š Set a goal. Make it simple. Make it measurable. Make it a habit.
The Dad's content goals, before we launched and now
Set a goal. Make it simple, easy to remember and recite. Make it measurable. Then create a process to make it happen. Make the process a habit.
Even before our first piece of content was published, The Dadās goals were to #1 entertain and #2 build a positive community.
Last year when I introduced The Dad to BDG leadership after we were acquired, I used this slide to kick things off.
If there was a pull string doll of myself that only said a dozen or so things, these would be the stuff itād say. Iāve said these things 100s of times in various meetings, interviews, sales pitches...
Make it simple
ENTERTAINMENT + COMMUNITY. The Dad brand vision in only two words.
We lived this from the very start.
Extremely simple, memorable, and easy to recite.
Make it measurable
Entertainment is extremely measurable on digital media platforms.
And so, our primary measurement of success was engagement.
But aha! This is why it is so important to define goals ahead of time. Because our success wasnāt ONLY measured in engagement. If it was, weād be chasing mindless likes, clicks, comments, regardless of the tone, voice, or substance.
If your goal as a digital media brand is ONLY engagement, youāll be a hate-filled clickbait brand filled with content that makes people angry and scared. And probably itāll be political.
So thatās why we had community. Community for us was creating a special place on the internet where people felt like they belonged, no matter who they were. We wanted it to be inclusive and welcoming and positive. So that we could celebrate modern involved fatherhood in a very authentic way.
This one is much harder to measure. To us, it was way less quantifiable. To tell if we were doing a good job at community, weād look to comments, messages, emails, etc. to see if our mosaic of content was doing its job of entertaining, yes, but also being impactful to peopleās lives.
My mother is a Stage 4Ā CancerĀ patient and yesterday I showed her your Instagram account and your posts- honestly both of us couldnāt stop laughing, it happened after such a long time and was definitely one of the best moments of our lives.Ā
ā Bhanuj KaushalThanks for the laughs and the happy/sad tears.
ā E.J. StartIts great being part of a community that gets us.
ā Brett HarveyIām a girl, mom, feminist. I have four young men 18-27 and if they turn into anything like the ppl behind the content of this site I will be the proudest mom in the world ā¤ļø You really are a momās dream of what men can be: strong, masculine, witty and vulnerable, compassionate... Bravo.Ā
ā Linnie Marie
Make it a habit
The month before we launched The Dad, we created a ton of content so weād be ready to go on November 1, 2017.
I created a Google Spreadsheet called the Master Sched. Every row was a day, and across the columns were all of the time slots weād fill with content. 8:12am, 9:12am, 10:12am, etcā¦. For all social platforms. It was color coded by content type.
Each Friday Iād go in and schedule the entire next weekās worth of content all in one go. It was a MARATHON. Iām pretty sure the other highly creative people on the team (Ally Probst, Josh Sneed, Mike Julianelle) were taken aback by this level of rigor and nerdiness. But this was the process. This was how weād be sure not to miss slots, and maximize our ability to meet the goals.
That discipline provided stupid boring guardrails and then within those guardrails we could get weird and creative and out of the box.
It became a habit. And I believe Jared Warner, Jordan Stratton, and Reuben Qualls are still using the master sched on The Dad to this day. And possibly doing a weekās worth of scheduling in one go. Jordan, Jared, chime off in the comments if you read this.
If the master sched is still alive and well, it warms my heart.
Got something you want to achieve?
Set a goal. Make it simple. Make it measurable. Make it a habit.
Day after day, week after week.
And enjoy the process. Enjoy the ride.
Before you know it, the ride is over and youāre just writing a substack about it.