What's the difference between a Brand Strategy and a Content Strategy?
The answer is Purpose.
This question could be the subject of a textbook, but in this case, I'll define Brand Strategy as the bigger picture. What your Brand stands for, its identity, and where you spend time talking to people.
Content Strategy is about what you're going to say.
For instance, your Brand Strategy stipulates that your goal is to tell people how happy your customers are with your services and to build awareness for your brand. To do this, you will post on LinkedIn, your website, and Instagram and share case studies at five industry expos over the next six months.
Your Content Strategy works around that timeline and those channels (LinkedIn, Website, Instagram, Expos) to narrate the content you'll put out on each platform and each venue.
For example, in the lead-up to each in-person Expo, you'll post a case study on your website, repost the content as two LinkedIn posts, and make six posts for Instagram, repeating the cycle six times.
Your Brand Strategy set the GOAL and WHERE to put the content, and your Content Strategy worked out WHAT content to post and HOW it will be produced.
Why is this important?
When you add it all up, over six months, you have to create 5 case studies for your website, 10 LinkedIn posts, 30 Instagram posts (and stories if you want to be creative), and at least 5 case studies to be printed to show people at each Expo.
That's at least 50 assets that need to be created.
Not including the other elements like banners, brochures, business cards, and landing pages you'll need to create for each of the 5 Expos you plan to go to.
Even if you spend the time to plan out six months of content, this is an extensive list of assets to go out and create.
What are the challenges?
1. Consistency: Keeping up with this timeline will take effort. Most people can't stay consistent because they don't have the time or the energy to do the work.
2. Creativity: Saying "I'm excited to be going to this event next week" 10 times will get boring quickly. So, not only do you need to create the content, you need to come up with exciting ways of sharing a message.
3. Cost: Here are some of the critical steps involved in making a single piece of video content.
1. Brainstorming topic ideas and formats.
2. Refining your learnings from past experiences.
3. Assess your audience.
4. Setting specific short-term goals.
5. Scriptwriting.
6. Talent bookings.
7. Room-set bookings.
8. Equipment setup (cameras, lighting, sound, set).
9. Talent warm-ups.
10. Capturing footage.
11. Editing the footage.
12. Produce show notes and captions.
13. Uploading and distribution.
14. Manage engagement.
15. Analysis and insights.
16. Ads and paid boosting.
17. Repeat for the next piece of content.
Add time and an hourly rate to each and multiply it by the number of videos you want to create. Without too much analysis, you see a rather large amount of time and money required to produce a piece of content and get it into people's hands or in front of their eyes.
That's why it's so important to know what to make. Because if you know what to make, these steps become easier and cheaper to administer.
(Side note)
But Krystian, I can use my phone to make and upload a video. I've seen you do this yourself. Why are you making it sound so complicated and expensive?
Well, Timmy, I produce content on a tiny scale and work with the budget and equipment available to me. An approach anyone can and, if they want to, should employ. If I had more to work with, I would not use my phone and would have people for literally everything. I wouldn't use my own hands to drink from a cup of coffee because someone would be employed to do that for me. Vote Krystian for job creation.
Plus, for other, more successful people, like CEOs of major corporations, international speakers, or someone trying to become influential. You can start with the DIY approach but will quickly need to build a team to help you create your Content and navigate your Brand Strategy because you're busy having important conversations and making deals and won't have the time to produce show notes or set up equipment.
Practical things you can do to help the process, stay consistent, and become as popular as your heart desires.
1) Pool your content. Whether you have a team yet or not, working off a blank sheet of paper is hard for anyone.
So setting up an online - always on - Google Doc to collect ideas as they come up in conversation, in meetings, when talking with clients, when getting a comment from an unhappy customer, etc., means that when you go to step one of the process, you are already a few steps ahead.
Plus, you are the subject matter expert, not the team. You have to help them out.
2) Posting after an event. Don't just build up to the expo. Talk about how it went afterwards. People want to know, so tell them.
Summary
The Purpose of Brand Strategy is to set Goals and decide Where to put your message.
The Purpose of Content Strategy is to define What content to make and How you'll allocate resources to make it.
Planning saves you time, money, and headaches.
Pooling your ideas over time and having mechanisms available to do so improves the production process and makes making things more fun.
Have a great day,
Krystian.