Content Strategists are playing an increasingly important role in the world of digital marketing. Their role combines writing and audiovisual content production with a broader strategic role in defining a brand, crafting a message, and making sure that the right content finds its way to the right viewers. All that makes Content Strategy a great role for anyone who combines business savvy and creative flair. We've compiled these resources to help you master the basics of this fast-growing field.
Here are some key resources to help you get up-to-speed on the basic of Content Strategy. We've organized them by skill, so you can bone up on the areas where you're less confident. Check them off as your go!
You are a master of written communication, and the written word is your primary tool. No matter what subject you’re tackling, you know how to organize complicated information into an interesting, easy-to-understand narrative that speaks to the audience you intend to reach. Your background is in crafting content – written content, specifically. You're well-suited to approach content strategy as a creator. When it comes to time to execute the decided-upon strategy, you're ready to hit the ground running. Additionally, your experience as a content creator gives you unique insight as to what content is feasible to ship within a particular timeframe.
The truth is important to you, and you know how to hunt it down and share it. You're comfortable with research and investigation in all their forms, and you're also a master of communicating your findings to a broad audience. Your background provides you with an understanding of both how to present information and how to use your interpersonal skills to track it down. This gives you the needed expertise to produce content as well as conduct interviews and develop a sourcing plan.
Your background is in gathering and making sense of empirical data. Maybe your focus is on designing experiments, working with test subjects, or analyzing the results of experiments after they’ve been run. You’re familiar with experimental methods, be they qualitative, quantitative, or some combination of both. Whatever your specialty, you know how to find grains of truth in a confusing world. Your background allows you to approach content strategy from the "strategy" side. You're all about hard numbers and running tests to determine exactly what content resonates the best with potential users. You're also uniquely suited to making sure all the publicly- presented content you ship is both factual and interesting. That alone can be the foundation of a brand.
You're an expert when it comes to giving customers the tools they need to succeed. You know how to listen to their needs, clearly walk them through procedures, and proactively reach out in order to head off their potential problems before the need even arrises. Your background has accustomed you to modeling mindsets and potential needs of customers. This gives you a nuanced understanding of how they think about and interact with products, which in turn gives you unique insight into what sort of messaging might particularly resonate with potential users. When you craft content strategy, you'll come at it from the perspective of someone who knows how to put the needs of client's first, and who thus knows how to tailor content to their needs.