Designing Your “Strategic Content Ecosystem”
A Strategic Content Ecosystem is a way to organize (and think about) the Content, Material, Work, and Thought Leadership you’re putting out into the world holistically.
The ways in which all the puzzle pieces fit together snugly to fulfill all the roles you intend your content to fulfill—creating awareness, connection, trust, desire, and demand for your brand and what it is that you offer.
It also includes the format and cadence of that content, as well as the channels you’re focusing on using to reach your desired audience.
Principle #1: “Connection and Discovery”
Every year, I sit down and decide on a word for the year.
Having a single word gives me a level of focus. A theme to hang my hat on—that helps me keep the main thing the main thing.
My word this year (2025) is…“Discovery.”
And once again, there are layers to this choice as well.
Discovery has a deep importance to me on many levels.
My top 5 strengths are as follows:
- Learner
- Intellection
- Futuristic
- Focus
- Significance
My primary reason for the word “Discovery” is to put this next year focus around my work being discovered (and re-discovered) by a much larger group of people, now that I have a level of focus on where I’m taking my business following the sale of our software company.
Principle #2: “Prolific and Contrarian”
There’s a certain “Creative Fecundity” required for your work to be discovered in the increasingly crowded world we live in today.
You’ll notice that this Strategic Content Ecosystem has me creating about 275K words worth of material this coming year (the equivalent of about 5 books), or about 40 hours’ worth of consumable content.
Now, I know on the one hand this sounds like a lot.
But on the other hand—40 hours isn’t really that much over the course of a year.
At the same time, this isn’t about volume.
This isn’t about filling the world with noise.
It’s about finding the signal in all that noise.
It’s about sharing original thinking and ideas.
Articulated in ways that are fresh and different, and at the same time.
Putting forth a POV that is unconventional, unexpected, slightly controversial, and somewhat contrarian.
Because I believe this is what we all need to do if we want to cut through the noise and stand out in 2025.
Principle #3: Focus and “Function-Stacking”
There’s a Permaculture Principle that I’ve written about in the past, known as Function-Stacking—which is deeply important in any Strategically Focused Content Ecosystem.
Function-Stacking is an idea in Permaculture Theory that any element on the farm—whether that be a tool, piece of equipment, or livestock—needs to serve multiple purposes.
If you’ve ever attended one of my Public Town Halls, every quarter, I deliver a “State of the Union” style session LIVE via Zoom.
In my new Content Ecosystem, I’m using the feedback from that live session to convert the content into a more refined and fleshed-out “Mini-Book.”
From there, I will be syndicating this content in three different ways:
Function-Stack #1—Amazon
First, it’s my intent that I’ll publish each of these mini-books on Amazon as part of a series, roughly one per quarter. (This will begin building my Amazon readership and audience in preparation for my next “real” book set to release late 2025—using the “Jonathan Milligan” strategy I discussed a few weeks ago.)
Function-Stack #2—Audible
From there, I’m also going to read each “mini-book” myself to transform them into Audiobooks on Audible (for all the reasons I explain in Going Analog in terms of why I’m so bullish on audio as a format right now.)
Function-Stack #3—YouTube
Lastly, one of my projects for 2025 is to “re-launch” my YouTube channel, which to date—hasn’t been a focus.
Part of my YouTube strategy will be releasing quarterly “Long-Form” videos (in combination with weekly medium form videos) where viewers can get a taste of some of my deeper thought leadership—which I’ve historically only made available on live sessions (like my Town Halls) and which (until recently) has almost been entirely hidden behind paywalls.
One Town Hall Event—gets repurposed and syndicated in multiple different ways across multiple different platforms to get as much mileage as possible from the content.
This is what “Function-Stacking” looks like in action.
Final Idea #1: The Problem with “Lead Magnets”
Earlier this year, we analyzed nearly a million email opt-ins onto my email list over the last decade.
And what we found was that historically, the least engaged email subscribers (in terms of opens, clicks, and engagement over the long term) were those who came onto the list from some type of lead magnet, like a digital download.
And it makes sense, right?
When people are giving their email address in exchange for a “thingy”—they want that thing.
For example: Signing up to receive your PDF Guide.
The entire exchange is transactional—the equivalent of the “one night stand” vs. the “long-term relationship” that’s implied when the premise of the email opt-in is an ongoing relationship.
For example: Signing up to receive your private newsletter every single week.
And that’s why my thinking has evolved such that I believe the only lead magnet worth focusing on (to drive people onto your email list) is an Email Newsletter positioned as a Named Publication—like The Digital Contrarian.
In essence, your Email Newsletter becomes your Lead Magnet.
