Whether you're new to the game, or a social media pro, having a plan is key.

While posting on your personal social media page doesn’t necessarily require anything more than a fun idea and a few spare minutes, when it comes to your employer brand, some forward thinking is a non-negotiable. Digital Affair’s Head of Content and Marketing, Lachlan Cooper says investing in a content strategy is essential as it allows you to “align content with business objectives and recruitment forecasts, while also allowing for reactive, ad hoc posts along the way.”

A content strategy:

●      provides a framework for deciding what to post and when

●      allows multiple people to collaborate as part of the creative process

●      maximises the effectiveness of your posts by responding to priorities

●      ensures you stay on brand with your posts.

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Here’s how to create a content strategy that delivers higher engagement and more importantly, genuine recruitment results.

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1. Define your purpose

The first step is to be very clear about the purpose of your content strategy. Is it to recruit new talent? Engage existing staff? Raise awareness of your employer brand in a particular market? You may find that your strategy is multi-pronged, but try to keep your goals as pointy and specific as possible.

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2. Know your audience

Think deeply about who your audience is and create a few personas to represent them. Consider things like their demographics (age, gender or occupation), behaviours (how do they seek out information?) and interests (how do they spend their time and what’s important to them?) When you understand your audience, you’ll be able to create the type of content that most appeals to them.  

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3. Decide what types of content you want to create and which channels you’ll use

Once you know your audience, this step becomes much easier. In short, go to the channels where you believe you audience spend their time, and start listing the types of content you think will best engage them. In general, visually engaging content does best, so think infographics, videos and catchy headlines and images for blog posts.

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4. Do an audit

You’ve likely already got some content that you’ve created – either purposefully or inadvertently. Take a look at what you already have on your website, existing social channels and within your company marketing materials. Consider if there’s anything useful or interesting that can be reused, redressed or repurposed.

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5. Define your key themes

It’s always a good idea to develop key themes that you will generally stick to when creating content. The themes should be aligned to your employer brand or recruitment priorities. Consider using different types of content aligned to those priorities such as employee and team or department ‘day in the life of’ stories, events, awards and achievements, interesting projects and business happenings, and promoting employee benefits. Once you’ve nailed your themes, you can start brainstorming more specific content ideas.

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6. Create a content calendar

A calendar will help you stay organised, get the most out of your posts and save you time in the long run. It will also make sure you maximise the return you get from each piece of content because you can plan to use it across multiple channels or in different ways. For example, if you have a blog post that performs well and is “evergreen” (that is, it won’t go out of date) you may be able to repost again and again over a reasonable time frame.

Once your strategy is in place, it’s time to get the creative juices flowing. Happy creating!

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