Once upon a not-so-distant past, advertisers were the kings and queens of the marketing realm. Casting spells of genius across TVs and billboards, they captivated all who gazed upon them. 

But then came the digital dawn—cue dramatic music—with social media redefining the entire landscape.

Now, content creators have taken the throne. These modern-day wizards of storytelling and community engagement wield the magic to mesmerize audiences. 

Years have passed and they’re still keeping the balance in the digital marketing universe. 

Despite new content creators popping up every day, many are still trying to master the craft of developing content strategies that resonate deeply and linger in the minds of their audience.

That's where we come in. 

Join us on a journey to the heart of digital content creation. We'll start with the basics and guide you through developing compelling strategies that leave a lasting imprint on your audience.

What is digital content creation?

If you ask most people what content creation is, their first thoughts would probably be of their favorite TikTok creator. 

While that is a form of content creation, it doesn’t do justice to what content creation truly is. 

So, what is digital content creation? 

It involves everything that goes into producing content your audience loves. 

We’re talking about generating topic ideas, drafting scripts, creating written or visual content, and even publishing them on different platforms. 

Here’s how Jessica, a marketing manager and founder of digital marketing agency, Femway defined it:

“Content creation is the steps you take to make that content come to life and available for your audience to see.”

She went on to say that it doesn’t start with creation and presented this process as one digital content creators should follow:

The bottom line? 

Content creation is super helpful for your marketing strategy. 

It allows you to connect with your target audience and solve their challenges. 

Want to know how digital content creation can help your business?

Let’s dive deeper.

Why is digital content creation important?

As you know, there’s a lot of noise on the internet nowadays. Everyone has something to say. 

And people’s tolerance level? 

No longer what it used to be. 🫠

If they visit your platform and get a poor experience, off they go. About 50% of consumers in a Zendesk survey said they’d switch to a competitor after one bad experience

But one thing thought-through content creation does is it lets you capture people’s attention effortlessly.

You give them what they need and they’ll not just stick around, they’ll invite others too. 

You just need to take the time to research what content they like, how they prefer to engage with it, and consistently give them valuable and useful info.

Here’s what you’ll get from your audience, in turn: 

• 🫂Rock-solid faith that drives traffic. Your audience will see you as someone they can count on to deliver. If you give them great content regularly, you boost your chances of having their trust any day, any time. 

Plus, they may even share your content without you asking. Before you know it, your organic traffic and SEO rankings will be through the roof.

• 🫡Respect in your niche. If you dish out great content long enough, your audience will see you as an authority. Anything you tell them is expert advice and they’ll hold on to it like the Ten Commandments.
• ⚡Record-breaking sales growth. They already see you as an authority and someone they can count on. If you say a product is great for them and have great content to prove it, they’ll waste no time bringing out their debit cards to pay. 

***

You’ve seen why ‘content creation’ is important. 

Next, let’s dive into content types you can create. Each type presents a unique way to engage the audience at different stages of their journey.

By understanding them, you get to create a strategy that not only meets your goals but resonates with the audience. 

Let’s jump right in. 

What are the different types of digital content?

There are different options for creating digital content, but they all have one common denominator: They’re designed for digital platforms. 

Here are some of them:

📽️Video content: The digital magician everyone loves to see.  82% of people have been convinced to purchase a product after seeing this content type. Sometimes, they do long acts, like the tutorials and webinars you see on YouTube channels. Or short acts like TikTok, Instagram Reels, or short YouTube videos. 

🎙️Podcasts: The seat of sages. It’s basically audio content where thought leaders sit to discuss ideas. 

They can be in long and short formats. Even videos sometimes, where you create clips of the conversation to share on social media to drive engagement. And is this content type effective? 

Research shows that 61% of listeners want to buy a product or service after hearing it on a podcast. So yeah, it’s effective.

✍️Blog posts made by bloggers. Just like this one you’re reading. Its role is to use written text to dazzle its audience, providing valuable content to them. 

By creating informative blog posts and adding keywords the audience is searching for, you improve your site’s ranking on the search engine result page (SERP). 

In turn, you drive organic traffic to your website and get established as a thought leader. That’s why over 70% of B2B buyers read blogs during their buying journey.

