Despite what many think, content strategy and content planning are not the same thing. Content strategy works like a theoretical background for your content creation. According to content strategist Kristina Halvorson, “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.
What’s a content plan, then? It’s an operational plan for your publication process and is defined as the practicalities of what and when you publish. In order to best prepare your publication plan, consider the following issues, and adjust your content accordingly.
Target audience. Who’s your target audience? Depending on who you are trying to reach, your content should be crafted differently.
Type of content. Are written pieces enough, or would your audience be more interested in video content? Should you do long posts, short articles, or slideshows? Do themes align with what your audience consumes? Are the topics relevant to your company? Answer these questions to best attune your content to your target audience. While you use your content for marketing, do not post promotional content all the time; instead, balance it with informational pieces.
Content schedule. How often should you release your content? Your audience is more likely to read your posts or newsletters at certain times of the day. This sort of information should be reflected in your content plan.
Promotion and distribution. Is it best to access your audiences via Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn? How to promote the posts, and how to differentiate promotion between different social media? Perhaps besides posting on various social media, you can do a newsletter with a selection of your writings? What are your company’s marketing strategies?
Events, conferences, and tradeshows. Are there any relevant events in your industry? Consider what sort of content you might need—slideshows, promotional materials, etc.
Accessible metrics. Everyone in the publication process should have access to metrics. It allows them to optimize future content to make it best suited for your audience. It also shows how well your content schedule, SEO, and promotion strategies work and whether they should be altered. Without accessible metrics, the whole writing and publication process is mostly guesswork.
Finished your piece and want someone to give it an edit? Need someone to create content for you? Contact us and we’ll do our best to help.