The Last Content Strategy Post You Need to Read

There are many excellent resources for content marketing: anything by Anne Hadley or C.C. Chapman (love Marketing Professionals); about everything put out by the Content Marketing Institute; ancillary to content marketing, but related and covering an equally difficult, overlapping, and interesting piece of the social industry (community management) – The Community Roundtable (also my favorite logo); Hubspot; and there are others that I’m forgetting as I’m writing this quickly.

They all write (and talk) about content strategy – how to develop one, why, how to win friends and influence the people in your organization with money to support one  . . . . everything you need to know. In turn, you can then move on to a successful content marketing effort.

What I’ve realized is you don’t need to read all of them. Pick one. Read it. Think about it. Understand what you want to do.

Then do it.

Develop a content management strategy (or Inbound strategy if you prefer that terminology, not intending to start a holy war, but I find the differences barely existent).

If you know and understand what strategy is; then you’ll be alright. You’ll develop a team, content, production, measurements, a schedule, etc. to support your strategic business objective. That strategic business objective will be unique to you (within the confines of broad generalities, such as “grow your business,” “increase market recognition/branding,” “more customers,” etc.).

If you don’t understand strategy, you’ll continue to confuse it with tactics and you’re fucked anyway.

Keep reading as many posts, articles, and books as you like.

After all, that’s easier than actually doing the work of creating the strategy.