at each of these steps and we'll determine the best way to use each to constantly build the momentum of your Content Marketing Hurricane!