Does Your Business Need A Content Strategist?

by Jay | Updated on August 29th, 2019

Building a successful digital marketing team today is more than picking a few experts and bringing them together under one roof. There is a need to understand what every one of them will be doing and primarily, the impact they have on your business.

Prioritizing is the secret to building the right team. Knowing who will be the leader, and how your digital marketing team hierarchy will look like will not only allow you to manage your team well but also give you an edge in marketing. While there are many experts who compose the digital marketing team, a content strategist is the most valuable content specialist you will have in your team.

Why is a content strategist a valuable member of the marketing team?

While your organization may have other experts like social media experts, writers, videographers, and designers, a content strategist help keep your team intact and functional. Additionally, the content strategist makes sure your business has a sound content marketing strategy.

Anything about content has to go through a content strategist before publishing in any media. You can think of your content strategist as a third eye that makes sure you never have to worry about erroneous content been published. If you also take digital marketing is a battle, and which is most cases it is, then your content strategist is your general.

Any decision made regarding the type of content your business need, the format, campaign, and so on, a content strategist take the lead position. They have the roadmap of everything that revolves around the content your business creates. They know what content is fit for your audience and play a key role in building the content.

A strategist may not be involved directly on creating the content your audience needs but can help in picking the right keywords, advice on the format to be used, length of each article, and so on. In the case of videos and banners, it is the role of the strategist to decide whether the images used are ok and worth sharing with the intended audience.

Routine content and strategy audits are unavoidable if you are genuinely looking to remain competitive in digital marketing. Audits help pinpoint those areas you need to work on as well as those areas giving your business a competitive edge and bringing about the kind of ROI you expect. It is the role of content strategists for executing routine content and strategy audits to make sure everything is unfolding as planned.

Direct involvement

In rare cases, a content strategist may participate directly in the creative process where they create landing pages, write blogs, social media post, and produce videos themselves. Though this does not happen often, don’t be surprised when you find your strategist been involved directly in the design cycle. With that, let’s have a look at what qualifications a content strategist must-have.

Qualifications of a content strategist

Who to pick and who to avoid when searching for a fit candidate is outlined by the qualifications you come up with. You have the freedom to draft the requirements or ask someone to do it for you, and in this case, an expert is the right choice.

It is your set of qualifications that gives you the direction when you start the hiring journey. They help you pick a candidate with the right background. Often, an ideal candidate must have a good interest in all facets of data-drive content marketing so they can map out the most effective strategy. If you find a strategist with prior experience, this is a plus since you don’t have to trust someone you are skeptical will deliver.

A Google Analytics certification is also a big bonus when hiring. Such a certification is an indicator a strategist is worth his or her salt. Remember you are out there to find a strategist who will deliver. So, make sure to consider all key certificates when choosing.

You may also want to consider the ability of strategist to use the best SEO tools. Today there are many SEO tools such as SEMrush, Searchmetrics, and Moz that strategist work easier. The right content strategist is comfortable using the best tools in all areas of content management.

Particular skills set to look for

With that in mind, let’s quickly go through some of the skills to look for when contemplating hiring a content strategist.

• Communication

The ability of a content strategist to communicate effectively with other team members, the entire organization and your clients is one thing you need to consider very seriously. Clear communication makes things work the right way. For example, when running a project that brings together different teams together, your strategist must be able to sell the ideas to all department head or those involved.

The ability of strategist to communicate well is also plus in other areas of communication, such as when creating feedbacks. You need to make sure your content strategist will help come up with better ways of creating and sharing feedback.

• A creative eye

Well, a content strategist may not precisely be involved in the content creating process, but their impact needs to felt all the time. You need to feel your strategist is part of what is going on. For example, your strategist needs to differential what a client is saying from what precisely the client intends to say.

In other words, a good content strategist needs to have a good eye for design, writing, and video prior to and after hiring. The ability to pay keen attention to everything is an advantage to your clients, stakeholder, and your business at large.

• Analytical mindset

This is probably the first thing you need to consider when contemplating to hire. Analyzing information, as well as providing useful feedback, is very imperative. To make sure every decision made is based on analyzing performance metric and ROI reports, there is a need to pick a content strategist with the best analytical mindset.

For example, to come up with the right SEO and marketing strategy, combing through dashboards, spotting trends, looking at the competition and using the ample amount of data available to reach a sound decision is unavoidable. In other words, you need strategist who can analyze your business needs and help it achieve your marketing goals.

• Organization and multitasking

As a leader of your content team, you must understand a strategist will have his or her eyes on different things at ago. For example, it the role of a content strategist to make sure your content calendar is ok, campaigns are running well, audits are carried out at the right time, social media posts are made on the right time and so on. The list is long.

The above are some of the key roles your strategist need not only to monitor but also make sure they are happening at the right time. This is only possible if your strategist is well organized in multitasking. Otherwise, you always find yourself lamenting.

For a well-organized content strategist, no amount of content marketing work is a big deal. Best strategies now how best to deal with day to day tasks as well other works that pop along the way. Need total peace of mind? Then make sure to keep this factor in mind when out there searching for a fit content strategist.

Content management and business goals

Every piece of information your business prepares mean a lot. Whether it is a single Facebook post or a large animated video, it is ideal to have it purposively and well-aligned with your business goals. You don’t just exist to create content. You are there because your goals are keeping you focused on where you plan to be. Additionally, your existence is a chance to raise brand awareness, capture qualified leads, and drive revenue and increase sale figures.

A content strategy, therefore, needs to make sure your existence is in line with what you aspire to do. Whether you plan to have a sizable audience in the next four months or increase sales figure through content marketing, your strategist takes the lead position. There is no shortcut in this unless your strategist roles are different. But why must you have one occupy a different position?

Content audits: Keeping strategists real

In the real world, it is hard to separate content management and content audit. It is similarly the way you need to take your car for repair often to enjoy comfortable and safe rides. You can also equate this to how you keep revisiting your schoolwork for the best outcome at the end of your studies. When it comes to content marketing, it is the same thing.

Knowing what is not working for you gives you an opportunity to revamp.

For example, if the issue is the infographics you share, then, you can try to do a few changes until you get it right. If it is your website that is challenging to navigate, make sure to make it user-friendly. Fortunately, today, there are many ways to improve the website. One thing to note never gives up even when the going seems tough. Just keep pressing harder. A fit strategist must get you through even during the most tempting moments.

Conclusion

Often, and which is advisable, every expert in your team need to know what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. A good job description helps streamline everything. But this may not appear to be the case when hiring a content strategist. Yes, there are also guidelines to be followed when hiring one, but considering what content strategists are required to handle today, it may feel like you need to hire more people for the same role. The truth is, you only need one person for the position.

Content strategists are like the jack of all trades. By default, they have a lot to handle and which is ok. Your digital business needs one today than ever before, and hiring the right one is a big bonus. Still not sure whether you need one? You can find more information here why you need to hire one today.

Jay

I've worked for WooRank, SEOptimer, and working on a cool SEO audit tool called SiteGuru.co. Now I have build Linkilo and SEO RANK SERP WordPress theme. I've been in the SEO industry for more than 5 years, learning from the ground up. I've worked on many startups, but also have my own affiliate sites.

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