Last week on May 19th, I was given the opportunity to attend Internet Day 2015, hosted by Ad Club, in Toronto. The topic revolved around, “What’s Old is New Again” and speakers from Etsy, Airbnb, Vanhawks and Twitter joined the conference and talked about how their companies have digitally transformed the way we all live our lives. It was so awesome to gain insights from these wonderful speakers and I even networked with great individuals.

Michael Joffe holds the Brand Activation Lead at Google, position, and he gave a great speech about the 10 Fundamentals for Creative Strategy. Although it was only a 20 minute speech – I wished we had more time – here’s what I learned from Michael.

The 10 Fundamentals of Creative Strategy was initially composed strictly for any YouTube posts. Personally, these should apply to any post on any social platform. In the creative space, it’s super important to remember there is no one solution, recipe or set of guidelines to guarantee success, however, you better believe that answering “yes to most of these and understanding why these are important will increase your chances for success on social media.

10 Fundamentals for Creative Strategy

Shareability
Will people watch your stuff and immediately want to share it to their friends or family? People share mainly because of what the posts say about themselves – sharing a funny video makes you look funny or sharing a smart post makes you look smart. Be topical, be relatable and be valuable. If you saw someone else’s post, would you share it?

Conversation
Is there an element in your post that speaks directly to the audience? Are you acknowledging your audience in your videos or tweets? Ask yourself these questions and consider ways to have a dialogue with your audience. Make friends, be authentic, build relationships and talk to the people who support you!

Interactivity
Is there a way to directly involve the audience in your videos or your posts? Directly ask the audience questions and encourage them to submit opinions. This is how you can generate consumer-based content!

Consistency
Here’s what I think is one of the most important elements of being on social. Are you consistent? If you’ve established a great social presence, it’s probably because you’ve been consistent in the times, days and number of posts you share. The more consistent, the better, and it gives your audience a sense of comfort – always looking forward to something.

Targeting
Here’s another big one! Is the intended audience clearly identified? If you don’t know who your audience, prepare to fail. Your consumers want things that they can relate to, so this is really helpful when your content is tailored specifically to that demographic.

Sustainability
If the audience loves it, can you develop more? Ask yourself if you have the resources to sustain an idea over time. Be realistic and know what’s next.

Discoverability
Will the videos show up in trending or common searches? This is where keywords come to play. Put yourself in your audiences shoes – what words would they type to find your content? Be an optimization wizard and make “evergreen” content.

Accessibility
Can every post be appreciated without prior content? Only a part of your audience may understand a single post if it was related to a previous post. That’s okay. Just make sure that your new audience will enjoy the post, even without having to look at past content.

Collaboration
This one is probably more suited, specifically to YouTube or a video campaign you got going on. Is there room to feature guests? One of the fastest ways to grow subscribers on YouTube is to collar with those who have their own fans and feature them in your videos. Collaborating is also a great way to build relationships inside the very vibrant and active community of creators.

Inspiration
Last, but definitely not least, one of my favs, is Inspiration. Is there genuine passion and authenticity behind your idea? This is powerful because true passion comes through the content itself. If your post was so inspiring to you, will it inspire others?

I had so much fun at Internet Day 2015 and this was one of the key-points I took away while I was there. How do you feel about the 10 Fundamentals for Creative Strategy? Any thoughts? Are we missing something here?

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