How to Be a World-Class Head of Content

If you create content, are looking to hire a Head of Content, or want to become one, this is for you.

I've spent my entire career obsessing over building world-class brands, and if someone had given me this article 6 years ago, it would’ve been the most valuable thing I’d read to get started.

This article is quite dense, so here's your roadmap:

• What is a Head of Content?

• Fundamental HOC Skills

• How to Become World-Class

• Operations & Systems

• How to Hire

This article comes solely from my experience working with massive brands, hiring dozens of content roles, and NOT from AI :)

If this helps, a like, follow & repost goes a long way as I kickstart this new page.

What is a Head of Content?

At different companies, Head of Content will mean different things.

One startup’s “Head of Content” is another’s “Creative Director" and another's "Brand Strategist."

For the sake of this article, let's group all these roles under "The Creative."

Generally speaking, Creatives are responsible for three things:

1. Audience growth (organic + paid): Driving eyeballs to the brand

Distribution is everything. Being a Creative means owning how the brand gets discovered, whether that’s organic posts, podcast collabs, paid campaigns, etc. The key is reaching the RIGHT ICP (not just farming vanity virality metrics).

2. High-level brand strategy: Brand PMF & positioning across channels

Brands need product-market fit the same way products do.

Questions I like to get clear on:

• Who are we talking to? (avatar selection)

• Why would they care? (what problem / pain point do we solve)

• What can we say that no other brand in the world can?

• How does our ICP like to consume content?

I could make this list very long but you get the point.

3. Systems & operations: Managing creative teams (the most underrated)

One of the things that separates decent Creatives from world-class ones. How do we build scalable workflows across creative teams? How do we get the most out of every role? How do we incentivize people? How do we hire? etc etc

If you’re a Head of Content at a startup, you’re probably closer to marketing.

If you're Head of Content for creators, you'll probably be closer to production and team management.

And if you’re a Head of Content in a media business, the content is the product.

As HOC, you can expect to report to one of three people:

1. The Founder or CEO Most common for creators, personal brands, and early-stage startups.

2. The CMO or Head of Marketing Most common at growth-stage startups and established companies.

3. Clientele Most common for agencies, freelancers, and fractional Heads of Content.

Knowing how to report up is one of the skills that makes someone world-class.

Whoever you report to, the same rules apply:

• Learn what they actually care about. A founder might say “growth” but really mean “I want to be seen as the authority in my space.” Your job is to uncover the real goal and update them on how you're actively moving toward it.

• Protect their time. The less the person above you has to think about good content, the better.

• Push back. Great Heads of Content have firm beliefs because they know what works. It's a balance between being creative and also being able to say no because the data says so.

Fundamental HOC Skills

I don't know a single person who just "became" Head of Content. HOC is a combination of several key skills.

1. Copywriting

Good copywriting is really just good thinking.

You will not be a world-class HOC if you cannot think of excellent ideas and put them into words. Written media is the foundation for every marketing channel.

I will create a separate article on writing in the future. Becoming a great copywriter means reading copy over and over, writing yourself, and iterating thousands of times.

Good copy is generally:

• Concise

• Easy to understand

• Thought-provoking

• Attached to a strong underlying idea

Some people / places to learn from:

• @Jayyanginspires content

• @harrydry content

• @CardinalMason old content

• Reading old big tech ads (Apple, Google, etc.)

• 𝕏: the best playground for reading copy. Scroll viral posts and analyze why they hit

• Substack: excellent for learning how to write long-form

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   **Taste**
   

The one skill you can’t fake. Good Creatives know an idea is a banger before they ever post and see the data.

You develop taste by obsessively consuming top content, creating yourself, failing a lot, and iterating.

Build a swipe file of what works, study why it worked, and look to re-create (not copy) it.

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   **Platform Fluency **
   

A great idea posted on the wrong platform will still flop. S-tier Heads of Content know how each platform actually works.

It's unrealistic to expect yourself to master every major platform. Focus on a few high-leverage ones.

If you can master a valuable platform like YouTube, platforms like IG/TikTok become 10x easier.

