Building a content strategy can be a daunting task, there are so many factors to take into account, “what am I posting?” “Where am I posting it to?” “who am I talking to?” “what do I post about ?”, where to start? We took the guesswork out of it, with this step-by-step guide on building a content strategy.

In this three-part series, we’ll break down the processes involved in creating a successful digital content strategy and touch on why it is important for us to build one. In this part, we will talk through the initial planning stages of building a content strategy

Part 1: Value of Research and the Process of the Planning Stage

Set Achievable Goals 

The first thing to consider is what are you setting out to achieve with your digital content strategy. Good digital media goals will align with the overall business objectives. Common goals normally include generating leads, increasing brand engagement or increasing notoriety and followers. Set goals that are both measurable and achievable. The best way to ensure this is through setting S.M.A.R.T goals, Goals that are…

• Specific -Who needs to be involved?  What will be accomplished? What will be your obstacles?

• Measurable- What metrics are you going to use to determine if you meet the goal?  

• Achievable-  Is your goal achievable? Setting a goal is meant to inspire and motivate, not discourage, ensuring our goals are actually achievable goes a long way in overall motivation.

• Relevant - Are your digital goals aligned with your business goals? 

• Time-Bound - Have you given yourself a deadline? Make sure you are setting yourself deadlines with your goals, creating a sense of urgency and a drive to complete them.

Research

Once you’ve set your goals, you must determine your audience and key stakeholders. Your target audience sets the tone of your whole content strategy and is the crux of many decisions going forward.

There are many ways you can gain insights on your audience, from Googling the surrounding postcodes to discover the demographics to auditing and surveying current customers.

Perhaps the simplest way to look at your audience is through Digital Stacks’s report tab. Here you can find valuable insights into who your audience is, broken down into age, gender and location. Digital Stack’s powerful algorithm can even determine the optimal time to post your content,

enabling better reach. Keeping all of this information in mind going for ward, you can begin to tailor your content plan to your audience and their interests.

 Where will be the best place to post your content?

Armed with your demographic data you can start planning out where you should be posting your content. For example, 53.1% of TikTok users are female and roughly 47% of TikTok’s global audience is between 10 and 29 years old SMPerth, if your core target demographic is young women, Tik Tok is a valuable platform to access them through. 

Once you have an idea of your audience you and start brainstorming some posts. One of Digital Stack's key features is that it is an all-in-one digital marketing tool, with an inbuilt planner connected to your social media and accessible by each user. Working collaboratively is a breeze, with the ability to plan, produce and execute a coordinated content strategy all in the same space.

Now that you have the foundation of your content strategy, we can turn our thoughts toward the type of content that we are creating and what goes into building a successful content strategy.

Part 2: How to Develop a Strong Digital Content Strategy

In part one we touched on the value of research and the process of the planning stage. In this we will look closely at the consumer process from exposure to sales, we will also touch on what type of content should you be posting so we identify high-value content.

Exposure is when people first see your content, the first point of contact with your brand. This can be organic or paid. The best way to push out your content to new people organically is to take advantage of the algorithm. Understanding how the algorithm works and what kind of content it pushes out goes a long way.

For example, Instagram favors Reels in its algorithm when suggesting content to new accounts this means Reels will be more likely to be promoted as a suggested post rather than a feed post. Keeping this in mind, it’s best to plan your content strategy to include plenty of short-form video content like Tik Toks and reels, making sure we are focusing on trends and trending sounds to make the most of the algorithm.

Once you’ve reached your audience you should be connecting with them through high-value content, which falls under the following categories:

Educational:

This is the content that teaches your audience about your product or service. Not just about what you do – but why they need it and how they can use it to enrich their lives. The more educational your content is, the more valuable it is. For example, gyms can create educational content in the form of posting healthy recipes or workout routines. This kind of content will help their customers hit their fitness goals, adding value to the services they provide and showing their audience or potential clientele how to maximise their facilities.

Entertaining:

Entertaining content can be anything from a funny meme to a trending video. It’s usually content that causes some sort of emotional reaction - preferably a positive emotional response but any response can be useful creating TWO entertaining content not only gives your business a sense of personality but it’s also a lot of fun for your team to participate in!

Engaging:

Engaging content has the specific goal of encouraging your audience to react. Social Media allows you to have a two-way conversation with the consumer, by inviting the consumer to speak back to you, you can maximise your engagement. Ask for your audience's opinions through questions or polls are a great way of doing this. “Pineapple on pizza? Yeah or Nah?”  read more about audience interaction: Interactive Marketing: Why it’s Beneficial for Any Business

Once you’ve established your audience, it’s time to nurture it. Aside from consistent posting, the best way to nurture your audience is to stay top of mind. The more customers hear from you, the more they’ll remember you! The easiest way to do this is through Instagram stories. 67% of people say that they have become more interested in brands after seeing them on Instagram stories (Meta).

Stories open the door to a range of content options that may not be so appropriate for the feed. As stories are a more casual form of posting, they’re an awesome opportunity to show your brand's personality, a little bit of personality goes a long way.  You could also your stories to repurpose content that performed well on another platform. Sharing it to your Instagram story is a great way to get more out of your content and make good content go further.

EDM’s are another great way to nurture your audience, sending your audience branded messages directly to their inbox. Being able to speak directly to your audience is one of the strongest ways to build trust with your customers, email marketing is the most effective way to do this. With a strong content strategy, you can make your EDM and social media efforts work together in harmony to support each other and deliver a consistent message to your audience.

After the customer has found your page and been re-exposed to your content, again and again, the last step is to close, this is where the viewer makes contact and becomes a customer. Tagging your product in posts or showing off your services in a story is a great way to engage with your customer during the final stage of your content plan. Another way to make sales is through link in bio. Adding a link to your bio allows the customer to easily find your website and products.

Now that we know the process of how to create a strong digital content strategy, Part 3 will teach us why it’s important that you build a digital content plan.

Part 3: Benefits of a Planned-out and Organised Digital Content Strategy

Now that we’ve learned how to create a content strategy in parts one & two, it’s time to consider all the awesome benefits of a planned-out and organised digital content strategy.

Being organized saves time!

Sitting down and planning a month's worth of content in one session means you spend a focused 3 hours on the task in one go rather than jumping on for 15-30 minutes every day to ad hoc plan and post content. Furthermore, approval processes can be lengthy and time-consuming, so it’s best to minimise the amount of time that you are waiting for feedback. 

Continuity

When you do your content all at once you get a full picture of what your feed will look like at the end of the month. This means you can ensure that all of your content is relevant and on-brand as well as making sure you don’t double up on posts or plan similar posts too close together. Additionally, you can plan your content out in a way that means each post complimenting the adjacent posts.

Reducing mistakes

It’s a well-known fact that rushing things results in more mistakes occurring, planning your content in advance gives you more time to check back on your work and build workflows that help identify and eliminate mistakes and typos.

Campaign management 

Planning your social media content allows you to evenly distribute your teams' resources, allowing you to create long-term social media campaigns that support your marketing goals and don't place unnecessary stress and pressure on your team. 

These are just a few of the many benefits of creating and planning a strong digital strategy. Digital stack is your all-in-one tool for creating a Digital Strategy.