Creating a Sustainable & Engaging Content Strategy

Four Key Steps to Creating a Sustainable and Engaging Content Strategy

This article was recently featured on the "Marketing" category of LinkedIn.

Content strategy is the heart of social media marketing. Social media without content is simply not social. A unique content strategy can differentiate an engaging and 'fun' brand among its competitors. Most importantly, a powerful content strategy will enable brands to communicate its narrative to a wider audience while also engaging and increasing brand loyalty among its existing followers.

In the fourth week of my course in Social Media Marketing & Networking (good read before moving forward) at UC Berkeley, I highlight the importance of content within a social marketing strategy and discuss the steps to developing a successful content strategy. The deck for this lecture has been uploaded on SlideShare and shared below.

Social Media Marketing Content Strategy Slide Deck

1. Corporate Branding

A brand's content strategy must breathe and speak its overarching corporate branding. Identifying your brand perception in the early development stage will enable your social media platforms to tell a cohesive narrative. A cohesive narrative will allow your brand to stay true to what it stands for and have a consistent tone across all communication channels: website, mobile, tv ads, and most importantly, social media.

2. Business Objectives

Social media marketing is always be driven by business objectives. Similarly, a successful content strategy will always align itself with corporate needs. Within the business context, a brand could be B2C (Business to Consumer), B2B (Business to Business), or B2E (Business to Employee). Corporate needs for each of this business context will differ. While a B2C company might want to increase brand awareness and share of wallet among existing customers, a B2E company might want to increase talent recruitment and decrease turnover.

A content strategy can then be developed to address these corporate objectives. For the B2C example, such company would focus on creating a content strategy that routinely highlights key products and how they are relevant to current followers. On the other hand, the B2E company would want to focus on creating a content strategy that consistently highlight social outings and culture. Posts on social outings will increase engagement and loyalty from existing talents. At the same time, posts on culture will attract potential talents to apply to such company.

3. Marketing Objectives

Once corporate objectives have been identified, the brand's marketing strategy must be taken into consideration. How will the social infrastructure fit in with a brand's overarching IMC plan? Each social media platform serves different a purpose, such each platform will require a unique content strategy.

A brand that wants to increase awareness among a younger audience would want to increase its follower acquisition and engagement on platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. Acquisition and engagement marketing objectives will require such brand to develop a content strategy that is most relevant to this target age group. For this particular brand, content that involves trending topics and hashtags will be key to success. In addition, the utilization of frequent and relevant memes will increase the engagement among their younger audience.

4. Situation Analysis - 5Cs Framework

Last but not least, situation analysis aka the 5C's framework should be used to assess internal and external capabilities: customers needs, internal organization, and the competitive landscape. The 5C's framework break down to Customers, Company, Competitors, Collaborators, and Context.

• Customers: Who are your target audience? Are they direct consumers, businesses, or employees? Demographically: age, gender, education? Psychographically: lifestyle? Your content strategy will change drastically based on your target audience.
• Company: Is your organization capable of supporting a content strategy across multiple platforms? How many team members are working on social media marketing? Is your team capable of keeping your content strategy sustainable and relevant through time?
• Competitors: Who are you competitors within the social sphere? Are they competing for the same target audience (i.e. Google Search vs. Bing)? How engaging and effective is their content strategy compared to yours?
• Collaborators: Who can you collaborate with to increase your brand's relevance and awareness within the social world? Finding the right collaborators will enable smaller brands to compete against enterprise brands with more followers and klout. How can your content strategy align together with to other companies' and create shared value?
• Context: What are the current and latest trends? Technology is constantly changing. An example is the increase in mobile usage. How can a brand develop a content strategy that addresses mobile users who are generally younger than their average audience?

Key Takeaways

Using these four steps to develop a content strategy will give a brand both a macro and micro perspective of how their content strategy will best create value for their business. At a macro level, branding, corporate objectives, and marketing goals must be taken into consideration to ensure alignment. At the same time, the 5C's framework allows for a micro level and in-depth assessment of a brand's organizational capability, competitive landscape, and customers needs to deliver a sustainable content strategy.

A successful content strategy will involve a unique blend of content that will always tell a cohesive branding narrative. An in-depth case analysis on content strategy development using these four key steps is provided in the slide deck above.

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Tai is currently a business undergraduate at UC Berkeley. He is ready to disrupt the tech industry with his infectious passion and energy for marketing! Learn more about his marketing and networking course at the Haas School of Business.

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Like what you read? Share, like, and comment. Follow me for more pieces on undergraduate education and social media marketing. You may also enjoy:

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