What is a content strategist?
A content strategist plans, designs, creates, edits, publishes and distributes content created in line with a business's goals, unique selling proposition, and target audience. Content strategists build comprehensive strategies that:
- Educate and inform potential buyers
- Build trust with buyers
- Encourage customers to return
- Develop relationships with influencers and partners
- Increase brand awareness and reach
Content strategists are responsible for ensuring that the content they produce is high quality, engaging, relevant, and optimized for search engines. Ultimately, the content strategist’s main goal is to ensure that the organization produces content that engages and resonates with its target audience.
What does a content strategist do?
A content strategist's job description can cover a wide range of tasks. Here are some of the main aspects of the job.
Develop and implement a content strategy
A content strategy is not a content calendar but a plan that focuses on creating, managing, and optimizing content to meet the company’s goals. This strategy outlines the target audience, what types of content will be created, their goal, and how they will be distributed to ensure maximum reach.
Build an editorial calendar
An editorial calendar provides a visual representation of the content tactics and assets you plan to create and helps ensure that all content is created, distributed, and optimized on time. A content strategist can help you make an editorial calendar that ties all the bits and pieces together and helps you stay consistent with your content marketing efforts.
Conduct research
A content strategist will also have to run research on multiple verticals:
- User research (to understand the target audience)
- Competitor research (to understand the competitive landscape)
- Industry research (to stay on top of trends)
- SEO research (to spot content gaps and re-optimize content when needed)
- Topic research (to create briefs and produce content that's valuable)
Additionally, content strategists will have to get a deep understanding of the product they're promoting and stay on top of the latest trends in content marketing.
Define content goals
Solid, successful content strategies follow clear, specific objectives. Content marketing strategists need to define the following:
- The type of digital content (e.g., video, blog posts, webinars, podcasts)
- Content recurrence and cadence (how often to post)
- The topics and goals of the content
- Where to distribute the content (and how to do it efficiently)
- Which audience engagement metrics to follow
- How to attribute content to conversions
Measure content efficiency
Speaking of conversions, a content manager or strategist will also have to measure content efficiency. This can be done in several different ways, depending on the specific attribution model you choose and the specific goals you've set.
All in all, metrics content strategists may want to follow include the following:
- Engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments, clicks)
- Lead generation and conversion metrics
- Referral traffic
- Email list growth
- Customer feedback
- SEO metrics (traffic, clicks, impressions, links, bounce rate)
- Time on page / blog post
Content strategists must also be able to interpret data and apply the insights they get to optimize their content strategy.
Develop content guidelines
A good content strategist will develop guidelines that ensure consistent brand messaging and high-quality output. These should include:
- The type of language to use in different contexts
- How to use specific terms
- How to structure content
- Editorial standards (MLA, APA, etc.)
- The tone and voice of the brand
- Relevant content curated from other sources
Manage content creation
A content strategist will usually manage content creation as well. Depending on the project, this may mean they'll work with external partners or internal teams. They may also be responsible for:
- Writing briefs
- Hiring and onboarding content people
- Editing content
- Ensuring the smooth flow of information between the content team and other teams
- Coordinating with the design team to create assets
- Working with paid advertising professionals to promote content
Optimize content for SEO
Last but not least, experienced content strategists need to be able to optimize content for SEO. This includes:
- Conducting keyword research
- Creating SEO-friendly titles and meta descriptions
- Including relevant keywords in the content
- Ensuring different pieces of content are linked internally
- Running link building campaigns
Collaborate with other teams
Content strategists will usually have to collaborate with other teams, social media professionals, product managers, web developers, and copywriters. This helps them create content that's engaging, accurate, and in line with the business strategy.
Refine and improve the strategy
A content strategist's job is never done. Once a content marketing strategy is in place, they will have to continuously refine and improve on it to ensure they maximize the impact on business goals.
How to hire a content strategist
Say you've already decided to hire for a content strategist role. Here's how to make sure you hire the best one:
Decide on what you need
Before hiring someone, decide on what, more specifically, you need:
- Do you need a full-time content strategist?
- ...Or maybe just a freelance content strategist?
- Do you need a consultant?
- Or are you looking for a content marketing generalist?
- Do they need specific experience (in creating a particular type of content or in an industry?)
Choose your platform
There are many ways you can hire the right expert. You can post your job on job boards and go about it the traditional way. You can also source marketers on Upwork, Fiverr, and other similar freelance websites (especially if you don't need a full-time hire.)
If you want to save time and energy, use a service like Mayple. We can match you with a talented content strategist in a few days. All the marketers Mayple works with are vetted for specific skill sets, and have a track record of success, so you can be sure we'll provide you with the best options for your business.
Prepare a clear job description
A well-written job description can help you sift through the applications and candidate options, so create one that stands out and clears your expectations. Here are some items to include in a content strategist job description:
- A short company/ mission blurb
- Any job-specific content strategy skills you need your content marketing strategist to have
- The soft skills you need them to have
- Who is your target market
- If you need them to know how to edit video and graphics
- How many years of industry experience you need them to have
- Whether you need them to have industry experience
- Your marketing vision, marketing goals, and content standards
- Your three, six, and nine-month plan for the new hire
- Who the content strategist will respond to
- Whether there's anyone else on the content strategy team
- Your expectations regarding content management and production
- What you can offer (include base salary range too, if possible)
Create a test assignment
You can't ask content experts to build content strategies during recruitment. They won't have all the details, they won't have access to internal expertise, and it's not fair to ask for something like this for free.
However, you can prepare a quick test assignment for them, which could include:
- Their process for developing different types of online content
- Discussing effective content strategies they've noticed
- Developing a content plan for a month, based on specific details
- Discussing how they connect business goals to content marketing efforts
- Describing what they do on a daily basis in their role
- Running a partial content audit on the content you've published over the last three months
- Coming up with a unique way to improve organic traffic on the website
Ask the right questions
Asking the right questions will help you determine which content strategy candidate is best suited for your business objectives. Here are some examples of interview questions you could ask:
- What is your content marketing philosophy?
- How do you approach developing a content strategy?
- What is your experience creating content for various social media platforms?
- Which content types do you have the most experience in?
- What is your take on AI-generated content?
- What tools and techniques do you use to research your target audience, market trends, and the efficiency of your content?
- How do you make sure your content aligns with the brand voice and style guidelines?
- Have you ever run a content audit?
- What would be the first thing you'd do in the content strategist role if we were to hire you?
- In your opinion, which social media platforms are best for distributing content for our business?
- How do you set content goals - and how do you measure your content performance?
- Can you describe a situation when your content strategy did not meet its goals? How did you approach the matters?
- Have you ever built content workflows, and if so, what do you think is the most efficient approach?
- How do you decide which piece of content should be created?
- What are some commonly measured content metrics you're not very keen on measuring?
- Have you ever hired content writers?
- How do you build a content marketing campaign from scratch?
- How do you make sure your team creates compelling content?
- Do you have digital marketing experience in other channels (such as pay per click or email marketing)?
- Do you have experience in project management?
- How do you ensure your content helps build a flawless customer experience?
- What is your experience with guest posts?
- How do you make sure your content helps build inbound traffic?
- Have you ever built a style guide?
- Where do you see yourself in five years? What's your dream career path?
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