It does not matter what sort of business you run, a content team is imperative when it comes to setting you apart from the crowd and ensuring that you reach your business goals.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of businesses that are still missing the mark when it comes to content. In fact, 42 percent of marketers say they are effective at content marketing. Surely that figure should be 100!
The foundation of any good marketing strategy is your content team. What they bring to the table can make or break your marketing efforts. If your content is engaging, interesting, original, and effectively optimized, your business can thrive.
So, with that being said, in this blog post, we are going to reveal everything you need to know about what you should look for when hiring a content team in 2022.
You won’t be able to hire a great content team if you don’t have an effective job posting
Before we start revealing the different qualities that you should be looking for when hiring a content team, it is important to stress just how critical it is to have an excellent job posting.
One of the big problems today is that a lot of businesses simply use generic job listings whenever they have a vacancy. They copy and paste listings they have found elsewhere, without amending them to suit their business or the sort of person they are looking for.
While you are encouraged to use a content creator job template to provide you with structure, you need to make sure that you carefully fill it in. If you don’t, you will end up with a lot of applications that are simply not relevant to what you are looking for.
What should you look for when hiring a content team?
Now, let’s delve a little bit deeper and look at the different things you should look for when hiring a content team today.
Put together a strategy first
Before you can start to look for a content team, it is important to put together a marketing strategy. You need to understand what your business is hoping to achieve from its marketing efforts, otherwise, you will not be able to plot your route to the top and you won’t know what sort of personnel you need to hire.
Think about what you hope to achieve from your marketing efforts. What are your goals? What are you working toward?
You should also do some research so that you can understand your audience better. What sort of content is going to appeal to your customer base the amount? How are you going to reach customers effectively and stand out from the crowd?
Once you have put together an effective marketing strategy, you will then be able to look for the best people to help you implement this strategy and reach your goals and objectives. If you hire without taking this critical step first, you can end up with a team of professionals who may be good marketers but may not be right for your business.
The roles you should hire within your content team
The next thing you need to do is identify what roles you should be hiring within your content team in order to achieve your goals. Some of the main roles to consider are as follows:
- A Chief Content Officer (CCO) – This is the person who is going to be overlooking your entire content marketing strategy, starting with topic selection, and then overseeing elements such as the alignment of marketing and business goals, and content prioritization. There is a lot of responsibility that comes with this role. You need someone with excellent analytical and organizational skills. They also need to be marketing visionaries and have full-stack knowledge of the content process.
- A Content Manager – A content manager will manage and organize all marketing assets, ensuring things get done in a qualitative and timely manner. Content managers know how to make charts, mind maps, and models. They can empathize with others, and they are effective at tackling productivity or efficiency issues. They are also excellent in terms of using spreadsheets and they are highly organized.
- A Content Promoter – A content promoter is someone who will distribute your content to the masses and get it in front of the biggest possible audience. Such an individual can use spreadsheets effectively, schedule content in an optimal manner, and they know how to use editorial calendars too.
- A Content Editor – A content editor will edit the writer’s draft in terms of style, flow, punctuation, and grammar, as well as formatting the prepared content from a graphics and text perspective. They will be fully proficient with the CSM platform that your business uses. They will also be great at multi-tasking, as well as knowing the most vital elements of on-page optimization.
- A Content Designer – It can be incredibly difficult to design content. How many pieces do you need? When should content be published? Where should it be published? A content designer will manage all of this, from your social media content to blog posts. Skills include having an eye for modern aesthetics and full adobe CC proficiency.
- A Content Writer – This is one of the most conventional content marketing roles. A content writer will research topics, putting together original and interesting pieces of content based on your brand guidelines. They should be creative while also having a basic knowledge of SEO.
Create a thoughtful and effective interview strategy
Before you schedule interviews, it is imperative to outline who is going to be in attendance and what your questions are going to be.
Since you have already done the graft to determine the skills and traits you are searching for, it should be easy to write behavioral questions related to your requirements. Write these questions down and share them with anyone else who is going to be conducting the interview to make sure you are on the same page. This will ensure the interview flows effectively, rather than just shifting from one topic to the next without any thought.
Some of the different questions you may want to consider asking are as follows:
- Can you tell me a bit about any brands or authors you admire because of their content?
- What would be the first steps you take when creating a content plan for a site?
- Tell me about a team when you discovered something new about users and how you then applied this to your work.
- How do you measure the success of the content you create?
It is vital to maintain consistency with regard to the way you approach the interview and the questions you ask. This is imperative because you will be able to better assess candidates and compare them against one and other.
If you align with the other interviewers ahead of the interviews themselves, this should not be an issue.
Make sure you leave around 10 to 15 minutes at the end of the interview so that there is plenty of time should the candidate want to ask you any questions. Remember, when you are hiring a new employee, it is just as important to make sure that they feel like you are the right fit for them as it is for them to be the right fit for you.
Diversity is key
Last but not least, it is important to look for a diverse group of content writers. Writers are not equal when it comes to their plus points and their weaknesses. Some writers may be amazing at putting together humorous content, for example, whereas others may excel when putting together technical posts.
At the same time, some content marketing team members may have no trouble reaching out to influencers to organize strategic relationships, whereas others may find this uncomfortable and prefer to stick to the content itself.
The key here is to make sure you have a team that is filled with diverse skills, ensuring that you cover the entire spectrum of content marketing activities. Remember, you are not going to need to hire full-time staff for every vacancy you have available on your content marketing team. You could opt to go down the freelance route in some cases instead.
Final words on hiring a content team in 2022
So there you have it: everything you need to know about the different factors you should consider when hiring a content team in 2022.
Your content team is your business’s voice. They represent your company. So, you need to make sure you hire with care so that your business can shine brightly and differentiate itself from the crowd for all of the right reasons.