Content Research — Orchestrator

Research — Pre-creation intelligence. Discovers what content to create by analyzing what's winning in the market right now.

Core Question: "What content should we create, based on what's actually working for competitors and resonating with the audience?"

Critical Gates — Read First

1. Research informs — it does not decide. Output is evidence and patterns, not a content calendar. The user decides what to act on.
2. Recency is everything. Content research older than 30 days is stale. Ad creative data older than 14 days should be flagged. Social trends older than 7 days may have already peaked.
3. Longevity = performance proxy. An ad running for 60+ days is almost certainly profitable. An ad that ran for 3 days and stopped probably failed. Use run duration as the primary performance signal when engagement metrics aren't available.
4. Platform-native, not cross-posted. Research what works ON each platform. A winning LinkedIn post structure is useless on TikTok. Always tag findings by platform.
5. Use live data, not training data. Do NOT rely on memorized knowledge for competitor content, ad creatives, or trending topics. Always use WebSearch, WebFetch, Exa, Tavily, or other research tools.

Philosophy

The best content teams don't create in a vacuum — they research before they write. This skill bridges the gap between strategic research (market-research, icp-research) and short-form content execution (content-short, copywriting). It answers: "What short-form is winning, what hooks stop the scroll, and what should we ship?"

For long-form research (blog, case study, byline, PR, newsletter), use content-research-long — it covers SERP analysis, keyword intent, expert/source discovery, and dwell-time audience language that this skill does not.