Short answer
Content strategy plans useful content around audience needs, business goals, channels, and measurable outcomes, including what to create, update, and retire.
About Content strategy
Plans useful content around audience needs, business goals, channels, and measurable outcomes. It guides what content to create, how pieces work together, and when content should be improved or retired.
Use this competency for
- Roles that decide which content an audience needs and how that content should work together.
- Work that owns content priorities, coverage, governance, or maintenance.
Do not use this competency for
- Roles limited to producing assigned assets from an established content plan.
Important distinctions
Brand strategy
Brand strategy chooses the position an organization should express. Content strategy chooses the useful information and formats that support audience and business needs.
Campaign planning
Campaign planning coordinates a time-bound initiative. Content strategy manages content needs and relationships beyond one campaign.
Expectations by level
IC1
Individual contributor 1
Uses an established content plan to scope defined pieces with guidance, connects each piece to an audience need, and keeps basic inventory information current.
Observable behaviors
- Maps an assigned piece to its intended audience question and next action.
- Checks existing content before proposing a new piece on the same topic.
- Updates content inventories with owner, purpose, format, and review status.
Examples
- Finds an existing guide that can be updated instead of commissioning a duplicate.
- Reworks a brief after identifying that it answers an internal question rather than an audience need.
IC2
Individual contributor 2
Independently plans a connected set of content for a defined audience and goal, prioritizes gaps, and uses observed performance to decide what to improve or retire.
Observable behaviors
- Builds a content plan that links audience needs, formats, channels, and intended outcomes.
- Prioritizes content gaps using evidence rather than request volume alone.
- Reviews content performance and recommends creation, revision, consolidation, or retirement.
Examples
- Consolidates several overlapping articles into one clearer resource with a defined purpose.
- Sequences educational pieces so readers can move from an initial question to a practical decision.
IC3
Individual contributor 3
Sets content direction for an ambiguous area spanning several initiatives, resolves competing priorities with stakeholders, and establishes practices that keep the content system useful over time.
Observable behaviors
- Defines a content model and priority logic for a broad audience problem.
- Aligns stakeholders on which requests support the strategy and which should wait.
- Establishes ownership and review rules for maintaining a connected body of content.
Examples
- Redesigns topic coverage after research reveals gaps between audience questions and current resources.
- Introduces review rules that identify outdated content before teams reuse it in new initiatives.