Essential Content Strategist Skills 2024
If you’re enthusiastic about content development and management, you might want to learn how to become a content strategist to make money from your passion.
It takes time to become a well-paid and in-demand content strategist. But, first, you will need to invest in yourself to obtain the essential qualifications, which will allow you to land clients that respect your work and pay you well. This thorough article will take you step by step through the process of becoming a big-shot content strategist.
Content Strategist Skills
Whatever the type of content strategy project — for a vast corporate intranet, an e-commerce website, a university, or something else — the individuals producing the content strategy require the skills listed below:
1. Copywriting Skills
Words are the beginning and end of the content. You must be able to write to work as a content strategist. A content strategist creates, organizes, schedules, edits, and distributes content. It would be best if you first mastered the fundamentals of writing unique content to accomplish this. The writing process is, without a doubt, the most critical aspect of content strategy. You may not be writing daily, but having copywriting experience is essential for most profession-related responsibilities.
You’ll need copywriting skills to do the following:
- influence how you apply and enforce brand language
- guide any decisions you make when allocating freelancers to specific projects
- decide how you schedule, manage and implement your entire content strategy.
Finally, as a content strategist, you will build and manage a company’s entire message. Therefore, you must know how to use words to convey an engaging tale.
2. Empathy
Another essential skill for a content strategist is analyzing your audience and creating content specifically tailored to them. Empathy is another name for this. Your content must be relevant and engaging to those who view it. To create a successful content strategy, you must first comprehend your target audience’s difficulties, interests, requirements, and situations.
It might be challenging to exhibit empathy. However, you might strive to demonstrate your experience developing content for various audiences. It’s helpful to provide instances of any time you customized your content to a specific demographic and saw favorable results.
3. Communication Skills
As a content strategist, you’ll most likely work with a wide range of individuals within the organization. For example, you will most likely work closely with the digital marketing team and designers. You must work with your colleagues to establish and implement a strategy. You may also be required to collaborate with freelance writers or designers to develop certain pieces of content.
Communication is also essential in this situation. You must be able to provide a clear creative brief to any freelancer with whom you work. It is critical to communicate what you precisely want and when required to keep things on track. A poorly articulated brief might result in low-quality content that necessitates frequent changes. These take extra time and may disrupt your routine.
4. Content Presentation Skills
You may need to offer your views and ideas to stakeholders or corporate leaders while developing a content strategy. You must demonstrate a straightforward thought process and ensure that people grasp the concepts underlying your entire content strategy. You may also be required to explain the specific resources, budget, and timeline needed for every given project, as well as its desired goals and deliverables.
5. Organizational Skills
Content creation is a creative discipline, but as a content strategist, you must also have organizational skills and the capacity to multitask. As a content strategist, you are in charge of everything that appears on your company’s website and blog, as well as its social media platforms and email marketing campaigns. Therefore, you must create a timetable and manage content development by your deadline.
There’s a lot to keep track of because you have to commission each piece of content, execute it, and sign it off on time. While you will most likely interact with other divisions inside the organization, the company’s content is dependent on your efforts. You are in charge of establishing and maintaining the content schedule, which entails managing various people and procedures across several projects. You may use a project management application and a calendar to keep track of everything and let stakeholders and other departments know what you’re up to.
6. Editing and Proofreading
We’ve previously established that a content strategist must be an outstanding copywriter. While you are unlikely to produce copy daily, content strategists spend a significant amount of time proofreading and refining material, which extends beyond merely double-checking spelling and punctuation in a blog article.
You’ll need editing skills to:
- optimize site writing for search engine optimization (SEO)
- verify articles adhere to band requirements
- create social media and email content based on analytics.
7. Analytical Skills
Every bit of digital content is monitored, tracked, and measured. With so much data accessible, a content strategist must know how to discern what is relevant and use it to their benefit. You must also analyze the data to identify patterns and trends that let you see which bits of content are functioning and which need to be tweaked.
