1. “It’s not all about us”

Content needs a purpose beyond a loud and blaring “me, me, me”. Give your company an outside voice if you want to grow your audience and widen your impact.

 

One speaker said: “We have a commitment that only fifty per-cent of our content is about us. It’s an opportunity to give your company a persona and show you’re interested in doing something for the greater good.”

 

An external comms manager at a property firm with a national portfolio of over one billion pounds agreed – emphasising that his firm’s strategy was based on generating fresh and relevant story ideas, rather than simply publishing product-related press releases: “Eighty per-cent of what we put out has nothing to do with our business delivery. If you link back to what the company is trying to achieve, it’s not just a ‘purpose wash’ – you’re able to bring your purpose to life. I haven’t looked at a press release in three months and I’m delighted!”

2. “Do one thing well”

An attempt to cover too wide a range of subjects and audiences can be a challenge to creating best-in-class content, making a clear strategy essential to the cut-through of any content operation.

 

Paul Williams, Head of Planning and Production at Speak Media, said: “If you’re thinking about a content strategy, focus on a few things that you want to be known for, and go deep into those in order to create content with real value and impact – so that you don’t end up trying to do a little of everything and adding to the mass of mediocre content out there.”

 

A global comms manager at one of the world’s largest investment companies added: “Do simple things well. Strategy should make things easier to get done.”

 

And if you’re doing one thing well, reuse and repurpose it to reach new audiences and create more with less.

 

Emphasising the benefits of sweating your organisation’s assets, one speaker said: “We’ve found that content has a longer shelf life than you would think. We increased our social posts from 30 to 200 per week by reposting and repurposing more of what we already produced – and our audience has grown exponentially.”