Create a Winning Content Strategy for 2020

By: Johana M. Caba

A new year and a new decade! So, what does that mean for your content strategy? First, let’s back up and reintegrate ourselves into the basics of a content strategy. Content typically refers to any written or graphic piece of media created and owned by your organization. This part of your integrated marketing communication plan is the unique piece of media that demonstrates to the public who you are, what you stand for and how you support your community. A content strategy refers to the planning, development and management of the unique content that you have created for your organization or client.

Content creation is a piece of the content strategy that is integral to your success, particularly your success on social media. Creating engaging content helps your business grow and keeps consumers engaged. Still, there are things that you need to keep in mind to create good content. Among these things are your audience, your story, the platforms you will use and the management of your content strategy. For more information about the content creation process take a look at our article “What is a content strategy?” on the JM Blog.

In order to create a winning strategy for this new year, you need to ensure that you know the who, what, where, when and why of your overall story and purpose of your campaign. You must determine your target audience, what you are trying to convey to them, where they spend most of their time online, when they are active online and why your content is important to them.

After you have figured this out through some market research, analysis of competitors and analysis of past campaigns, it is time to sit down and brainstorm. First, take a look at what you have done previously that has been successful and pay close attention to the failures. The failures will help you understand in what areas you can improve and the types of content that work best for the industry. When analyzing, it is also important to look at the competition and what they are doing to reach the target audience.

Now that you have a better understanding of what content works best for your industry, take the time to brainstorm ideas with your colleagues. Create an editorial calendar with a plan for what days to post content and what type of content to create. For example, you can post original blogs on a certain day of the week with the topics selected a month or more in advance. By planning the topics in advance, it gives you time to write the content, proofread it, edit, proofread a second time, edit one more time and share the final version. Some types of content that you can create include blogs, infographics, videos, podcasts, white papers, social media graphics and ebooks.

The key to creating a winning content strategy for 2020 is planning. You need to write down what you plan to do, define your goals, research the market and create a timeline that will ensure you stay on track. The timeline will be based on your goals and your research. Furthermore, the timeline will serve as the editorial calendar that you will use as reference for your content development process. By planning a month or more in advance the topics that you will cover and the type of content that you will create, the development process will be smoother and more clear for you and your colleagues. The management phase of your strategy will involve scheduling your content to publish and post on social media. In addition, the management phase will involve monitoring comments, shares and likes. This is also an important indicator for you to see how well content is performing and guide your planning process for the rest of the year.