The Guide To Structuring Your Content Team For Impact
Content teams are a new and growing part of the marketing mix. A study by Marketing Sherpa found that content marketing is now a $70 billion industry, and research from Content Marketing Institute predicts it will grow to nearly $200 billion in 2022.
Content teams can be an organization's competitive edge or its Achilles heel-the difference between success and failure. So how do you go about building one? What does it take to make your team successful? And what should you look for when hiring new members?
In this article, we'll discuss the most critical things every content marketer needs to know: structuring your team, developing processes, training employees, getting buy-in from leadership and stakeholders, and more. Let's get started.
How to Structure Your Content Team to Deliver Greater Impact
A content team structure is a critical decision for any company. The future success of your content marketing strategy depends on the structure you choose. What will work for one company might not work for another.
But there are some general guidelines and best practices that you can follow to make your decision easier:
1. Start with content creation
Content is the lifeblood of your content marketing strategy. Great content should be a top priority for any content team structure. But if you're creating content, who will publish it? Who will make sure there are enough resources? When you build a content team, start by focusing on content creation before content marketing.
2. Do content marketing, too
Don't forget that content marketing means more than publishing content on your website and social media channels. You want to build a strategy that includes content promotion: remarketing ads, email outreach, webinars, and more. A content team should do all of these things (and there are content marketing roles that specialize in each of these categories).
3. Get into content strategy, too
More content doesn't always equal success. Just because you have the resources to create content doesn't mean you should—or that it will resonate with your audience. Think about content strategy as a method for creating more content that impacts and reaches your content goals.
4. Add content optimization, too
As I've said before: content is meaningless if no one sees it. A content team should include content optimization—channel management and promotion tools and paid amplification channels (e.g., ads), content promotion strategies, content re-use plans, content experiments, and content insights.
5. Don't forget content governance
Content governance is another critical component of content strategy. Content governance ensures that your content aligns with the overall content marketing strategy and supports the business objectives. It also clarifies roles and responsibilities for content creation, content strategy, content marketing, and content measurement.
6. Give content team members content roles
Your content team should include people responsible for content creation, publication, promotion, and optimization. That said, make sure they're doing more than just their specific content role (e.g., someone on your content marketing team shouldn't just publish content).
7. Let content team members specialize
Your content team might have content specialists and content generalists—or it could be made up entirely of content generalists. Specialization is ideal because it allows people to focus on their strengths and stay within their comfort zone (some people love content creation, others hate it).
8. Get content team members content training
Your content team should be well trained on content strategy, creating content, using content marketing software, and optimizing content. Not everyone has to be an expert in each of these things, but they should know what you expect (and how to do it).
By doing these steps, you'll create content that has a more significant impact on your company.
How To Create A Process For Creating & Sharing Content That Drives Successful Content Marketing Strategies
With today's competitive and information-abundant environment, you need to make sure your content marketing strategy is on point, and you also need to make sure that your content is the best it can be. These two essentials go hand in hand, but without a process for creating and sharing content, it can be challenging to stay on top of all the components of a successful content marketing strategy.
Let's break down the process for creating and sharing content into three steps:
Assessing your current situation
Understanding what your audience needs
Breaking down what type of content you should share
You can build a content marketing strategy and content plan for your content team only if you've figured out exactly where you stand and what content type is best suited to help educate and entertain your audience.
Here are the three steps to creating content that drives successful content marketing strategies with quantifiable results:
Assessing your current situation
The content that you create for your audience serves a specific purpose. And while it's essential to understand the content process above, it's just as important to do some content auditing to understand what content is currently being shared on your company blog and where you can make improvements.
Auditing content is also an opportunity to discover the content types that are already popular with your audience and content types that need improvement.
Understanding content needs
You must do some content creativity to develop content ideas that will help provide value, entertain or educate your content consumers. To make this process easier, look at the content analytics for your blog content.
You'll gain a better understanding of content types, content performance, and content gaps.
Once you have a content map in place, it's time to focus on the content that your audience needs most by asking these critical questions:
What content is missing from my content map?
Does what I'm creating provide unique content that content consumers can't find anywhere else?
Is it content that will have a significant impact on content consumers' lives?
Breaking down content types into tasks
Now that you understand content needs and content gaps, you're ready to write your content plan. Make sure you focus on content creation before promotion because there's nothing worse than creating content that no one will ever see.
Content Creation Tasks
Subject Matter Expertise & Content Creation - Having a content subject matter expert's on your content team is very important because they know the content creation process best. But, having content generalists on your content team can be just as beneficial depending on what type of content strategists are trying to create.
