Saj Hoffman-Hussain is a senior content strategist for Creative Collaborative Consulting.

Job Description: Content strategists work for organizations to develop content strategies based on a company or client’s business objectives and a customer’s or end user’s needs.

• Content Audits

• Governance and workflow

• Journey and Empathy Mapping

• User experience analysis

• Content analysis

• Speaking to stakeholders at all levels of the organization (User research)

Education Level: B.S. in Psychology, Postgraduate Diploma in Radio Journalism.

Other Requirements: There is no specific degree to become a Content Strategist (yet). This profession is in high demand because content impacts all aspects of a business and specialists are required to manage and produce useful and usable content.

Professional Development: “I came to content strategy from journalism. What I would recommend is to read as many books and resources on website content strategy and user experience as possible. 

Attend professional conferences and network with current strategists. You need to be a good writer, but the job is less about writing and more about project managing the process of content and aligning business priorities with content deliverables. 

You should also come prepared to become skilled in different areas like analytics, SEO, website development to move up the career ladder as well as business analysis and project management. Continuous learning is key so that you don’t get left behind.”

Pros/Cons:  “I love the fact that I get to influence the present or future direction of a company with effective content strategies that can affect websites, products, software and basically anything that involves content, which is EVERYTHING.

Advocating for content is a huge part of the job and your diplomacy skills will very often be tested as you try to secure consensus, manage politics associated with content (content can make people passionate especially when you are suggesting their content is unnecessary – in a diplomatic way of course) and break corporate silos in order to successfully complete projects with the minimum of hair pulling. 

You will need a thick skin and be confident enough to keep persevering even when it may seem like you are making minimal progress.

Pick the organization you work for carefully as your experience may differ vastly depending on how mature the approach is to content in the workplace and how the office politics are set up.”

Advice:  Content strategists are good communicators, writers, tacticians, and negotiators. You need to wear many hats. It is a great profession that is self-fulfilling. Build a portfolio of work up and speak to as many content strategists as you can.