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Content Marketing

Our general approach to content marketing​

As a company that contributes to the upstream FreeCAD project but also works with businesses directly, we use our blog to reach out to several groups of people: engineers who are already FreeCAD users (both employed and freelancers), potential users of FreeCAD, company owners that look for new opportunities in a market dominated by proprietary CAD software vendors.

So the blog is the primary place where we publish our vision, plans, ideas, and questions for the community. After publishing, we try to be strategic with sharing our content via social media. For general content, we publish on multiple social media platforms. Posts should be published where it makes the most sense. Our intent is to be helpful and constructive with our content, not just spamming every available outlet.

Main topics​

Our posts generally fall under one of the following categories: Ondsel products, FreeCAD development, management of FOSS projects.

How we manage content ideas​

All work on content is managed on a private Trello board.

  • A new content idea first goes to the 'Workshop' list and gets reviewed on a bi-weekly basis. Once an idea is approved, it goes to the 'Backlog' list that collects all worthwhile ideas.
  • Higher-priority content pieces are discussed on weekly calls and moved between 'Backlog' and 'Next up' lists.
  • Posts currently being worked on are on the 'WIP' list.
  • Post ideas that are no longer considered relevant end up on the 'Icebox' list.

How we create content​

Blog posts are typically written either by Brad Collette (CTO of Ondsel), or by content writers who are independent contractors, or in collaboration between a content writer and an Ondsel employee.

Original research is typically done by content writers, sometimes in collaboration with co-authors who are Ondsel employees or external experts.

When original research is required, we maintain two documents: the actual research and the draft of the post. This gives developers a clean document to rely on when they develop improvements or new features based the research.

Once a draft is ready, it undergoes review by Brad Collette and is then published to the blog.

How content gets approved​

Posts are always reviewed by Brad Collette, CTO of Ondsel.

There are multiple scenarios where a post would get an additional review outside of Ondsel. Here are some of them:

  • When a post covers the management of the FreeCAD project, an additional review is done by a member of the FreeCAD Project Association, typically by Werner Meyer, co-founder of FreeCAD.
  • When a post covers potential major changes in FreeCAD, an additional review is commonly done by a respective maintainer of FreeCAD.

How we publish to social media​

We typically share links to new blog posts on multiple platforms: X (Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn (Ondsel's page and the FreeCAD Community group), Reddit (/r/freecad). Additional posts are possible on FreeCAD's forum. Here is a quick explainer.

Reddit​

The /r/freecad subreddit has an active and engaged base of FreeCAD users. We often get good engagement and constructive feedback. Content here should be strictly FreeCAD-related, not general Ondsel information.

Facebook​

Facebook has several FreeCAD-related communities. All blog posts should be published on the Ondsel page. Share those posts to groups as it makes sense. Two groups of note are the main FreeCAD group and the FreeCAD Power Users group.

Twitter​

Despite much criticism towards former and current owners of the platform, X (Twitter) is still used by many active and potential FreeCAD users. We share all blog posts from the @ondsel account.

FreeCAD Forum​

FreeCAD-related content can be shared on the FreeCAD forum. Posts should be made in the most appropriate forum section. For general FreeCAD related content, the open discussion section is probably the most appropriate.

LinkedIn​

All posts can be made to the Ondsel page. FreeCAD related content can be posted/shared to FreeCAD Group There is also a page for the FreeCAD Project Association. Only FPA-relevant content should be posted/shared here.

Telegram​

The FreeCAD Community is relatively new and growing. We post to it

Discord​

The FreeCAD Project channel on Discord is also a newer yet already well-established platform for communication between users and contributors to the project. Ondsel's posts can be shared in the #general section.