platform-strategy-brief

Platform Strategy Brief

What This Skill Does

Writes a platform strategy brief for a media brand, publication, documentary filmmaker, or podcast entering or expanding on a specific social platform — covering audience fit, content approach, posting rhythm, and success metrics.

When To Use This Skill

• A media organisation is launching on a new platform and needs a strategic foundation before creating content
• A creator or journalist wants to approach a new platform purposefully rather than posting randomly
• A social media manager needs to brief a wider team on the strategy for a specific platform
• An existing social presence is underperforming and needs a strategic reset

What You Need To Provide

Required: The platform you are developing a strategy for (Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter/X, etc.), the type of media brand or account (magazine, documentary filmmaker, podcast, independent journalist, broadcaster), a brief description of the content or editorial focus.

Optional: Current follower count and performance if expanding an existing presence, target audience description, any comparable accounts doing this well on the platform, specific goals (audience growth, newsletter subscribers, event ticket sales, reach), available resource (one person, a small team, a budget for paid content).

How the Assistant Approaches This

1. Assesses the fit between the platform's dominant audience behaviour and the media brand's content — not every platform is right for every brand, and the brief will say so honestly if the fit is weak
2. Defines the content approach: what types of content work on this platform for this kind of account, what the posting rhythm should be, and what the brand's distinctive angle should be (not just "post what everyone else posts")
3. Sets realistic metrics for 90 days and 12 months — based on what is achievable with the stated resource level — and identifies the two or three things that will determine whether the strategy is working

Output Format

Strategic brief: Platform Fit Assessment (100 words), Content Approach (200 words — content types, posting rhythm, tone), Distinctive Angle (100 words — what makes this account worth following among many similar accounts), 90-Day Targets (bullet list), 12-Month Targets (bullet list), Key Risk (one honest paragraph about what could go wrong). Total 500–700 words. Written for a media professional, not a social media consultant — direct, assumes editorial intelligence, no jargon.

Quality Criteria

• Platform fit assessment honestly identifies weaknesses, not just opportunities
• Content approach is specific to the platform's mechanics (e.g., LinkedIn rewards dwell time; TikTok rewards immediate engagement)
• Distinctive angle section answers why someone would follow this account rather than any other account on this subject
• 90-day targets are realistic for the stated resource level — not aspirational beyond what the evidence supports
• Key risk section names a specific, plausible risk (not generic "content may not perform")

Example

Input

Platform: LinkedIn Media brand: A monthly print magazine covering architecture and urban design Editorial focus: Long-form features, criticism, and reporting on how cities are built and who benefits Current presence: 1,200 followers on LinkedIn, low engagement, posting inconsistently Target audience: Architecture and planning professionals, urban policy people, readers interested in the built environment Goal: Grow to 5,000 engaged followers who visit the website and subscribe Resource: One editorial staff member doing social media alongside other responsibilities

Output

Platform Strategy Brief — LinkedIn

Architecture and Urban Design Magazine

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Platform Fit Assessment

LinkedIn is a reasonable primary platform for this brand — architecture, planning, and urban design professionals are active on LinkedIn, and long-form editorial content finds a more engaged audience here than on Instagram or Twitter/X. The platform's current algorithm rewards content that generates comments and reading time, which suits substantive editorial. The risk is that LinkedIn's dominant content culture favours personal career narratives and business success stories over critical journalism — the magazine will need a distinctive editorial voice that resists that drift.

Fit rating: Moderate–Strong, with strategic discipline required.

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Content Approach

Post frequency: 3–4 times per week. LinkedIn currently rewards consistency over volume; 3 posts per week sustained over 90 days outperforms 10 posts in one week followed by silence.

Content types:

1. Editorial insight posts (40%): First-person perspective from the editorial team — a striking claim from the current issue, a counterintuitive observation about a city story in the news. These perform best as text-only posts, not link posts.

2. Article amplification (30%): Posts that summarise the argument of a specific piece without requiring the reader to click first — then link at the end. LinkedIn suppresses link posts; treat every post as a complete read, not a teaser.

3. Behind-the-scenes editorial (20%): How a story was researched, why a specific building was chosen, what the editorial debate was about a piece. This is content competitors cannot copy.

4. Curated industry commentary (10%): The magazine's perspective on major urban stories in the news — brief, opinionated, published quickly.

Tone: Authoritative but not academic. The voice of someone who has been thinking about this for years and is willing to say what they actually think.

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Distinctive Angle

Most architecture and design accounts on LinkedIn share project photography and career announcements. This magazine can own the position of being the account that is critical and specific — that says what is wrong with a building as well as what is right with it, that names the policy failure behind the planning decision, that is willing to disagree with the received opinion in the profession. That position is rare and valuable on LinkedIn.

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90-Day Targets

• Follower count: 1,200 → 2,000
• Post engagement rate: < 1% → 2.5% average
• Establish a consistent posting rhythm: 3 posts per week, every week
• Identify the two content types that generate the most profile visits
• Launch one recurring content series (e.g., "The Building That Changed This City")

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12-Month Targets

• Follower count: 5,000
• LinkedIn as a measurable referral source to the magazine website (track via UTM parameters)
• At least one post per month with 5,000+ organic impressions
• Establish the account as a known editorial voice in architecture/planning LinkedIn — referenced by other accounts

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Key Risk

The single biggest risk is inconsistency. LinkedIn's algorithm heavily penalises accounts that post in bursts and then go quiet. With one part-time social media contributor, the temptation is to do a lot when there is time and nothing when there isn't. The solution is to build a 2-week content reserve: posts drafted and ready to schedule, so that a busy week in the office doesn't become a week of silence on LinkedIn. If that discipline isn't in place within the first 30 days, the strategy will fail regardless of the quality of the content.

Known Limitations

• Platform algorithms change frequently. Specific recommendations about what LinkedIn or TikTok currently rewards are based on documented patterns at time of writing — verify against current platform documentation and creator case studies before implementing.
• This brief covers one platform at a time. Cross-platform strategy (managing multiple platforms with different content for each) requires a more comprehensive approach than a single-platform brief can provide.
• Follower targets are estimates based on typical growth patterns for accounts at this size with this resource level. Actual growth will depend heavily on content quality and algorithmic variability.

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