How to create awesome 'Content Strategy'

People often ask me why is it so important to have content strategy? And my answer remains the same - It helps your business decide on what kind of content to produce and how to market it to your target audience.

Out of prior experience, I can infer that content strategy has 5 phases: Plan, Create, Publish, Distribute & Analyse.

1. Plan: FIND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE - At this stage your business identifies the group of people you want to generate content for. Here are the things you might want to consider while creating a character profile for them: a) Demographics - Gender, Age, Job, Location, Psychological Traits b) Personality - Value, Attitude, Lifestyle, Interests. CREATE AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR - This tool will allow you to plan out content weeks in advance. You should consider the following while putting your calendar in order: Author/Editor, Title, Content Type, Category, Keywords, Tags, Status, Post Date.

2. Create: CREATE A STYLE GUIDE - Create your content in various formats following a certain style guide. Simply put, a style guide consists of guidelines on how content will be visually designed to represent your business's voice and tone. TRY DIFFERENT CONTENT FORMATS - There are so many different kinds of formats that your business can try to produce on your owned channels and platforms. Here they are - a) Texts: Blog Posts, Articles, Whitepapers, Social Media Posts, Ebooks. b) Visuals: Videos, Infographics, Pictures, Webinars, Live Interviews c) Audio: Podcasts, Radio and Music

3. Publish: FIND YOUR CONTENT PLATFORMS - At this stage, you decide which online publishing tool or platform you use to publish content. Here are your most affordable options: a) Websites and Blogs: Blogger, Wordpress b) Visuals (Pictures + Videos): YouTube, Instagram, Flickr, Vine, Periscope

4. Distribute: USE SOCIAL MEDIA - At this stage, you decide which social media channels to use to promote your content: a) Facebook: This is a friend-oriented network that allows businesses to create their own page. b) Instagram: This is a mobile picture network where businesses can create their own story with pictures, hashtags, and tag influential people. c) Twitter: This is a microblogging network that allows businesses to tweet 140 character long messages and allows them to have human conversations with their followers. d) LinkedIn: This is a professional business and career network that allow businesses to create their own page and promote their online content like blog posts and infographics

5. Analyse: MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS - At this stage, your business checks on its analytic data and reports to measure the performance of your content. Here are resources and metrics to use: a) Google Analytics: This is a free resource tool that allows users to see their websites online activity like bounce rates, visitor behaviour, and visitor demographics. b) Key Performance Indicators: These are measurements that your team uses to judge content performance like page views, comments, and email conversion rates. c) Social Engagement Metrics: These are the metrics from your social media platforms like followers, likes, favourites, and retweets.

#1 Goal of content: To have an effective content strategy, your business must produce high quality content that serves your audience. Don't be self-promotional or boring, be interesting and helpful. Your purpose: To Educate or Entertain.

KEEP IN TOUCH!

Yash Merchant. +91-9967967869. [email protected]