Imagine you read this guide, and within a week, your content is getting six-figure views.

You build a substantial brand for your company and become semi-famous online. All your social goals are being met or surpassed. How would you feel?

No matter how good you feel, I'd be disappointed.

Unless your business goal were to become famous on social, I would have failed you.

For many, the goal is to drive sales and build a community you can "take offline" to an email list or your website. And if all you're getting is likes and shares, you still need to use content to drive tangible business results.

This is where we need to begin this guide: Your content strategy should ladder up to help you achieve your business objectives.

If it doesn't, why are you creating content? There is no reason. Do cold calls instead.

Before you think about a content strategy, understand where your business is trying to go. What goals does it have, and how could content (marketing) help you achieve them? This would technically be included within a Mar/Com Plan, where the content strategy is merely a piece of that plan. An effective content strategy must ladder up to a specific business goal (sorry to repeat myself, it's that important).

If your business doesn't have goals, get a guide on finding a better job first.

With that out of the way, let me share what this guide is:

What this guide is + what it isn't

After reading this, you will have developed a content strategy that drives business outcomes. Not only will you be efficient in the creation, but you will also create resonating content that increases awareness and brand affinity.

The main progress this guide will help you make is improving HOW you use content to drive business results—becoming more strategic with content (marketing). You will learn a simple exercise to tie all content to pillars that your audience cares about. I'll share a concept that has helped me create endless streams of content for the same investment as writing weekly social media posts. The guide will end with execution and metrics, key pieces to refining and sustaining your content efforts.

Before sharing who I designed this (ever-changing) guide for, let me share a few things this guide IS NOT:

• A list of tactics and hacks to go viral without using your brain (thinking)
• A guide to designing your overarching marketing strategy
• The end-all-be-all for content marketing (this is only my experience)

The last bullet is critical. Too many people believe they have the answer. I don't. I'm simply wading in these marketing waters.

This guide is a work in progress. It's a public place where I can share things I'm learning, processes that help me, and frameworks I lean on to produce consistent, high-quality content.

Use the pieces that help. Disregard the rest.