A Day In The Life Of A Content Manager – The Exclusive BizzBee Series

They say the only way to achieve great things is to love what you do.

And I completely agree.

I wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t enjoy every second of my journey.

I guess I always had this spark in me. The desire to do something big. To never give up. To make a change.

This is a strength that not many people carry. Yet, I am grateful to recognise it in the people by my side.

You see, I got pretty lucky.

Having a team of talented people is a blessing.

Seeing them follow their dreams and work towards their passion is one of my most outstanding achievements.

One of them is our wordsmith –?Buba. The Content Manager in BizzBee and the master behind all the magic.

Let me start by saying that Buba is my creative hand in the company. She’s been able to take simple words and make them come to life.

She has come a long way, stayed with me through thick and thin, and made it all look easy.

To me, Buba truly is someone who loves their job.

But I don’t want to speak in her stead.

That’s why you should listen to her story and see what she has to say about her life-long passion for words.

So, who is Buba? Please tell us a bit more about yourself!

Buba is a 34-year-old mom of baby boy Petar. Being a mom is my greatest joy and achievement in life. This role brings me so much joy and fills my cup with inspiration and eagerness. My son is my muse, and I have become a better writer and person because of him.

Personally, I’ve always been a bookworm. Ever since primary school, I’ve spent my days surrounded by books. My favorite place was the library. I just loved the long corridors of libraries and the shelves full of old, dusty books. That place had a unique charm. When I entered the library, a new magical world opened up for me, far more beautiful than the real one. That’s why I lost myself in it and let the magic of the words carry me.

And those who know me well know I’ve always loved to write. I know my way with words as a bee knows its way with pollen.

I can twist them, bend them, and make them come alive.

I seek the beauty in everything around me and make every blank page dance.

Words are my weapons, and I have won many battles using nothing but their sharp edges.

?They carry a heaviness that can change lives, destines, even hearts.

What does a typical day of a Content Manager look like?

Oh, busy. Busy here is an understatement. I am a woman of rituals, so the first thing I do when I wake up is to make myself a big cup of coffee. After I had a couple of sips, the day could begin, and people could officially start talking to me.

Then I check my email and respond to the most urgent ones. I always have a long to-do list. And I just keep adding new tasks to it. When I cross every task off my list, I feel like I’ve conquered the world.

Then I have the daily morning meeting with my team, so I can be assured that everyone has something to do and that they are on top of things. During this meeting, I also check to see if they require assistance.

Being the control freak I am by nature, I must be 100% certain that everything runs smoothly.

During the day, I do a lot of editing and proofreading. All content on social media must be well-written, insightful, and fun to read. I always check for errors and misspellings twice and three times. Quality content is my passion, and I always strive for perfection.

There’s always a lot of content to be written, checked, and edited in BizzBee Solutions. I create most of it and edit the content that the other writers create. I am the last filter before the content goes where it needs to.

What motivates you in your work?

In work and life in general, I am motivated by love. I am a love and emotions-driven person, and I always pour bits of my soul into everything I do. I love my job. I don’t do it just because I need to work something to make a living. I really enjoy creating mind-blowing content. To me, content is king, as Bill Gates once put it. People browse organic results on Google, YouTube, and other social media platforms to answer their questions and problems.

Do they instantly trust what they read? No, but it gives you a better chance than any paid ad. Plus, even paid ads need non-salesy quality content to connect with the audience.

People nowadays receive tons of salesy, pushy messages and content on a daily level. And they are sincerely, non-apologetically, sick of it. They are sick of reading the same lines all over again. They are no fun nor interesting to read. And when creating content, I intend to make it the opposite of that.

I want my content to be different. Unique. To cause action. I want people to read it and say: “ Wow, that’s insightful.” I want my content to make them smile.

What are your responsibilities as a content manager?

Oh, it will take me a couple of days if I start numbering everything that I do during the day. But I will try to keep things short and sweet.

Every content manager has to develop a content strategy aligned with short-term and long-term marketing targets. That’s a lot of work. It has to be thought through carefully and be revised and checked with the marketing team many times.

My primary and most cherished responsibility is to create and publish engaging content. I enjoy this part of my work. I am a woman of words and I am always passionate about writing.

Then, I edit, proofread and improve other content writers’ posts. That means liaising with content writers to ensure brand consistency.

I also manage content distribution to online channels and social media platforms to increase web traffic.

Developing an editorial calendar and ensure the marketing/content team is on board is also one of the things that I am in charge of as it is staying up-to-date with developments and generate new ideas to draw audience’s attention.

Communication with all the other teams, the managers and the CEO is something that I also do every day.

Define ‘good content’ and ‘bad content.’ What makes content good or bad?

Pretty self-explanatory.

Good content is always readable, makes sense and does not have any errors. Bad content is usually written in a rushed manner, does not make sense and usually does have errors. It might seem unfair, but readers that read content that doesn’t make sense or worse has a ton of spelling and grammatical errors can turn people away. I’ve been victim to this exact instance.

I’ve visited a website that seems to have the information I need, I read through the first few sentences and found some really horrible mistakes. My thoughts: Wow, this person couldn’t even spend the time to write this correctly. How unprofessional. In some instances it has made me annoyed that they wasted my time.

In other instances, I swear I’ll never visit the site again. This is not a one-time deal either. A lot of other people feel the same way. If you cannot write your own content or come up with good ideas to write good content, hire someone to do it for you. There are writers to help you with content and there are also SEO specialists to help you figure out your keywords. Personally, I’d rather spend a few bucks and have it done right!

How would you know if your content was successful or not?

Content marketing is a long-term strategy. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and while it can be a little slow going to get things moving and for momentum to start building, it can be a key pillar of many brands’ marketing mixes.

We all know that content can generate site traffic, help build brand awareness, and even help drive sales, making it an appealing marketing strategy, but it can be a particularly fickle one to track.

Understanding whether or not your content is doing its job is important. If it’s not, after all, you’ll want to adapt, switching up your strategies so that you can start to get the results you’re hoping to see.

That’s why I love thought leadership posts. Brand awareness and thought leadership posts can be tracked by tagged mentions on social and an increase in backlinks.

The overarching goal of any content asset is to provide value for readers. Though no single metric can illustrate this, social shares and backlinks shed light on whether or not people are willing to share your content with their personal audiences.

Say you have a blog post that was shared a couple of times on social, or an infographic that was picked up by several industry-leading publications. These content metrics matter, especially if you have awareness-related goals.

Is there anything you would like to add?

I would like to point out that this is a pretty new role for me and that I am still learning. I learn how to write better content every day. I read a lot about developing successful marketing and content strategies, and I put a lot of effort into keeping everything on track. I also like to make the workplace a pleasant and joyful place, and I want my team to want to come to work. I want them to feel free to come to me whenever they need help. I also do a lot of research when it comes to the latest content strategies, and I try to apply the best ones. I am at the beginning of my content management journey, but you know what they say—even the longest of roads starts with a single step.