WORKWEEK

1. AI to move fast without sacrificing quality: Like you, the news about Shopify’s CEO saying they won’t hire folks until the hiring manager can prove the role can’t be done by AI caught my eye. It feels extreme, but AI is getting so substantially better, so quickly, individuals are getting better at figuring out how to prompt it and train it. Every single team should be trying to figure out how to speed up and spend less with AI tools. From brief creation to product and brand messaging alignment, always-on SEO optimization and site-wide governance, there’s just so much it can do. 
2. Optimizing content for web journeys and conversion: Website taxonomy and information architecture sounds like academia talk on the surface––but it is crucial for content marketers and SEO folks to win today (and arguably, it always has been). Sure, content distribution and go to market matter (i.e. how people find your content), but then what they do after they find your content is even more important. Not every piece of your content has to convert, but every piece of your content should play a supporting role in leading a prospect to a conversion. If it isn’t, there was no reason to create said asset. 
3. Your product is the star: Not your founder. Not you. The problem(s) your product solves for your prospects is what matters. If product marketing is not included as a critical input to your content strategy––your content strategy isn’t very strong. How you bring your product to market requires content strategy. How you bring new features to market, how to show your company’s product innovation, speed, and impact––it’s all a part of content strategy. How you educate users on how to use your product. How to upsell. How you cross-sell. How you take in feedback, and run betas, and pitch press. If you do nothing else, this is where a content person should focus. AI can help you do so much else. But the nitty gritty of understanding the problem your product solves, and coming up with a holistic strategy to bring it to market again and again and again requires incredible cross-functional work––all of which needs content to succeed. 
4. You can’t ignore the current moment: Content marketing has always been about meeting your prospect where they are––and making whatever topic you’re talking about relevant right now for them. That’s part of what makes it hard, and an art. And right now, for many content marketers, your prospects are worried as hell about the economy, their jobs, what they are going to do to continue to hit goals set when none of this was happening, or how they are going to reset goals when things are changing often by the hour. It feels, a little, like the pandemic again. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we know there will be longer term consequences. You have to incorporate the current moment in your narrative. 
5. This doesn’t mean you have to change your entire strategy: Incorporating the current moment in your narrative and messaging doesn’t change your narrative or messaging. Your strategy doesn’t have to change much. Keep it simple. 

One thing that didn’t make this list, but that is very important, is prioritization. It’s not on this list because many content teams don’t get to make prioritization decisions. And company strategies may shift wildly at this time. Hang in there. Shift course reasonably, but remember: a good content strategy can withstand change. Don’t scrap it all. Shift narrative. Shift focus. Shift the hook. But stay the course.