Content Content Everywhere!

7 min readMay 11, 2021

At EAGR, we are trying to spread the fundamental knowledge about various career options, both conventional and unconventional, with the hope to make the world more aware of the opportunities out there. Seeking a career that you want to pursue is right around the corner with all the right information! In this blog, let’s look at Content Development as a career option that is changing the world.

Content Writing is probably the most diverse field to build a profession in. The pandemic fast-forwarded the world by so many years. Suddenly everything was online — starting from medicine delivery, doctor consultations, dating people, schools, colleges and so much more. As everything went online, the number of users interacting with their phones also increased, as a result of which, they wanted all the information available on their devices.

Imagine, years ago when product sales used to happen when salesmen came to your doorstep and talked you into buying their product, their speaking skills mattered. But today, when people can literally buy things off the internet, how do the companies make sure they have the same impact on you? Effective content development. From giving you adequate information about a service, selling you a product on Facebook, or simply bringing you the news of the day, you need efficient content writing for all. This is why we always say — Content is king and queen!

What is Content Writing?

Content Writing involves researching, producing, and publishing information to meet a strategic goal. That goal will either be to build a connection with an audience or to encourage some kind of marketing or sales outcome. Content development is therefore a vital part of a content marketing strategy.

Different types of content writing

Although it feels like all kinds of content writing are pretty much the same, they are more distinct than one can imagine. Each style of content writing differs from the other and requires a different approach to master. Let’s look at the major style or domains of content writing.

Web Content Development — Any business, organization or individual, who wants to create their presence by making a website would need to put the relevant information about their service, product, or experience on it. Web content includes content written on the home page, landing page, about us, services and page, and lots more that you see on websites every day. This type of content is important because it needs to effectively put the idea of the company and its products to the customers.

What’s required: A good knowledge of Search Engine Optimization(SEO), using important keywords for people to find your website, and friendly language skills for people to spend time on it.

Blog writing — Blogs are a longer format of content. Blogs can be a part of a website or a separate platform altogether. As the audience knows that blogs are long in nature, they are expecting it to be elaborate. Blogs are a perfect platform to write about the philosophy behind a product or a business. It is also used to make the readers aware of concepts that you want to establish and which are important for them to know in order related to your product. For example, if you are a company producing gardening tools, your blogs can establish the importance of the correct tools for gardening.

What’s required: A good knowledge of Search Engine Optimization(SEO), using important keywords for people to find your website, and engaging content to keep the readers hooked as the content itself is long.

Social Media Content — As people have started spending more and more time on social media platforms, it has become a very important real estate for businesses to popularize their products and brands. Thus, content on social media becomes very important as they catch the eye of the reader very easily and can result in creating a huge impact on the sales of a particular product. Many social media pages like the ones of Swiggy, Zomato, etc have very engaging and creative social media posts.

What’s required: The content on social media needs to be short, precise, and catchy. You need to be up-to-date with social media trends around the world and have a good sense of analyzing what works on social media. Usage of tools like puns, rhymes, catchphrases, slogans, etc. is highly encouraged while writing for social media.

Ads and sales copywriting: Advertising and sales copy applies to companies in all industries, and takes many forms, from a long-form Facebook ad to a promoted tweet on Twitter, a paid campaign on LinkedIn, or a TV commercial. Every ad and sales post or video that you come across has been written by a copywriter keeping the particular product/service in mind. The idea is to portray your product or service in a way that is memorable to the people and entices them to buy the product/service

What’s required: Writing for an ad requires you to keep the product/service at the core. It requires you to think of ideas to convince your audience to be a part of the product that you are writing for. Hence your thought process should equally incline towards writing as well as selling the product/service.

Expert copy/industry writing: This is a format of writing that requires you to be specific about a particular industry. For example, a company selling electrical testing instruments wants you to write about their instruments and their functions on their websites, brochures, and blogs. Here, you not only need to have the sense of effectively writing your article but also keep the nuances of the industry the content is associated with, in your mind.
Journalism and PR writing: This format of writing is critical for any company that wants to get the word out about newsworthy events, brand new products, or company changes, journalism, and PR writing serves the essential purpose of sharing company news.
Creative Writing: Creative writing is when you add the element of a story to your content to make it interesting. Social media content, blogs, websites, copywriting, and all other formats can have the element of creativity in them to reach the audience.

What’s required: A sense of story or building a narrative is very important in this form of writing.

#EAGRCareerAnalysis for Content Development as a career

Why should you choose Content development as a career?

Content writing offers diverse opportunities as there are hundreds of industries and sectors that require content writing for their products and services.
Apart from some basic writing knowledge and strategies, this field doesn’t require any professional writing degree or diploma. Your work speaks for you more than your educational background.
You can build your portfolio very easily. Writing blogs on medium, BlogSpot, WordPress, etc, or running a social media page, anything can add to your portfolio which is acceptable in most companies that hire content writers. #EAGRAdvice — Try to make your content themed.
You can do freelance content writing with other engagements that you might have, and can earn money based on per word basis, or per deliverable basis.

How to take up content development as a career?

As mentioned in the categories of content development above, there are many different types of content development. The first thing you do is to try and read these different types of content. From creative social media posts of companies to informative websites and blogs, reading more is learning more.
Understand the kind of writing that connects with you the most. Some people like descriptive writing while some are good at one-liners. It is always good to know your strengths before applying to be a content writer.
There are many content writing courses available online, which can give you a clear idea of how to approach content writing. Some of the courses that we recommend are -

Blogging masterclass on Udemy
The strategy of Content Marketing on Coursera
Ninja Writing — Four levels of writing mastery on Udemy
Content is King on Udemy
For a longer and descriptive course — IIM Skills Content writing master course

Making a portfolio

Making a portfolio is very important when it comes to content writing. As mentioned above, your work is your worth in this field.
Use mediums like online blogging websites to start writing.
Decide on a theme to build your social media platform. Writing interesting captions, content on the posts and developing interesting campaigns can add really good value to your portfolio.
For copywriting in ad firms etc, one hack for you to adopt if you don’t have any experience in writing is to pick local products and develop a campaign for the product on paper. Another hack can be to take an existing campaign and look at it from a different angle.

Places to look for in the content writing space.

EDUCATION — Companies like Byju’s, Vedantu, Unacademy, and other test-prep firms want content writing for their educational product as well as marketing teams

WEB-CONTENT DEVELOPMENT — Most companies that have a presence online would require a content writer to write for their website. Look out for web content development jobs on LinkedIn and other job portals.

CONTENT MARKETING — Most companies have their own marketing teams that do all the campaigns, blogs, and other written content to reach their audience. They actively hire writers to help them achieve this. Keep an active eye on multiple job portals for content writer jobs in the marketing team of companies.

AD AGENCIES — Agencies like Web Chutney, Isobar, Ogilvy, and many more ad agencies have openings for copywriters. Many ad agencies open copywriting positions for English, Hindi, and regional languages as well.

TECHNICAL WRITING — SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE companies, Engineering services companies, etc would require content writers

MEDIA HOUSES — Many news channels in India hire content writers in not just English by regional languages as well.