🖼️Photos, images, & GIFs, AKA the visual triplets. They’re quite popular social media content, and their goal is to entertain your audience. They help capture people’s attention as they’re visually appealing. According to reports, they’re part of the top most-used content types.

📥Newsletters: Email’s personal messenger. Your go-to content if you want to reach your audience regularly. It helps you connect with the audience and keep you at the top of their mind most of the time. 50% of marketers who leverage this have said it’s their most effective strategy. 

🧑‍🏫Online courses: The tutor master of the digital universe. It's a mix of other types of content structured to teach a particular subject. Coursera, the popular online course platform combines videos, audio, eBooks, and quizzes to teach students and keep them engaged. 

Now, if you decide to create any type of content we’ve listed, there’s one thing you need to be clear on: The strategy plans that’ll make it work.

Wait,  strategy? 

What do you mean?

You’re about to find out.

What is a digital content strategy?

Think of it as planning a family vacation.

You wouldn’t want to do that without having a destination in mind, would you?

You’d want a ‘vacay’ where everyone can have fun and make memories that’ll last a lifetime.

So, what do you do?

You plan everything, down to the tiniest detail. 

That’s the same idea behind a digital content strategy. 

It’s the planning that goes into content production for your audience, including how you: 

• Publish the content
• Promote it 
• Manage it 
• Repurpose the content 

Now, here’s how to make one yourself 👇

How can I develop a digital content strategy?

You can create a content strategy for your marketing campaigns by following this process we’ve outlined as a list.

Now, let’s break them down together step-by-step. 

Step #1: Decide what your content goals are

First things first…

What do you want to achieve with your content? Do you have any goals in mind yet?

That’s the foundation for creating a content strategy. 

It’s any gap your brand’s yet to fill and it could be anything like:

• Getting more visitors or leads to your site. 
• Increasing engagement rates on your social media platforms. 
• Boosting brand awareness. 
• Increasing follower count.

And then figuring that out will help you determine:

• The content type to produce. If your goal is to increase engagement, on social media, for instance, you’d know that the best bet is to create short, entertaining videos.   
• Who’ll produce them? Using the engagement goal,  the ideal person to produce social media content that can generate buzz will be an influencer. 
• What platforms will publish your content? TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram are likely platforms that’ll help you reach the goal.

Essentially, having a goal in mind will give you direction when you start creating content. 

But it’s not enough to set goals, they need to be S.M.A.R.T too. 

In other words, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.

For the goal of increasing engagement on social media, the S.M.A.R.T. version would be:

“Increase LinkedIn engagement by 20% within four months with daily social media posts and bi-weekly interactive stories.” 

Step #2: Know your target audience

You’ve set goals you can't wait to smash.

But do you even know who you’re creating content for?

Here’s how to know: 

Interview your existing audience. Reach out to customers who have purchased your product or interacted with the brand several times across different demographics. You can set up a 1-v-1 interview or send a survey with questions like these:

• What are their challenges?
• How have they solved the problem before?
• What services did they try in the past? 
• Did they have a smooth experience?
• What are they looking for in a product or solution?
• Where and how did they find you? Any particular keywords?
• What marketing channels do they prefer? Social media, email, or websites? 
• What’s their favorite social media platform?
• Do they spend a lot of time online?

These questions can help you understand the audience better. 

Use digital tools to spy on your competitors. An app like One2Target is a solution to use. You only need to input the competitor’s URL and it’ll show audience data such as age, gender, education level, employment status, income level, preferred browsing devices, and more. 

Google Analytics is another tool you can use. It provides similar data for your site’s traffic. You’ll see who visits your website, their location, age, gender, etc.  So you can create content to give them a smooth user experience. 

Here’s how to find this data on GA: 

Visit the Report menu on the dashboard. Select User > User Attributes > Overview. And you’ll find the audience information you need.

Step #3: Figure out what topics work

Now that you know who your audience is, it's time to zero in on the topics that will truly captivate them.

How do you do that? You can try:

Direct feedback. Got an existing customer base? Put it to work! Whip up a survey or conduct some interviews to unearth their main pain points. Tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms are your allies here. The insights you gather will be your north star, guiding you to create content that hits right at the heart of their issues.

