Digital Content Strategist

Learn about the role and responsibilities of a digital content strategist. 

Digital Content Strategist

Digital Content Strategist

Learn about the role and responsibilities of a digital content strategist. 

Content StrategistIn this section of the Digital Business course module, we look at the role and responsibilities of a digital content strategist.

This article is part of our free content management course series where we look at various digital roles and responsibilities that a content manager may need to oversee and assume, depending on the organizational structure of the business.

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Digital Content Strategist Role

A digital content strategist is a professional who is responsible for planning, developing, and managing content for digital media.

The main goal of a digital content strategist is to effectively communicate a brand’s message to its target audience in a way that is engaging and aligns with the overall marketing strategy.

To do this, a digital content strategist must have a deep understanding of the brand, its target audience, and the competitive landscape. They must also be proficient in various content creation and management tools, such as content management systems, social media platforms, and analytics software.

In addition to creating and managing content, a digital content strategist also plays a key role in SEO and social media marketing efforts. They may conduct keyword research, create meta descriptions and titles, and optimize content for maximum visibility and engagement on search engines and social media platforms.

Overall, the role of a digital content strategist is crucial in today’s digital landscape, where consumers are constantly bombarded with content from various sources. A digital content strategist helps ensure that a brand’s message stands out and resonates with its target audience.

Content strategists plan, oversee, and manage the content marketing strategy of a business.

This involves:

  • Liaising with management and executive-level roles to better understand business objectives and set marketing goals.
  • Developing content strategies to meet specific targets.
  • Creating exclusive social media and online written content to stimulate consumer interest and sales.
  • Understanding industry best practices and ensuring compliance with all legal requirements
  • Analyzing existing content to determine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (i.e. conducting a SWOT analysis).
  • Working with internal and external content creators to ensure smooth content flow.

Essentially, the job of a content strategist is to:

  • Collect information about the different customer personas the business is targeting
  • Perform extensive research and analysis of customer thoughts
  • Devise content strategies and set up a plan to create useful, usable content that will increase the brand’s awareness, attract the attention of a targeted audience, convert potential customers, and foster customer loyalty.

Content strategists may also be required to manage creative marketing campaigns, build strategic partnerships, and achieve company sales goals.

Digital Content Strategist Duties And Responsibilities

Content strategists are responsible for:

  • Developing a content strategy that will help the business achieve its goals.
  • Content planning, including designing, researching, creating, editing, curating, and publishing relevant content to meet the company’s business objectives and users’ needs.
  • Brainstorming creative ways to engage the audience online and produce engaging content types.
  • Ensuring that the content aligns with the brand and adds value to existing and prospective clients.
  • Keeping track of the competition’s marketing strategy and ensuring that all content created by the digital team is 100% original and unique.
  • Working with the company’s website to help it reach its full potential (e.g. optimizing the website and its content for better search engine rankings).

Typical responsibilities of a digital content strategist include:

  • Maintaining budgets.
  • Performing exhaustive research to gain in-depth knowledge of all customer personas.
  • Performing extensive research and analysis on consumer thoughts and trends.
  • Creating specifications and content appropriate for the brand’s customer personas.
  • Strategizing content pillars and sub-pillars.
  • Planning the editorial calendar and content proposition.
  • Collaborating with content management teams, creative teams, and writers to implement the content strategy.
  • Overseeing writing style and tone for all content.
  • Developing content governance guidelines for tone, style, and voice of all content, and ensuring these are followed.
  • Developing an editorial strategy to ensure content consistency across all delivery platforms.
  • Conducting periodic content audits.
  • Assisting with the technical integration of content.
  • Tracking and calculating content ROI.
  • Ensuring that content strategy meets business objectives.
  • Strategizing and improving content delivery and promotion.
  • Analyzing content marketing strategy to evaluate whether it’s working or not.

Additional jobs that a content strategist may perform in the role include:

  • Create target audience profiles
  • Learn the priorities and content needs of the target audience
  • Develop surveys
  • Create and manage social media campaigns
  • Manage content marketing campaigns
  • Implement SEO best practices
  • Create and maintain editorial calendars, style guides, taxonomies, metadata frameworks, and content migration plans.
  • Build strategic partnerships with agencies, freelancers, creatives, designers, etc.

Digital Content Strategist Role Requirements

The content strategist role requires excellent writing skills, client-facing skills, SEO knowledge, and the ability to work with the organization’s content management system, web analytics platform, SEO research software, and other tools used in the content planning and publication process.

Additional skill sets a content strategist needs to perform successfully in the role include:

  • The ability to meet organizational goals and targets.
  • Excellent copywriting skills – the ability to plan, direct, design, and edit content that get results.
  • Content presentation skills – the ability to determine how content should be packaged for encouraging potential customers to take action.
    Content delivery skills – the ability to determine the best content distribution channels for the target audience.
  • Handling and strategizing marketing campaigns.
  • Content monetization skills.
  • Multitasking and organizational skills.
  • Editorial skills to conduct content audits and determine which content should be kept, edited, rewritten, etc.
  • Analytical ability to identify patterns and trends in content marketing data.
  • Team-building and leadership skills.
  • Attention to detail.
  • Ability to handle significant pressure.

Recruitment sites advertising the role of Content Strategist recommend having at least three to five years of experience in marketing-related roles like digital content manager, web writer, or content editor.

Also, having a bachelor’s degree in a subject like English, journalism, communications, marketing, creative writing, technical writing, information management, or something similar is often a requirement.

Ideally, you will gain hands-on experience in areas like digital content creation and content editing, learn the basics of SEO, and develop the skill set described above.

Full-time content strategists can expect to earn between USD$90,000 to USD$135,000 a year.

Related Roles

Content strategists interact with people in other digital roles, including:

Source: https://www.simplilearn.com/content-strategist-job-description-article

Useful Resources

We recommend the following resources:

Visit our tools and resources section for additional courses, guides, and helpful tools and resources.

Other Digital Content Related Roles

Click on the links below for more information about other digital content-related roles:

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Outsourcing

Outsourcing Resources

Here are useful resources to help you find people with the right talent and skills for outsourcing your content needs.

Return to our content management course outline

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Author: Martin Aranovitch

Martin Aranovitch is a trainer, educator, blog writer, and online publisher. He runs various training websites on digital business, including ContentManagementCourse.com, WPTrainingManual.com, WPMasterclasses.com, and WPCompendium.org. View all posts by Martin Aranovitch