A content team with diverse skill sets is ideal because content strategists can work on creativity, writing, and recommendations together.
After you've come up with a handful of content ideas, it's time to choose the most famous content types. This will help you create content that resonates with content consumers.
Video content: Creating and sharing video content is a great way to provide value, entertain, and educate your consumers.
Infographics: If you're trying to break down complicated information into something simple, infographics are the content type for you.
Social data visualization: This content type is similar to infographics, but content strategists can include current social media content into data visualizations.
Blog content: Creating content for your blog content is the best way to get in front of your audience and keep them engaged with you month after month.
SlideShare content: Content strategists know that SlideShares are popular content types for content promotion. To be a successful content strategist, you must understand the types of content that your company needs.
EBooks: Content strategists love creating eBooks because content consumers are willing to pay for them, making content creation easier.
Content Promotion Tasks
- SlideShare content promotion
- Video content promotion
- Blog content promotion
- Social media content promotion
- Ebook content promotion
What Is The Best Way To Create A Process For Creating And Sharing Content Online?
It's essential to get your blog process down pat. The more you write, the better it will come to you. Your blog process can help you write quality content at a faster pace. Blogging is all about writing and publishing content on your website regularly.
Some bloggers like to plan their content ahead of time, while others like to do it as they go. There are many different approaches to blogging, but the best one for you is the one that works best with your lifestyle and personality.
Use the template below and customize it to fit your blog's needs:
Create a topic - Brainstorm how you want to cover the topic
Write a blog post - Include keywords, images, and more
Schedule a social media blast - Share your content on social media accounts
Don't forget about video content!
Video content is viral and social networks like Facebook and Instagram will give your videos a significant engagement boost.
Social media contests like this one from Dove.
Here is a quick guide to creating video content [with a template.]
Do you know how to create videos that resonate with your audience? Even though not all of your consumers will want to watch your videos on YouTube, they can watch them on Facebook or Instagram.
Making video content on social media starts with how you label it.
Use hashtags - Including at least three hashtags is the best way to get exposure
Create an eye-catching title for your post - Make sure that there's some mystery in your video and how it will help your audience
Create a compelling picture to go with the video - Make sure that something is interesting in the image to get consumers' attention.
EBooks are valuable content formats for both content marketers and their audiences.
What are the Benefits of Implementing a Blogging Process?
Blogging is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies that business owners can use to promote their brand, grow their audience, and drive traffic to their website.
Blogging helps businesses increase their online visibility and develop a better connection with their audience. Implementing a blogging process will help enterprises make the most of blogging by setting up clear goals, creating an editorial calendar, promoting content on social media channels, and measuring performance metrics like page views and conversion rates.
Most successful companies have blogging processes because it ensures that they do everything possible to improve their brand's online presence.
A robust blogging process benefits both the business and its customers by helping them meet their goals, including increasing social media engagement, website traffic, and e-commerce sales.
They were blogging benefits your readers by providing them with valuable information to share with their network.
Regardless of what type of content you create, all businesses can benefit from a solid blogging process.
Leverage your blogging process to build relationships with consumers and increase brand awareness.
The benefits of implementing a blogging strategy into your business include:
Meet SEO requirements - Blogging benefits search engine optimization.
Enhance your company's online presence - Create a consistent flow of high-quality content.
Increase website traffic - Blogging benefits search engine visibility.
Improve customer service - Providing helpful information to your customers will increase their loyalty.
What Else Should I Consider When Structuring My Content Team?
In conclusion, the best way to create a content team is to list all your needs and then take time to research the current market. Finally, talk with your team members about their interests and skillsets and find a perfect balance between creativity, diversity of ideas, and experience.
This is a process, and don't expect it to work overnight. It takes time. If you know your core mission, are aligned with your values, and strive to impact your industry, you will find success in your content team.
Do you want to learn how to create content that will create an impact?
I’ve been doing this for years and I can tell you from experience, it’s not easy. But if you follow my 30-day course, I promise it will change everything. You won’t have to worry about coming up with new ideas or finding the time to write them down anymore because I’ll be there every step of the way. It doesn't matter what industry you're in - all of these strategies are universal and they work!
It's time for a fresh start. A new beginning where your content is helping your business create impact instead of holding it back. This is an opportunity that only comes once in a lifetime so don't let it pass by without taking action now! Sign up today and see just how much better things can be when you take control over your content creation process. Let me show you how simple this whole thing really is...it's never too late to turn things around!
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