Engaging  potential customers. No direct customers yet? No problem. Dive into online communities relevant to your niche. Whether it's forums or social media groups, get involved. Participate authentically in discussions and keep your eyes peeled for recurring questions and hot topics. 

Pro tip: Use Reddit’s search feature to sift through discussions with keywords linked to your field, like 'video editing' if you're into videography.

Simply put, try to identify topics people are always talking about so you can create content around them. 

A quick search on popular search engines can even point you in the right direction. Just type in keywords and you’ll find the phrases, words, and questions people are asking. 

Alternatively, you could try digital tools like:

• Tweet Hunter X, a browser extension for finding interesting ideas and tracking popular tweets. Once you install the extension, it adds a sidebar to your X (formerly Twitter) feed. 

Then, when you click on an author, you’ll find their best-performing posts that can inspire your content. It saves you the time of refining your query using Twitter’s search bar when looking for inspiration. 

• Ahrefs, an SEO and tool for growing organic traffic. It has a keyword research tool for finding relevant keyword ideas in your niche.  

You only have to input likely keywords clients are searching for and it’ll suggest similar terms to the one you used. You’ll even find likely questions you can create content around. 

Step #4: Plan and create a content calendar

At this stage, things are beginning to take shape, but it’s not enough to know what to create. You also need to schedule when and where you want to publish.

Because in content creation, you can’t just decide to create, produce, and publish content today. 

Well, it’s possible, but not sustainable! Eventually, you’ll be burnt out and disorganized. You’ll forget things. Maybe even forget to publish.  

A better approach is to plan everything you want to do in advance by creating a content calendar that includes:

• Tasks to be done 
• Content title.
• Content type. 
• Content creator. 
• Production status.
• Due date. 
• Promotion channel. 

An overview of what should be done so you don’t have to run after people like this: 

You can use Google Sheets to whip up something simple and if you can afford it, you can use the CoSchedule app too.

Thinking of using the CoSchedule software? 

Here’s what you need to do:

• Go to the Calendar menu and select New Calendar. 
• Set it up by assigning a name, team permissions, content types, and time zones. 
• Click a date on the calendar to start adding content items. Add a title to that day like ‘LinkedIn video’ and a short description. 
• Assign to a teammate by @tagging them to that date.
• Set due dates, progress status, and other relevant information. 

Step #5: Actually sit down and create your content

All you’ve done up until now is set up structures for your content creation workflow.

That’s perfect. And trust us, you’re on the right track – but your journey has only just begun. 

It’s now time to start creating the high-quality content you've been planning all along. 

If it’s your first time, keep in mind that your first attempt may not be great. 

It’s happened to the best of us. What we can tell you is that it gets better. 

Step #6: Track and analyze performance data

You see, content creation is an iterative process. 

Publishing a piece of content is not the end of the line.  You need to track it to see if it’s performing as expected. 

Is your audience engaging with it? If they are, you can scale the production (create more to publish on other platforms). 

But if they don’t like it, you need to find out what went sideways and figure out how to improve it. 

Here are some metrics to help you check if your content is performing:

• Conversion rates: The number of people who took action on your digital media posts, for instance.
• Engagement rates:  The amount of likes, shares, and reposts you’ve gotten. 
• Click-through rates: The number of clicks you’ve gotten from the posts.  
• Increase in follower count: The number of fans who’ve decided to follow you.

Huhm, how do I track these metrics?

You can use a tool like Google Analytics. 

Start by adding your website to Google Analytics. You’ll need to insert a tracking code into your site’s HTML, which allows Google Analytics to start gathering data.

Then, clearly define what you want to achieve with your content in Google Analytics. Whether it’s increasing engagement, conversions, or something else, setting these parameters will help tailor the tracking to your specific needs.

Finally, regularly review the data collected to understand what’s working and what’s not. Use this info to tweak your content strategy, focusing on what resonates most with your audience.

See? Easy-peasy! By effectively tracking and analyzing your content's performance, you can make data-driven decisions that enhance your content strategy and improve overall engagement.

Step #7: Find the right tools to implement your strategy

Finally, you want to put together a list of tools that can help you execute your content strategy. 

