6 Must-Have, Sure-Fire Content Marketing Skills In 2022

In this day and age, the skills that you acquire through independent study, on the job, are becoming increasingly valuable.

To be successful in content marketing, you will need to acquire these 6 skills mentioned in this blog.

As a Content Marketer, you have two choices in today’s scenario.

1. Learn these skills yourself
2. Or hire someone with these skills
   [Secret: don’t expect these skills from fresh, out of college grads]

There is a great demand for talent that is creative and fresh.

Google, for example, fills over 6,000 positions per year. Almost 1 million people apply to them, and less than 1% are hired.

However, the traditional educational system does not adequately prepare you for this kind of success.

Researchers at Kaplan University found in a recent study published in Forbes that

“Few people believe college graduates are work-ready.” In the United States, only 13% of adults, 11% of senior executives, and 6% of college trustees strongly agree with statements about graduate work readiness.”

Hence, developing one’s own expertise is becoming an increasingly valuable and important asset.

The question now is, is it worthwhile?

Consider this:

Nearly, 66% of marketers expect their 2022 content marketing budget to increase more than their 2021 budget. Even marketing, in general, isn’t always dependent on a college degree.

Interestingly enough, Google does not even require a degree, and they’ve been an open book about this online.

IBM, Apple, Whole Foods, Costco, and Hilton, as well as Bank of America, are all examples of companies that have followed suit.

That means you can get a good job in content, or any other marketing specialty, even if you don’t have a degree.

The solution is to develop skills that are already in demand.

This blog covers:

6 Trending Skills You Need To Be A Seasoned Content Marketer

1. Brand Strategy: What You Need To Know
2. Have A Basic Knowledge Of SEO
3. Discover The Secrets Of Outstanding Online Content
4. Cultivate Expertise In Data & Analytics
5. Be Able To Conduct Extensive Research
6. See It From Start To Finish
7. Conclusion

#1. Brand Strategy: What You Need to Know

If you don’t know what’s behind the scenes, you can’t succeed in content marketing.

Content strategy is an industry that is barely 10 years old, even though the techniques go back hundreds of years.

When you’re building a brand strategy, you need to have these 6 foundations:

1. Start with the basics: Understand what content strategy is and how it works.
2. Discover your audience and establish your brand: Identify your target audience and create a brand differentiation strategy.
3. Know your keywords: Learn how to find good keywords and how to put them together.
4. Understand the content cores for building authority: Develop a dedicated brand website with content of value that builds authority over time.
5. Developing practical content: Become an expert in creating optimised, consistently awesome content.
6. Plan and post: Ensure content is managed (editorial calendar, promotional strategy) and maintained.

These steps don’t sound easy because truth be told, they’re not.

Ideally, if you are starting out, you should take a course on how to build a content strategy led by an industry practitioner.

#2. Cultivate A Basic Knowledge Of SEO

Here are a few reasons why marketers and brands are investing in SEO:

• Google is responsible for 90% of US traffic: Search, Images, and Maps account for the bulk of this.
• SEO generates nearly 11X as much traffic as organic social media
• Nearly 68% of all online experiences start with a search.

With Google searches doubling per day in 2020, inbound SEO is a win in today’s world.

During the pandemic (March 2020 – present), Google search traffic increased from 3.6 billion to 6 billion a day.

Google is being used by more people to search for answers to their questions than ever before.

Author search engine-friendly content, update older content, track information, and use SEO tools (e.g., Google Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs, Yoast).

Content marketers, like you, need to know SEO to survive.

If you are starting out, take an SEO course, follow SEO experts, and build your knowledge.

You’ll be glad you did.

#3. Discover The Secrets Of Outstanding Online Content

When you read this heading, you may want to ask these two questions:

• What makes for compelling online content?
• How fast can you spot it?

In content marketing, you can’t survive without sharpening your ability to recognise content.

For this you need to know and keep yourself updated on the best practices.

Here’s how to find good content in all these common formats by just seeing the best practices followed by other firms in B2B.

1. Social media posts
2. Web Pages
3. Product descriptions
4. Meta content
5. Blogs
6. Headlines on LPs
7. Emails
8. Case studies
9. Ebooks
10. Lead magnets
11. Whitepapers
12. Video scripts

Most types of content marketing campaigns use one or more of these components.

#4. Cultivate Expertise In Data & Analytics

Analysis of your content’s performance is crucial to iterating on your strategy over time and achieving new levels of growth.

Analysis of industry trends, keeping up with audience preferences, and expanding your brand’s reach are all part of content marketing.

Content creation is creative and data feels contrary to that. It doesn’t matter how creative and unique the content is if no one reads it.

Here’s where data comes in and plays an important role.

The tool helps you to iterate on your writing, choose topics the audience loves, and stay ahead of industry trends so your content is aligned with global marketers.

In the end, data is the key to creating a strong, effective content strategy.

#5. See It From Start To Finish

The word that best suits this is tenacity. It is the ability to keep going.

The person in charge of content marketing must, above all, be committed. According to content marketing experts, it takes 12-18 months to see results.

Most commonly, companies don’t show patience and shut down campaigns too soon, which leads to content marketing failures.

As a content marketer, this is something you will need to know and be aware of.

Be an advocate of the most important factor in content marketing’s success: How long can a company produce content and build its brand over time?

#6. Conduct Extensive Research

Getting statistics isn’t enough anymore. Ensure you never link to outdated sources, and you should know how to find the original study.

For example, a blog article that links to a study from 2016 may be outdated and won’t add authority.

Researching a bit more deeply than the average person is the key to finding great statistics and sources for content you build or manage.

The importance of statistics matters more than ever in an age where consumers are more inclined to trust brands.

#7. Summary

Content marketing can help you make the most of your digital marketing efforts. It’s one of the best ways to achieve marketing goals, provided you have the skills to do it well.

You’ll be well on your way to reaching more marketing goals as you practice and master these skills!

To succeed as a content marketer long-term, you need to stay flexible and adapt to your organisation’s needs.

We hope you learned something new about content marketing skills for 2022!

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