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

You'll sign in first, then come straight back here.

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

You'll sign in first, then come straight back here.

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

You'll sign in first, then come straight back here.