Become Content Strategist

Proof required

Submit a spreadsheet or Airtable with at least 25 content items, each scored against your 3 criteria, with a keep/update/remove decision and a one-sentence rationale. Include a 200-word summary of the most significant strategic insight from the audit.

What gets checked

• 3 criteria defined in advance and applied consistently to all items — criteria that change between items are not a systematic audit
• Keep/update/remove decisions are driven by the criteria scores, not by personal preference — at least some content you created yourself should be recommended for removal if it scores poorly
• 200-word summary names one strategic insight that was not obvious before the audit — 'we have a lot of content about X' is an observation; 'our best-performing content is written for [audience] but we publish mostly for [different audience]' is a strategic insight

Common mistakes

• Auditing only 10–15 pieces of content — a meaningful audit requires enough coverage to identify patterns; 25 is the minimum
• Criteria that are too vague to apply consistently ('quality', 'relevance') without operationalising what a score of 1 vs 5 means for each criterion
• Remove recommendations that avoid politically sensitive content — if the audit recommends keeping all of the CEO's content regardless of performance, the audit was not rigorous

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• Ask the submitter to name the most surprising content item in the audit — a genuine audit always surfaces something unexpected (high traffic for an old post, surprisingly low performance for a hero piece)
• Check that remove decisions include content the submitter created — an audit that recommends removing only low-quality legacy content without any recent content is biased toward avoidance
• Ask the submitter what they would do first with the audit results if they had a team of 2 to implement changes — this tests whether the audit produced a real strategic agenda
• Confirm the 3 criteria are defined well enough to be applied by a third party — ask the submitter to score a new content item while you observe

Proof required

Submit the 90-day content plan (audience definition, goal with numeric target, content calendar with format, topic, and target publish date for each piece), links to at least 8 published pieces, and a 200-word performance report: actual vs target metric, top-performing piece with the specific metric, and what you would do differently in the next 90 days.

What gets checked

• Goal has a numeric target established before the plan started — 'grow traffic' is not a goal; 'increase organic sessions from 1,200/month to 1,800/month' is
• At least 8 published pieces in 90 days — a content plan that was partially executed does not demonstrate content strategy capability
• Performance report includes both what performed well and what underperformed — a report that only highlights successes was not rigorously evaluated

Common mistakes

• A content plan with 8 blog posts in the same format — content strategy is about format and channel selection for different content goals, not just volume
• A goal metric that cannot be measured (brand awareness, authority, trust) without an instrument to measure it — choose a metric you have the tools to measure
• Content published without promotion — a piece of content that is published but never distributed to its target audience does not test content strategy

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• Ask the submitter to name the highest- and lowest-performing pieces and explain why they think each performed as it did — genuine content strategy learning requires pattern recognition across the 8 pieces
• Check the goal was numeric and established before the plan — ask for the plan document with a date predating the first piece
• Ask what content format they would add in the next 90 days and why — this tests whether the M2 work produced strategic thinking about format mix
• Confirm at least 3 different formats were used — ask the submitter to name all the formats published in the 90 days

Proof required

Submit your M1 and M2 artefacts plus the reviewer's written assessment: the audience challenge and response, the goal challenge and response, the format mix rationale, the hypothetical brief and your live response, and their sign-off confirming their role and a live session.

What gets checked

• Audience challenge response names the specific reason this audience was prioritised over adjacent audiences — not just 'they are the primary audience' but the strategic rationale
• Hypothetical brief response includes a specific content format recommendation and a measurable 90-day goal for the new brief
• Reviewer sign-off confirms 5+ years of content strategy (not content creation or social media management)

Common mistakes

• Audience challenge response that restates the original plan without engaging with the adjacent audience the reviewer raised
• Hypothetical brief response that is vague ('I would create content that addresses this goal') without naming specific format, channel, and metrics
• A reviewer who is primarily a content creator (writer, designer, videographer) rather than a strategist — the challenge questions require experience owning content strategy decisions, not just executing content

Resources

What a verifier looks for

• Prepare the hypothetical brief before the session — it should be a real business goal in the submitter's domain that their M2 plan did not address (a new product launch, an entry into a new market, a crisis communication need)
• The audience challenge is the most revealing question — ask the submitter specifically why they chose this audience over [one specific adjacent audience] and what would change if they targeted both
• Reviewer minimum qualification: 5+ years of content strategy in industry; content creation experience alone is not sufficient to assess strategy decisions
• Ask the submitter what they wish they had known at the start of the M2 plan — this tests whether 90 days of execution produced genuine strategic learning