These days, customers and clients are driving digital conversations. Their voracious appetite for high-quality content has created a strong demand for content strategists.

With companies of all sizes turning to content marketing as their go-to tool for educating audiences and generating leads, the content strategist role has become key to delivering a robust marketing and communications plan. Agencies and in-house marketing teams need experienced content strategists who can create, curate and syndicate content to build brand awareness and increase conversion rates.

Read How to Prepare for a Job Interview With a Creative Agency.

Content strategists can work remotely

Like many digital roles, content strategists can efficiently perform their duties from a home office. Many employers offer remote or hybrid work arrangements with flexible schedules to attract and retain top candidates.

What is a content strategist?

The content strategist’s job description is multifaceted. A content strategist helps businesses develop and manage content to generate leads and meet their content marketing goals — the core function of the job is developing a content strategy based on a company’s or client’s business objectives and a customer’s or end user’s needs.

Content strategist duties and expectations

Creative professionals in this role oversee content requirements and create content strategy deliverables across a project life cycle. This can include conducting content audits (qualitative analyses of all the content on a network of sites and social media accounts) and gap analyses.

The content strategist is often in charge of creating and maintaining editorial calendars, style guides, taxonomies, metadata frameworks and content migration plans. Content strategists may also be responsible for managing other employees and freelancers, maintaining budgets, and assisting with the technical integration of content.

What else does a content strategist do? 

The content strategist also creates relevant, actionable content that can be shared across digital platforms and uses their expertise to recommend which channels to use to make content easy for users to find. In addition, they perform data analysis to measure customer engagement and assess the effectiveness of the content strategy.

Skills and traits of content strategists

High-level thinkers with a penchant for keeping track of details are ideal candidates for this job. Content strategists must be standout idea generators and problem solvers with excellent communication and organizational skills.

These strategy experts must have the analytical abilities necessary to gather key business and user insights and apply their strategic planning skills to create a long-term vision for the content that’s generated. Project management experience will help the content strategist keep projects on track and within budget.

Successful content strategists are compelling brand storytellers with a design sensibility to envision how content will be presented or distributed in formats other than text-based articles, such as infographics or multimedia presentations. They also need to have a firm understanding of user experience, and strong search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) skills are often preferred.

Content strategist salary benchmarks

The Robert Half Salary Guide will give you salary projections for many roles within the marketing and creative sphere, including content strategist. You can also search for and select the city nearest you to automatically adjust salaries for regional cost of living, talent availability and other factors.

Tips for building a content strategist career

Many successful content strategists took a winding career path from diverse fields like journalism, marketing and communications, data analysis, and technical and UX writing. You may even have done content strategy as part of a previous job. Here are a few tips for building on your background to transition into a content strategy role.

• Update your skills. Assess to find out what skill sets you need to acquire or update. Then, take advantage of the many available courses, lectures, podcasts and other learning opportunities available in person and online.
   
• Learn the tools of the trade. Become familiar with content management systems and digital tools for collaboration, content measurement and validation, spreadsheets, organizing and planning.
   
• Position yourself as a content strategy professional. Make sure your resume highlights relevant work experience such as digital, editorial and creative roles, and put together a portfolio that showcases your creative work.
   
• Become part of the content community. Join online forums where content strategists share ideas and support, or attend industry conferences and local events. Check out the Robert Half Insights page for in-depth content on all aspects of navigating your career.

And finally, consider working with a recruiter. Specialized recruiters with Robert Half can use their expertise to help you understand your value in today’s job market and position you for the career you want.