research-sources

What this skill does

# Strategies: Research Sources

Guides selecting and organizing information sources for marketing research: content ideation, competitor monitoring, and industry tracking. Use this skill when planning where to gather signals for content, competitive intelligence, or market trends.

**When invoking**: On **first use**, if helpful, open with 1–2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On **subsequent use** or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output.

## Use Cases

| Use case | Purpose |
|----------|---------|
| **Content ideation** | Topic ideas, trends, gaps for blog, newsletter, social |
| **Competitor monitoring** | Product updates, positioning, pricing, reviews |
| **Industry tracking** | Market shifts, funding, layoffs, regulatory changes |

## Source Categories

| Category | Format | Use |
|----------|--------|-----|
| **News** | Real-time, daily | Breaking news, announcements |
| **Blogs** | Company, analyst | Deep dives, product updates |
| **Newsletters** | Curated, weekly/daily | Trends, summaries; low effort |
| **Events** | Conferences, webinars | Industry pulse, networking |
| **Data** | Layoffs, market cap, funding | Quantitative signals |
| **Community** | Forums, Q&A | Real questions, pain points |
| **Archives** | Wayback, Internet Archive | Historical content, competitor changes |

**Selection criteria**: Authority, freshness, coverage, language/locale. Prefer 10–15 high-quality sources over 50+ low-signal ones.

## Example Sources (Generic)

| Category | Examples |
|----------|----------|
| **News** | TechCrunch, VentureBeat, MIT Technology Review |
| **Blogs** | Google AI Blog, OpenAI Blog, company blogs |
| **Newsletters** | TLDR AI, Ben's Bites, The Batch (DeepLearning.AI) |
| **Data** | Layoffs.fyi, Crunchbase, Companies Market Cap |
| **Archives** | Internet Archive, Wayback Machine |
| **Community** | Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow; regional (e.g. Qiita for Japan) |

**Note**: Add locale-specific sources via **localization-strategy**; avoid long URL lists.

## By Use Case

| Use case | Source types |
|----------|--------------|
| **Content ideation** | News, blogs, newsletters, community (Reddit, Quora, Stack Overflow) |
| **Competitor monitoring** | Competitor blogs, review sites, social, funding databases |
| **Industry tracking** | News, newsletters, events, layoff/funding data |

**Avoid**: Long URL lists that go stale. Use category framework + a few examples; update periodically.

## Integration with Skills

| Skill | How research sources feed in |
|-------|------------------------------|
| **keyword-research** | Newsletters, community for long-tail and question keywords |
| **competitor-research** | Competitor blogs, review platforms, funding data |
| **content-marketing** | News, blogs for topic ideas; events for timely content |
| **content-strategy** | Industry trends for pillar/cluster planning |

## Output Format

- **Use case** (ideation, competitor, industry)
- **Category** selection (news, blogs, newsletters, etc.)
- **Source** shortlist (5–15; name + purpose)
- **Cadence** (daily scan, weekly digest, event calendar)

## Related Skills

- **keyword-research**: Keyword discovery; research sources inform topics
- **competitor-research**: Competitor analysis; sources for monitoring
- **content-marketing**: Content planning; sources for ideation
- **content-strategy**: Topic clusters; industry signals for pillars