How to plan and create great content for your brand

It’s one thing to say, ‘Content is king.’ It’s a whole other thing to—you know—produce compelling copy. The author shares four insights into his team’s process.

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The content needs to fit with the overall marketing strategy and incorporate the needs of (in some cases) a dozen individual stakeholders who all have different things they want to promote in the social space.

Good luck.

Despite these hurdles, we manage to crank it out every month. Here are some insights into how my team develops its content:

1. Listen

This is going to seem like a basic tenet for any writer, but it’s something I had to do every day as a reporter and am now employing with some success as a social media manager. It warrants a reminder.

As a reporter I had to listen intently to my sources to find out what they were really saying. Professional athletes and politicians aren’t exactly forthcoming, so I would have to listen close to the information they would offer. If I did that well, I could come back with the key follow-up question that would make my story a success.

It’s the same when working with clients and managing your community.

If you work on the agency side, chances are you spend a healthy amount of time in meetings, talking about the brand and talking about how it should be positioned in social media. Getting as much information as you can from the client regarding what they want to accomplish gives you the ability to attack your content calendar with the end in mind.

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