Friday Deep Dives (Underrated Traits When Moving From Content Writer to Content Strategist)

Welcome to the 4th issue of Friday Deep Dives, a monthly newsletter by me, Dozie Anyaegbunam, where an industry expert or I go all in one question on content marketing from you all. I'm glad you're here. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you need your own: Subscribe here.

Hey folks,

How’s your week going?

Mine has been fantastic so far. Your boy got a promotion.

So, in today’s deep dive, let’s talk about the underrated traits you need to move from content writing to content strategy.

5 Underrated Traits When Moving From Content Writer to Content Strategist

First, I acknowledge that not everyone wants to become a content strategist. But for those who want to, here’s what has worked for me.

1. An insatiable thirst for learning

I am currently interviewing senior content marketers about their journey from content writing to content marketing ( 5 so far). I aim to turn all the fantastic insights into an asset I can share.

On that note, here’s what Justin Simon of Metadata has to say on learning:

I don’t think I should add much here. But I’ll leave you with this quote by James Clear (that has become my guiding policy for improving myself):

"The first step—perhaps the most enormous step—is to find what you are genuinely interested in.

If you are genuinely interested, you will discover endless opportunities for improvement. But if you are disinterested, even obvious improvements will feel like a chore.

And, if you can maintain your genuine interest and curiosity as the years accumulate, you will become hard to compete with because you will have the skills to go with your passion. If you're interested, you're dangerous."

2. Learn to collaborate

Jess Cook of Marpipe calls it building a culture of content. And you don’t have to be a content marketer or strategist to start practicing this.

• Share your drafts or half-formed pieces with your editor, team members, or SME partners for new insights or feedback.

• Always be on the lookout for stories. And once you sense there’s a story in a conversation, social post, or customer interaction, loop the team in and get them excited about the possibilities. But make sure to make it easy for them to collaborate in creating the story/content.

• Celebrate SME contributions. Make it easy for them to build their personal brand using the content you’re creating. My colleague Amber is a genius at this.

• Forget about the byline. Become comfortable with ghostwriting.

3. Learn to interview

Interviewing skills are the new writing skills. If all the doomsayers who say AI is going to take our writing jobs (I'm afraid I, though, have to disagree. But that’s a topic for another day), then interviewing SMEs and distilling those insights is one thing the robots can’t do yet.

So, spend time watching your favorite hosts and take note of how they steer the conversation.

Learn the art of the pause. Learn how to build on people’s ideas with questions that get them to open up or share more detail.

Most importantly, learn to distill the narrative and turn it into an article or video someone will be excited to watch.

4. Become an operator

Ideas are a dime a dozen.

But the ability to execute fast is the difference between the greats and the also-rans. To get better at execution, do the following:

• Focus on doing less. I always try to execute three ideas at a time. Keep a note or swipe file for all the ideas you would love to do. Come back to them when you have the capacity.

• Build processes for everything.

• Run post-mortems on all your projects. Did you round up a writing project with a client? Run a post-mortem on what worked and what didn't. The knowledge you glean from a post-mortem analysis is invaluable.

5. Have a MASSIVE BS filter

Everyone, including me, has a bias or a perspective. And that bias is colored by our experience, agenda, and context.

So, learn as much as you can. Read everything if you can. But the ability to take it all in and apply your context to it will do wonders for your learning and career growth.

And that’s it, folks.

If you have any questions, feel free to send an email or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.

If you found it helpful, let me know in the comments or by replying to the email. If you have a question you would like me to explain in-depth, send it in. And even if I don’t have the answer, I’ll find someone who can answer it properly.

Thanks for reading this far. I am grateful!

Be good out there. If you can't be good, be careful.

Dozie

P.S: If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing it on LinkedIn or with a friend! I would be grateful.