The biggest mistake companies make with their content strategy - and how to avoid it

When it comes to building a robust online presence, content is king. But even the most engaging content can falter without a strong strategy behind it. 

The biggest mistake organisations make with their content strategy? Setting it and forgetting it. 

A static plan gathering dust on a shelf isn’t helpful in our ever-evolving digital environment. To be effective, your content strategy must be dynamic, revisited, and retooled regularly.

If you've established a content strategy and left it unchanged for too long, now's the time for some reflection. 

Here’s how your organisation can turn stale strategies into dynamic success.

Operations is strategy

Companies often mistakenly spend more time crafting their content strategy than deploying it, treating it as a goal rather than a guide. But operations are how your strategy manifests. 

Shift the focus from planning to action. Publish your content, assess reactions, and adapt.

Rolling out your content and using real-time analytics allows you to make timely adjustments, reducing costs and better aligning with your audience’s current interests.

Content strategy should adapt with your growing knowledge base. Periodically revisit and revise your plan, considering the latest data and industry trends. 

A rigorous audit can reveal what's working, what's not, and where to steer your content ship next.

Content as a testing ground

Deploy your content with a scientist's eye. Each post, article, or update is an experiment. 

Analyse the results: How do viewers engage? What content sparks conversation? Don’t overlook the qualitative data. The comments and discussion stirred by your content are just as valuable as the number of engagements or impressions. 

Let these results inform future content — shift your tone, message, or format based on concrete audience feedback. This feedback loop is key to a successfully reactive strategy that aligns with your mission and resonates with your audience.

If you have the resources, be even more active in gathering insights. Engage your audiences through surveys, feedback forms, and social listening to understand their evolving needs and preferences. This ongoing commitment to understanding your audience helps construct a responsive and engaging strategy.

Take an outside-in, contextual approach

An outdated approach or message in a digital conversation is like showing up to a space shuttle launch with a horse and buggy — you’ll stand out, and not in a good way.

Your content operations, processes and topics must make sense in the current landscape and reflect the world around it. 

A static strategy will leave your content lost in the noise. Think about ChatGPT and how fast it took hold – and how quickly content creators had to rethink their strategies. 

Support this goal with an ‘outward-in’ approach: one of the biggest mistakes organisations make is focusing so much on internally-led messages that they lose sight of what's going on in the real world and what's meaningful to their audience.

This takes a mindset shift. Constantly rethinking and readapting isn’t easy, especially when you’ve worked on a strategy for some time. But the goal here is to understand, experiment, and incrementally improve. 

Listen to the creators and the consumers

Cultivate a culture where strategy evolves through learning, testing, and growing.

Your content strategy should emulate a thriving ecosystem — ever-changing, interconnected, and alive.

Instil this evolutionary mindset across your team to ensure your content stays as dynamic and responsive as your audience demands.

Adopt an approach that discards rigidity in favour of flexibility.

In an ideal world your content strategy should not only keep pace with the digital landscape but actively contribute to its shape.

Ultimately, content strategy is about conversation with your audience. Involve them, listen to them, and grow with them. If you’re struggling to keep on top of your digital comms, we can help.