Five ways to organize content

Content is anything you create and put out into the digital world. If your business or organization sends informational emails, has a blog, makes videos, webinars, whitepages, or posts on social media about your area of expertise, that’s content marketing.

You almost definitely do some form of it. The question is, have you thought through your options and gotten organized? If you haven’t, you might be missing out on the most pointed opportunities for your brand to connect with the right people. 

The most foundational part of content marketing is integrating your efforts into your broader marketing strategy. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for the details.

Here are 5 considerations to get your content marketing organized

1. Pick a platform

No one would get up to make an announcement during tea time at an old folks home to pitch tryouts for a football team. They need to find somewhere where elite football players spend their time.

You must do the same – pick platforms for content marketing where your ideal customers hang out.

Here’s a snapshot of the primary audience for some of the biggest platforms:

• Instagram: Short videos and aesthetic content for predominantly 18-34 year old
• Facebook: News, updates, entertainment and groups for age 35 and above
• LinkedIn: Career development and industry news for working age people
• YouTube: Entertainment, tutorials and educational videos for all ages
• Snapchat: Short duration, unproduced photos and videos for ages 13 – 24
• TikTok: Ultra short-form, high-entertainment-value videos for Gen Z
• Pinterest: Aesthetic visual content related to hobbies including fashion, DIY, cooking and travel for women ages 20 – 50
• Twitch: Live streaming for gamers and sports enthusiasts
• Medium: High-quality articles for a relatively educated audience
• Quora: Questions and answers for professionals and knowledge seekers in diverse fields
• Reddit: Moderated content categorized by topic for 18-50 year olds

You don’t need to try to do it all. Pick 2-4 platforms that make the most sense for your audience.

2. Bolster your brand

Get your organization’s personality out there with a voice and visual design that announce your entry into the room.

“Hey, it’s me!”

If you don’t already have visual branding, you’ll need to define how your brand will look including logos, designs, font, style, and colour schemes. 

It’s also important to craft your brand’s voice and style. A brand script outlines key phrases and ideas related to expressing your brand’s identity.

A style guide defines standards for formatting, writing style and design of documents.

3. Tighten your team

Content marketing can draw huge ROI, but it takes time and expertise to be effective. Be realistic about who has the time and skill to make and manage content, without needing to sacrifice progress on other goals. 
If you don’t have the capacity or know-how to do everything in-house, freelancers or marketing agencies can bring their expertise, and act as an extension of your team. 28% of small businesses rely entirely on external writers.

4. Workflow wins

Etch out a workflow and what each stage of creating, distributing and assessing content will look like. Most workflows are something like this: 

1. Determine a goal 
2. Brainstorm
3. Pick your best ideas
4. Assign jobs
5. Draft the content
6. Edit and schedule
7. Check your KPIs 
8. Adjust future plans based on what is working

There are loads of tools out there to help you design, write, and organize content. Here are examples of a few popular, user-friendly tools. 

Social media posting – Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social

Email marketing – Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Convertkit

Website analytics – Google Analytics, Adobe Analysis, Matomo

SEO tools – SEMrush, Ahrefs, Moz Pro

Grammar checker – Grammarly, ProWritingAid, Ginger

Content management system – WordPress, Wix, Squarespace

Graphic design – Canva, Adobe Creative Cloud, PicMonkey

5. Care about your KPIs

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are stats that reveal the effectiveness of a webpage, social media post, video or other content.

You don’t need to measure everything! Select stats that are directly related to your content marketing goal.

If you have a Facebook post where the goal is to draw people to click on a link to a landing page, the number of comments is less relevant than the click-through rate. Each type of content (email, webpage, social post, etc) lends itself to different types of KPIs. 

Marketers can track KPIs using Google Analytics, Facebook, website hosting platform tools, customer relationship management tools (CRMs), and a plethora of apps.

Ready to level up your content marketing?

Take 5 minutes and assess if your business or organization is on track in each of these areas. Then make an action plan where you need growth most. 

If your business or organization could use a hand with creating a content marketing strategy, generating high-quality content, or measuring your success, Story Digital Marketing is here for you.