This way, you won’t have to start looking for which tool to use when you need them.

Here are some tools you should have in your tech stack:

• A content management system (CMS) like WordPress to help you create and publish written and visual content. 
• Google Analytics for tracking the content’s performance. 
• Video editing tools like CapCut or InShot.
• Google Sheets or Notion to create content calendars. 
• MarkUp for receiving and requesting feedback on your content. 
• Studio for creating interactive content that’ll keep your audience engaged. It’s like Canva, but better. 
• Editor to produce and scale cool graphic designs. 

***

Now, that’s how to create a strategy for your content creation process. 

To simplify this process a bit further, here are some tips that can help you with creating content.

4 tips to streamline your content creation process

You need a lot of hands when creating content – professionals like copywriters, video editors, marketers, the whole squad.

But sometimes, even having them isn’t enough. 

You need experience to know the next steps to take.

Remember: We’re here to guide you when things get tough. 

Repurpose and scale content, the smart way

You don’t always have to come up with new content ideas every time. 

Sometimes, you can just go back to the content you’ve produced in the past, make a couple of adjustments, and post again. 

It could be content that addressed a recurring pain point your audience faced, or one that brought in a ton of engagement when you first posted it.

Content like that is like a vintage car. 

You can always bring it back and your audience will love it. So if you ever get stuck, take a trip down memory lane. 

Drive engagement with interactive content

Interactive content is kind of like the new kid on the block in the content world. 

Make your article, infographics, or presentation interactive and people’s minds will be blown 🤯. 

They’ll want to engage more with your site because it’s something they’ve probably not seen before. Research shows that brands who use this content type saw a 90%+ increase in content views compared to static content.

Now, this interactive content can simply be a parallax scrolling effect. Where, as users scroll, they’re being sucked into more interesting visuals and content. An example is this template from Ceros:

Here, the background content moves when you scroll while the foreground content changes. 

There are other options too. 

You could use a clickable hotspot where they have to hover or click an element to see the rest of the content like this one below:

Once you hover over any of the hotspots, information pops up. 

Regardless of which kind you use, it can help you drive engagement.

Now, how do you create interactive content? A great tool to start with is Studio. Here’s a brief overview of how it can transform your content:

• First, prep the article or content you want to make interactive. This is your canvas.
• Then, decide on the triggers for interaction. Do you want your audience to uncover the magic through a hover, a click, or perhaps when they view a specific element? This step is crucial as it defines how users interact with your content.
• Then, choose the actions you want to trigger. Whether it's audio that plays in the background, elements that pop as viewers scroll, or animations that bring your content to life, Studio provides the tools to make it happen. The platform supports a wide range of interactive features, allowing you to create anything from simple animations to complex interactive experiences.

With Studio, you're equipped not just to create but to captivate. Experiment with different interactions and see how they can enhance the storytelling of your content.

Creative team collaboration can be your golden ticket

If you have a team of creatives, you need to get them involved in the content creation process.

That’s how you’ll get new ideas and perspectives that you probably never thought of. Plus, you can get constructive feedback on what you’ve done. 

To do that, you can use a tool like MarkUp.io for creative partnerships. 

Here’s how one user described their experience with it:

“It is very easy to leave comments right on a website page and get detailed feedback with no doubt about what needs to be changed or where. There is very little need for feedback in email or any other app.”

Think you’d like to give it a spin? 

Here’s how it works:

• Upload the content you’re working on to the platform to create a MarkUp. 
• Copy the URL and share it with your colleagues or send them an email invite to collaborate. 
• Start receiving feedback. 

This way everyone can brainstorm, share suggestions, and produce the kind of content your audience would love to see.

It’s your turn now - start creating!

You’ve seen how to create a content strategy and now you’re set to develop one yourself. 

That’s fantastic. 

But as you can see, having proper tools in place can help streamline the entire process for you. 

One such tool is the Ceros suite, a digital platform with features that can help you:

• Brainstorm new ideas
• Come up with strategies
• Create content that matches your brand style and tone
• Generate visuals for you

…and more. 

Think you’re ready to streamline your content creation process?

Book a demo with Ceros and see firsthand how helpful it can be for you.