This short session, Content Strategy for Junior Content Producer Apprentices Guidelines Part 1, focuses on supporting apprentices understanding of:
- The Role of a Content Strategy
- This section will explain that a content strategy serves as a blueprint for creating engaging content that yields a return on investment (ROI). It includes vital information such as the target audience, goals, and tactics for content creation.
- The Elements of a Content Strategy
- Apprentices will learn about various components that make up a comprehensive content strategy, including elements like logo usage, brand voice, typography, choice of platforms, content design tools, content management systems, and more.
- Things to Discuss and Demonstrate at EPA (End-Point Assessment)
- This part will guide apprentices on topics to explore and discuss during their End-Point Assessment, emphasising the importance of setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to facilitate learning, testing, and evaluation.
- Types of Tools to Research and Know About
- Apprentices will be introduced to valuable tools and resources, including Screaming Frog for SEO analysis, website hosting options, and design software like Adobe CC Suite, Serif, and Canva. The goal is to encourage the exploration of tools that can enhance content strategy.
Depending on your role (internal or external client-facing), your role within your content strategy will depend, Some learners will have just a content producer role, while others will have a more strategic role. Whatever your role, understanding the role of content strategies will help you map your standards effectively with branding and development when you hold a discussion with an EPA and prepare a portfolio that demonstrates that you can work effectively within a content production workflow.
The Role of a Content Strategy
In the simplest way, your content strategy is a meaningful map/blueprint that gives detailed directions to create content that is engaging and brings a return on Investment (ROI). Your Content Strategy will have the following information (from a consulting perspective—you are giving advice to your client):
The Elements within a Content Strategy
Editorial issues: most of us, just think that if we put together a simple paragraph that defines, the tone of voice, words to use, and words to avoid, we have covered editorial. In reality, it goes deeper than that; we have to look at editorials from different perspectives:
- Logo
- Brand’s Voice for each medium used (short version of the brand book)
- Typography
- Platforms and Channels: Your content strategy will have a definite list of all the different platforms where your content is going to be published and more information on why you have made certain decisions. Remember, the choice of platforms should be based on the audience, customers, competition,
- Content Design and Development Tools: It is important to make a choice in deciding what software and apps are going to be used to design, create, and develop the content. Content software and development tools will depend on your business’s budget and resources.
- You should have a definite guideline on what can be used and why
- Content
- Content Management (assets); As you create different forms of content, for print or digital, you start considering this content as an asset. As the content library grows, teams will have to make decisions on how to manage the content production workflow without too much overlapping of systems, and spending on resources. The information in this section will include information on:
- Content Workflow Software, with details on the main software used to work
- Managing assets: Copyrights, information and
- Choice of in-house or tailored software to manage the content
For example, some companies will use the whole Adobe Suite, to develop, manage, and share content. Adobe offers different tools:
- Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Animate, InCopy, etc… will support the creation of a wide variety of content for both print and Digital Media
- Adobe Bridge, Encoder, and Cloud help manage content (metadata, Copyrights, Keywords)
- Banding: The content strategy will have guidelines on branding such as:
- How to use the logos on different platforms, and media, with specifics on size and location
- SEO, as a rule of thumb, we all know that SEO is a big help, in driving traffic, branding, etc.. And SEO should be a part of our content strategy. Where we are lacking is that we tend to ignore other search engines, as well as Social Media search engines, which are also essential in driving brand awareness and ROI.
Things that you will definitely need to discuss and demonstrate at EPA
This Content Strategy for Junior Content Producer Apprentices Guidelines Part 1 was primarily designed to support you with understanding content strategy, and the main topics you should be able to research, discuss in projects to provide evidence for your knowledge, skills, and behaviour. The basic advice would be for you to sit with your line manager and discuss all the different topics evolving around content strategy and set KPIs that will give you an opportunity to learn, try, test, and evaluate.
- Content you audited during your probationary period? What content was there?
- Did you get a company content strategy when you started? If not, what did you do about it?
- What tools are you using for content workflow?
- What tools are you using for managing content (meaning assets)? Google Drive, Drive (shared, internal, external), 365, tailored made, in-house system. You should be able to describe why your company is not using Google or SAAS for management. a lot of businesses don’t trust Google for the management of their assets, maybe because Google builds their knowledge based on AI, but then sells that knowledge, or maybe because there is too much at risk (hackers)
For sure, during your observation, apart from demonstrating teamwork and communication, planning, software use, etc… you must:
- Show good copyright practice when creating content (Content Management: Legal Issues), so if you are using design, editing, or animation software, make sure you use both software tools and functions to demonstrate that you are legally protecting the company’s assets on both the back end and front end. What I call front-end copyright is what people see, the copyright notice or symbol ©; if you happen to work on a website, make sure that all images you upload have some kind of protection, or if using assets and images from other sources (paid for or unpaid) shows good copyright practise.
Type of Tools you should research and know about:
- Screaming Frog: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ Screaming Frog is a good tool to use if you are working on a website, trying to identify the content on the website (images, documents, and pages), Although it is primarily an SEO tool, it can be used to identify the content on a site and identify the good, the bad, and the ugly about specific content.
- If your company is thinking of rebuilding a site, think of the resources and costs it could involve, evaluate different options (hosting, designers, specialists, etc.), and look at SAAS options for website builders that come with everything. They all come with advantages and disadvantages.
- Web hosting https://www.ionos.co.uk/, https://uk.godaddy.com/
- All-Inclusive https://www.wix.com/, https://www.weebly.com/uk/pricing,
- If your employer is already making use of and paying for the full Adobe CC Suite, take some time aside from your weekly job schedule to research the full Adobe Suite Tools and how they can be useful for your content strategy. Look at how you can work collaboratively, make use of tools to combat copyrights, etc…..
- Serif and Canva offer Design Tools at a cheaper price than Adobe if you are on a small budget.
More Resources:
- The site is your complete guide to content. (Please take some time during your off-the-job to listen to podcasts: https://www.contentstrategy.com/podcast