This is why you’re having a hard time finding a good ‘content person’

Christie Nichols
Aug 8, 2017 · 1 min read

I have a confession: I really don’t love the word “content” — particularly when it’s used as a qualifier. Search any job board, and you’ll see what I mean: job titles like “Content Copywriter” are all the rage, seeming to suggest that content writing is somehow different from writing.

Content creation, it would seem, has come to denote a lower form of copywriting or design — something that’s produced hastily, and at mass. A task you can punt to the intern. The drab process of creating, as Unsuckit puts it, “Undifferentiated sludge generated to spackle over irritating business problems.”

What is content, anyway? The word isn’t interchangeable with “copy,” as many believe. It’s an overused catch-all term for more purposeful communication vehicles — articles, social media posts, videos, slideshows, photographs, infographics, podcasts…the list goes on.

When you know you need content (and someone to “make the content”) best do a deeper dive into what kind of content makes sense for your audience, and your message. Only then can you start to create things that’ll mean anything to your audience, and actually move the needle.

What you need is a content strategy.

Christie Nichols

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