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   **Production  **
   

You should know how to produce visually appealing content.

This doesn't mean you need to be the editor yourself, but you should know how to direct the production to increase retention by adding visuals and creating aesthetic content.

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   **Data Literacy **
   

You need a basic understanding of how to analyze content data and translate it into what it means for the brand and how it supports the brand's mission.

These 5 skills are the absolute bare bones of becoming a 6/10 "decent" Head of Content, but if you want to be an 11/10, you'll have to go deeper.

How to Become World-Class

1. Packaging Ideas

Packaging is its own skill, separate from writing. It's the art of framing ideas in a way that sparks curiosity in the audience.

A 6/10 Head of Content can have an idea flop. An 11/10 can take that exact same idea, package it differently, and get 5-10x the results.

Excellent packaging is usually some combination of a piece of visual media (thumbnail, for example) + some form of written media (like a title).

excellent packaging

What great packaging does:

• Invites curiosity

• Promises a clear payoff

• Is specific

• Matches the platform

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   **Storytelling **
   

For lack of a better term, great creatives build an insane aura for brands.

They can craft narratives and make a brand seem "cool" to interact with. Excellent example of this is @fomo.

You are world-class when you know how to take a brand through the "Hero's Journey" (ups and downs) publicly.

THE BRAND HERO'S JOURNEY

The mission ...... Why the brand exists and what it's fighting
The challenge .... The obstacles, the doubters, the hard road
The setbacks ..... Failures, mistakes, lessons (shared openly)
The comeback ..... Wins, launches, milestones
The new chapter .. A bigger mission, and the cycle repeats

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   **Create Original Insights **
   

Think of your favorite brand. They probably do something or provide some sort of insight/value that no other brand can.

Excellent Creatives don't just think about posts; they think about creating a "moat" for the business (ties in with finding brand PMF).

Where original insights come from:

• Proprietary data

• Firsthand experience

• Frameworks

• Contrarian takes

• Access

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   **Build Community **
   

World-class Creatives can turn an audience into a cult community. They can build funnels and actually help direct users to [x] place.

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   **AI Fluency **
   

If you want to be exceptional, knowing how to amplify and build tasteful creative AI workflows is key.

Some examples:

• Build and write copy with Claude Skills

• Create media with tools like Higgsfield

• Learn how to clip with tools like OpusClip

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   **Experience **
   

There's no way around it. Like any field, world-class Heads of Content have a lot of experience and results to show for their work.

Some other things that make someone world-class:

• Hooks: being exceptional at writing hooks (very hard to find)

• Building teams and hiring (I'll discuss this more specifically below)

• Timing: knowing when to execute certain campaigns and pushes

• **Repurposing: being efficient at repackaging ideas **

• Network: S-tier HOC should have a vast network to tap into (editors, TN artists, podcasters, etc.)

• Owned channels: owning the process of collecting contact info from customers, newsletters, webinars, etc.

Operations & Systems

The best Heads of Content aren't just creative geniuses; they're also great operators.

I’d argue it’s the most underrated skill in the entire role. Most creatives hate it, and that’s exactly why developing a biz-ops mentality in a content role is such an edge.

Team Structure

You can’t scale content alone. The basics of a content team are often:

• Head of Content: strategy, voice, quality bar, final say

• Writers: written media

• Designers: thumbnails, banners, branding

• Video editors: long-form edits, clips, short-form

• Social / community managers: posting, engagement, community

Early on, one person might cover three of these roles. As you grow, you split them out.

A good operator knows how to manage and delegate roles across different time zones and build a cadence where everyone works efficiently.

For example:

FOLLOW-THE-SUN CONTENT CADENCE

Australia (morning) ... Head of Content reviews overnight drafts,
                        gives feedback, approves what's ready
Asia (afternoon) ...... Designers create visuals for approved pieces
Europe (day) .......... Editors polish drafts, video editors cut clips
US (day) .............. Writers draft tomorrow's content, social 
                        managers post and engage at peak US hours
Australia (next AM) ... The cycle repeats

Hiring a team

Your team is your ceiling.

