Creating content for your brand can become overwhelming—fast. The best way to beat the overwhelm is to build an easy-to-follow content strategy. Content strategies ensure that your efforts are strategic, purposeful, and aligned with your overall objectives. The first step to creating a comprehensive strategy is setting goals and defining objectives. Let’s talk about it.

You Need to Set Goals, Friend.

To get your content strategy started, sit down and think about what you want your content to do. No more posting any ole content because you feel pressured to post something for the algorithm or so you don’t lose followers. Your content must have a purpose and produce a tangible outcome.

The only way to get this “what should my content do” step figured out is to have a firm grasp of your business goals. That means knowing how you want your brand or business to move forward for at least the next six to 12 months. Once you have those goals nailed down, you can create content that can help you meet them.

Creating detailed, measurable goals will make it easy for you to check the progress of your content strategy because they will help you get the data you need to optimize it over time. Having measurable goals will allow you to track the performance of each piece of content and gain insight into what’s working with your strategy and what you need to adjust to hit your goal. Remember, your content should contribute to the growth and success of your brand, business, or nonprofit. Not having goals can cause you to create content that’s all over the place and that, as a result, doesn’t interest your target audience.

Next, Define Your Objectives

If goals are the forest, objectives are the lush green trees that give the forest its shape and form. Goals are big ideas that point us in the right direction or explain what we want to achieve. Objectives are the steps we need to take to make the goal happen. They are smaller, measurable tasks tied to a deadline.

To create objectives, take your goal and break it into chunks. The key is to make your objectives as specific as possible. If your goal is to “increase brand awareness,” your objective should be to “increase social media engagement by 10% over the next four months.”

When you create your content strategy objectives, remember to keep your audience first. If you’re selling products or services, your first thought may be to create a ton of content explaining what you have to offer and sharing special deals. The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t give your audience anything of value that can interest or help them.

For maximum effectiveness, consider your target audience’s needs, interests, and pain points when creating your objectives and address them in your content strategy. Considering your target audience’s needs will help position you as an expert or your brand or business as a resource or go-to destination and help you build stronger connections.

Building a content strategy is the best way to make sure the content you create has a positive impact. The first steps to creating a content strategy that works is to set detailed goals and create objectives you can measure. Be sure to consider your target audience’s needs and desires as you create your objectives to ensure you create content they find of value. With goals and objectives as the foundation of your content strategy, you can be confident that every piece of content you create will help your business, brand or nonprofit grow.

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