An Introduction to Episodic Content Framework

Over the next couple of weeks, we are going to be walking through the episodic marketing framework which is basically what you need when it comes to starting your very own video series.

So here's the thing, you may already have the idea for a video series but ultimately it is something that needs a lot of planning. Sometimes you might need to do a lot of internal convincing to get everybody else on board and other times you might even be the one in your team who has been tasked with putting a robust plan together to deliver results. Regardless of whichever one you are, we are quite sure that you are going to find these tips useful.

The process when broken down, is pretty much covered in these 4 steps

1. Plan
2. Produce
3. Repurpose and
4. Distribute  

These are essentially the main pillars that are very crucial parts of any successful show that we've seen being created and it is definitely a process that we apply to ourselves and our customers as well.

PLAN

For the planning stage, we have three different points, and they are Show Strategy, Topics, and Guests.

Show Strategy: 

This has to do with the goal behind your show as well as the intended audience for your show. Here, you would have to determine your show type, the genre, and the positioning statement so as to have a one-page brief that will be very easy for you to communicate when you want to explain to others what the show is about as well as who it is for.

Topics:

Once you have the show strategy, it becomes much easier for you to transition into selecting topics based on what your show is about. And these topics could be educational with a focus on your audience's minds or it could also be a lot deeper than that.

Guests:

Now that you have your topics, you can then start to match them with the best people in your circle or with other colleagues who you could bring onto the show. By the way, these guests do not always have to be external, they could just be people from other departments in your company, existing customers, or just influential people in your specific area of expertise.

PRODUCE

After you are done with the planning stage, you can then start to get into the nitty-gritty production stage. This involves AV Setup, Recording, and Publishing. 

AV Setup and Recording:

This stands for Audio Video Setup and it could be as very simple or as sophisticated as you need it to be. For example, you could get started with a simple recording setup where you interview guests in the form of a podcast talk show.
This is quite minimalist and you could very easily use an application like Zoom to record that call and from there start to add more things that would make it a lot richer in quality across the video and the audio aspects. But not to worry, we are going to have a comprehensive post on AV Setup where we talk about using different cameras or smartphone cameras. 

Editing:

Whether you're going to be live streaming or publishing an edited video is also a very important aspect of your video series. You would also need to think of the different platforms where your episode will air on, be it your Youtube channel, your website, or any other social media platform.

REPURPOSE

Formats, Channels, Use Cases:

By the time you get to repurposing, the work is pretty much half done because once you have your episodes which might range between 10 to 30 minutes in length, then you already know something like that is ripe for repurposing. You can think of it like creating a trailer for people to watch because it is the exact same concept that you are going to bring to your shows.
You want to find all the different ways to create additional content across different formats such as video, audio, written, and even image as well as across different channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.
Another important thing about repurposing is the Use Cases. And by that, we mean determining how all this content that you are making is going to be used. You want to ask yourself questions like- Is it going to be used for marketing only? Or are there implications for using that same content for social selling efforts? How do you use this as an opportunity for marketing to get closer to the sales team and build more alignment by way of creating smaller micro-content pieces that could be used as part of their sales and outreach process to start conversations? These questions can be very helpful when deciding how to repurpose your content.

DISTRIBUTE

Personal Brands:

Some people may think of repurposing and distributing as the same thing but we like to think of them as slightly different. So, distributing means sharing the long episodes which you already have( we can call them pillars), and then repurposed content refers to the micro-content that comes out of the long episodes.
When it comes to distribution, we are huge advocates of actually using all the personal brands at your company as in the personal brands of all the employees or team members in the company. We believe in tapping into those personal brands when it's time to share content as an addition to sharing on your brand channels.
Many businesses often post content only on the company channels and they fail to have a robust strategy for sharing that content but if you decide to encourage your employees to share and put their signature on your content in their special way, then it could be beneficial for the company.

Brand Channels and Community:

Although this is not to say that you shouldn’t focus on your brand channels and community. Those groups are fans of your brand and they are the people who like all your posts and engage with you so it is necessary to get them involved and make them part of your story.

CONCLUSION

So we hope that you have been able to understand an overview of what the episodic marketing framework is about and are ready to dive into the specifics of each stage.