• Hire for taste and potential, train for skill. Content is very coachable. Learn how to train and build people up. You cannot expect someone to come into your org and "just know" how to excel right away. Content is very context-based. People need context to succeed.

• Always run a paid test task. I've found success running paid trials first.

• Hire specialists, not generalists. If you can afford it, budget to hire heads for each platform/channel/distribution channel.

• Hire people who are better than you at something. If you’re the best at everything on your team, you're hiring a creative team wrong.

Documentation

Everything should have an SOP. Pull from meeting notes and other data sources so you're not spending all day thinking about SOPs.

How do we conduct research? How is information transferred? Who is responsible for what?

You don't need to be fancy here. Google Docs is fine. AI can help you build great SOPs in minutes.

Tooling

A competent operator makes sure the team has the tools they need to succeed.

• Planning: Notion or ClickUp

• Communication: Set up Slack channels

• Files: Google Drive or Dropbox, with a folder structure everyone follows

• Scheduling: Typefully

• AI: Agents, skills, and tools everyone can use (the team can also build their own)

• Analytics: platform analytics plus a simple weekly report (developer teams can help to build content analytics tracking)

Budgeting, resources & scaling

In a world where every company expects to hire one content person to serve as a whole marketing department, it's important to set clear expectations for the resources the company needs to allocate to achieve its goals.

In my experience, you can build a solid content team on ~$40k/mo. If you're a founder, that might sound expensive, but if you nail content, it's the only marketing channel you'll ever need and one of the most scalable verticals.

How to Hire Heads of Content

This is very difficult. Primarily because if someone is good at content, they can probably make more $$$ working for themselves. Frankly, it's hard to incentivize content talent, but there are a few levers you can pull.

First off, if you have someone in your existing marketing-related department who you think can grow into the role, or has a background in content, I would invest resources in building their skill set and incentivize them to take over as Head of Content. It will pay you back 10x.

If you're hiring from scratch:

• Hire from 𝕏. This is where top writing/content talent lives. Be public about hiring for this role, and you'll get many leads.

• Look for people already posting. Accounts with 1-30k followers are excellent candidates for Head of Content roles. Make a list of people you think can represent your brand well, and run outbound to these candidates.

• Look for up-and-coming creators. Search for creators who are small but post interesting thoughts that align with your branding. Offer them to lead your brand.

How to incentivize talent

• Get clear on what they want. Basically, what do you have to do to get this person to say yes? Think: What makes this opportunity a home run for them?

• Offer stable income via monthly retainer or salary (many people in content do not make stable income)

• Offer equity in the company if they become a key player

• Give them full creative control (let them cook)

• Equip them with a team. Don't make them be a one-man army. Give them the scope of your brand and ask them who they would need to bring in to support.

• Support their own brand: don’t make them choose between your brand and theirs. Give them kudos in public.

• Performance bonuses: reward people for good work. Don't treat content as a low-level role. It's not. It's difficult and requires skill to get right.

What to look for in content roles as a founder

How can you tell if someone is qualified if you yourself have no clue what makes good content?

Some advice here:

• If someone has never been Head of Content before, be wary. In my experience, you can only really become Head of Content by growing into the role, so if someone is qualified, it shouldn't be their first rodeo. At a minimum, they should have worked closely with a HOC previously if they haven't been one themselves.

• Ask people who do know. If you don’t trust your own judgment, borrow someone else’s who has hired for this role before. I'd be happy to help here.

• Look for high-quality thinking & reasoning. Being good at content is just being able to present ideas. This is the key trait to hire for. Can they think of cool ideas? Are they a good storyteller? Is their work just AI slop, or do they actually think for themselves?

Final Thoughts

This piece was long, but I hope you found it valuable. I don't see anybody else sharing these insights, so if you want to see more, follow me here @ryangrowthh.

Feel free to drop any comments and questions below - I'll be sure to answer every single one as best I can.

If you want to see me write about any other topics related to socials, content, and branding, let me know.

A like, share, and follow go a long way. Keep crushing 👊🏼