What is the Role of a Content Strategist?

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In today’s world, Content is King when it comes to building a brand and making money online. Investing in content marketing allows you to increase your brand awareness, build authority, and increase sales for your business. Because of this, there is a huge demand for people who can create and manage content. This is where the role of a content strategist comes into play. A content strategist plans and oversees the creation of content for a business. This blog post will cover the role of a content strategist as well as the significance of having one within your business.

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Key Points

1. A content strategist researches, plans, and oversee the execution of content creation for a business.
2. A good content strategist are able to create a customized content strategy tailored to the needs of the business
3. To become a content strategist, start with creating content for yourself.

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Content strategist definition

A content strategist, by definition, is a professional who works with businesses to research, plan, and execute on the content creation that aligns to the goals and the values for the business. The focus of a content strategist is to create strategic, high-value content that educates your audience and converts your followers into paying customers.

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The role of a content strategist

The role of a content strategist starts with building a powerful content strategy that directs your followers to the next step in your buyers journey but also showcases your expertise and helps you build authority. If you have a big content team, the role of a content strategist may just be to research content ideas and oversee other people creating the content. However, generally speaking a content strategist job looks like:

• Identifying your ideal audience and their pain points.
• Researching the latest industry as well as social media trends
• Creating a plan for the next week, month, or quarter of content
• Creating the graphics and copy
• Distributing the content across multiple platforms
• Tracking the content’s performance

A content strategist can wear many hats, but the focus should always be making sure that your content marketing aligns to the goals and values for your business.

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How to be a content strategist

Becoming a content strategist starts with the interest in content. Not just as a consumer, but from the lens of a creator. It’s important that when you look at different pieces of content, you’re not only looking at the content to say “wow I really enjoyed that” but you’re also asking yourself “why did this content really perform well.” My best advice is to start off with creating content for yourself consistently. As you create content consistently, you’ll start to form your own plans around your content and can also develop the skill set to track your content as well.

I also recommend that you start with one platform when it comes to starting off as a content strategist. That could be email, blogging, Pinterest, or Instagram. The reason why is because each platform has very different ideas of what performs well on each of those platforms and have a different range of skill sets. Once you’ve perfected or understood one platform, move to another one, and then another one.

Once you’ve mastered creating content for yourself, look to create content for other people. Allow yourself to understand the needs of people who are different from you to expand and strengthen your content strategy skills and increase your learning opportunity. Creating a powerful content strategy is a skill that takes time to develop but once you have it, it can only get better.

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What skills are needed to be a content strategist?

There are many skills that can help you become a content strategist most of which you may already have! A content strategist needs to have a good understanding of how to create content as well as also like to create content as well. Creating content is not just about the graphics; it’s about the words as well so being a good writer is also very important. Lastly, content strategists have to be able to interpret data so that they can easily understand what is working well and not well to know what changes to the content strategy need to be made.

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What makes a good content strategist

Building a content strategy for people isn’t one size fits all. It’s important to create a strategy for a client that aligns to their goals and also matches what they can handle. Even if you were to outsource your content creation process to someone else, there are still elements that you need to contribute to the overall content creation process. This means that trying to create one-size-fits-all content strategies isn’t going to work because what might be attainable for one person, may not be attainable to someone else. Being able to customize your strategy to tailor to the needs of the business is a key skill that can separate you from the rest.

Another thing that makes a good content strategist is having knowledge of the industry or niche that you’re creating content for. For example if you’re someone who wants to create content in the wellness space, having a content strategist who is well-versed in the wellness space can ensure that you’re getting a content strategy from someone who is well-versed in your area.

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The difference of content strategist versus the other content-based roles

There. are other roles within the content marketing space that support or work alongside a content strategist. Here are some other roles that can help with getting content created and distributed:

• Content creator: A content creator supports the content strategist by making sure the content that is planned by the content strategist gets created. The purpose of a content creator is to create content that informs, educates, and entertains the audience.
• Copywriter: A copywriter is focused on creating copy (words) that sell to your audience. The goal of a copywriter is to create words that encourage the reader to take action and buy a product and service. They oftentimes work with the content creator to create captions or website copy that can move people to take action.
• Content Managers: Content managers are also similar to content strategists except for they are solely focused on overseeing the content as it gets created. This role is similar to a product manager with only a focus on content creation.
• Content Marketer: A content marketer is similar to a content creator with a focus on organic content marketing strategy like blogging or social media. While a content strategist is focused on the overall planning and strategy, content marketers are focused on the execution.

Having a good content strategist can allow you to take your brand to the next level. If you’re interested in working with me to help you with your content strategy, apply to work with me.

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