Nowadays, most marketers find it simple to acquire data thanks to apps and connections. On the other hand, knowing what to do with such data is another thing. As a content strategist, you will need to identify patterns and trends in your content marketing data and draw conclusions. For example, perhaps your blog entries do well on Facebook, while your videos do great on Instagram. Maybe the most shareable content for your brand is 2,000 words long, released in the morning, and includes two Pinterest-sized images.
8. Marketing Campaign Skills
It would be challenging to deploy a campaign if you do not understand developing, planning, and executing one. Likewise, understanding the various stages of a campaign can assist you, and your team runs a successful content strategy.
9. Content Delivery Skills
Once your content is ready for production, you need the skills to get it in front of your target audience. To select the appropriate distribution channels, you should work with other digital marketing specialists on your marketing team. A simple blog article may gain a lot of momentum if you research the topic and figure out the best method to reach your target audience.
10. Content Monetization Skills
Unless you work for a media organization, content is unlikely to be your primary source of revenue. Instead, it seeks to persuade individuals to purchase your product or service. Therefore, as a content strategist, you must design and articulate how you monetize your content to your executive team.
11. An Editor’s Pen
We’ve already stated that content strategists require editing skills, but it goes beyond merely eliminating words or optimizing sentences. During migration efforts, editorial expertise is exceptionally vital. Large brands usually never track all of the content they produce. The content strategist’s responsibility is to conduct a complete content audit to identify what should be maintained, altered, rewritten, or retired based on analytics, content age, and current and historical performance.
12. Consensus-Building Skills
As a content strategist, you will be the brand’s content representative. Not everyone will agree with your work or its responsibilities. Some people will not even recognize the significance of content marketing. You must spread the word about content marketing throughout your organization by explaining and proving its numerous benefits.
13. Business Understanding
A competent content strategist knows as much as possible about the company’s aims and target market, including long-term and short-term goals such as targeting marketing efforts to specific people. If you aren’t enthusiastic about the firm, content strategy is probably not for you.
14. Attention to Detail
Content strategists have the rare ability to perceive the large picture while paying close attention to minor details. As a result, content strategists must keep initiatives on track while maintaining quality. Admittedly, this is a problematic personal quality to acquire, but individuals may concentrate on paying greater attention.
15. Level-Headed Under Pressure
Being a content strategist is not an easy job. Managing major initiatives under tight deadlines may be difficult. Developing the ability to remain calm under pressure while still delivering compelling campaigns is a personal trait worth noting. During challenging or uncertain circumstances, flexibility is also essential.
To succeed in a content strategist job, practice the personal traits of independence, leadership, attention to detail, and getting things done, as well as expanding your skillset to fulfill all of the specified skills above.
16. SEO
Having a firm grasp of keyword research, visitor search intent, and on-page optimization is critical for distributing content via search engines.
17. Communication and Coaching
Another necessary skill for strategists is clearly articulating your opinions on content goals, audience demands, feedback on content development, and the strategy you develop.
Because strategists are also responsible for collaborating with others on content development and other tasks, having the skill to educate your team and stakeholders on the “why” behind your strategy is essential.
18. A Constant ROI-Driven Mindset
Your job as a content strategist is to help your client develop a successful, high-ROI content marketing strategy.
Suppose you’re proposing to a client to handle their strategy. In that case, it’s crucial to realize that their thought process for hiring you is ROI-driven which is also true if you work for a company and are proposing a content strategy to management.
Even if they don’t say it explicitly, they want you to be able to answer the following question:
How much money will our firm earn if I pay you $4,000 per month to create or manage our strategy and content?
To answer the question above, your job is to help them understand the potential traffic and, more crucially, good quality leads that you can help them generate through their content strategy.
From there, convincing your client of the worth of your services boils down to showing them how strong those high-quality leads may be, once a solid conversion process is in place.
When talking with clients and management, improve your capacity to think in terms of ROI.
