Here are 7 tips for a perfect content strategy

TýrsDaily
Story telling should help you reach your goals. Reaching a goal calls for strategy. Let us help you define your strategy with these 7 tips.

It's the strategy, stupid

We say ‘no’ to the following questions:

  • “Shouldn’t we be doing something with social media?”
  • “Can you run a Facebook promotion for me?”
  • “Shall we make a company video for the website?”

Why do we say no? 
Because there is no sense in buying some promotions, making a video or putting content on social media. It might get you likes or brand recognition, but without a solid strategy that is an inefficient spending of your budgets.

Communication and marketing serve a cause, you or your organisation should spend money to make money or to reach a certain goal: business, societal, charitible, personal, sportive, artistic or other wise. Reaching a goal, calls for a strategy. 

We offer you seven free tips for a perfect content strategy. 

Tip 1: ambitions clear

Common sense right? Wrong, clear ambitions are difficult to formulate and to agree on in an organisation. Make sure you define at least four elements of your ambitions:

Why: why do you want to reach your ambition? What drives you? What is your (moral) guide?

How: how will you reach your ambitions? What sets you apart from everybody else?

When: short term or long term or somewhere in between, be precise in formulating ambitions.

What: what is it you will offer? Define your service or product in terms of what your customer needs, not what you can make.

Make sure everybody agrees on these ambitions and share expectations in what is realistic and within your scope.

Tip 2: for whom?

Choose your target groups wisely. You cannot be everything for everybody, so focus will help you in both your general business and in making great content. Use the concept of persona to look through your communication efforts: who will be watching and reading? Name one or two actual persons who will be your ideal audience. Be concrete: do they drive a car, where do they shop, which social media do they use, where do they live? 

Tip 3: digital market scan

There is so much information out there, a waste not to use it. A structural scan of your own umfeld will help you define who has influence, which topics are discussed and what the competition is doing. It might even help you find a blue ocean for you content.

Find a blue ocean for content.

Tip 4: not all content is created equal

The name sake of the content strategy is the content it self. This is where the magic happens. Good content and a good story are not the same. The current fragmented digital landscape confuses people. It causes lack of trust. So it takes time, quality and consistency to engage potential clients. Consistency and quality follow from clear storylines. Clear storylines come from a creative process and knowledge of how the internet works. Content formats differ in both the input (time to make them) and output (reach and engagement). See the matrix below.

For a perfect content strategy these different formats need to support each other. Enough snacks (easy to produce, easy to consume) combined with a few content heroes (more time to produce, more engagement to consume). 

Tip 5: there is no I in team

Knowing what to do is only half the job. Getting things done is the harder part. It takes a team with specialists to make it work: people with writing and designing skills, community management specialists and people who know the field by heart (writing about a hospital is completely different from writing about food or sports). Build a team, make sure expectations are managed and use smart communication ways of communicating. Above all make sure everybody is on board and loves to work on all the stories, pictures and videos.

It takes a team with specialists to make it work.

Tip 6: the rigth tools

What does it take to make great articles? At least the following: find a subject, create unique content, curate great existing content, remix cool posts of others, plan the right moment, publish it in a simple to use and beautiful way, distribute your article via social media, email, notifications and messaging apps and monitor the impact online. This works best if your software works best. That why Týrsday works with Tag The Love. It does all of the above.

Tip 7: getting better all the time

Nothing is ever perfect. The internet changes every day. People change perspectives. There are plenty reasons not to get stuck in what you do. Provide feedback on all content, realtime. Share your successes. Create reports that help you get better. And keep the focus on your ambitions. 

Strategy means commitment. It means ample funding, the right people in your team, the best tools to work with. Exactly what is what it takes to engage potential clients and to nurture them. 

Please contact us, if you would like to help you get a perfect content strategy.

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