Are content briefs needed?

[Philip J. Fry]

I never used content briefs before. I usually send a .xlsx to the writers with the keyword and notes on what to do. The articles that resulted are just fine IMO. However, I see tons of stuff about content briefs now and think it's all a bunch of BS. It seems like busy work to create the first 20% of an article for a writer, who will then fill in the other 80%. What's your opinion on this? For me, I just need an article to be about a topic and the writer can write it anyway they wish, as long as it's about the topic and on-topic and meet the word count. That's all.

 

[Lowrider]

I think it depends on the keyword. If you want to write a round up review about “best web hosting 2022” I have a hard time imagining how a writer could write about such a topic without a content brief. For informational posts (What is...? How to...), I can image that a keyword without brief could be sufficient.

I was struggling with writing way too long content briefs (sometimes 1000-2000 words briefs) as my niche is quite technical, and I had the fear that the writer might miss important facts. However, I now reduce the content briefs to headlines and bullet points.

 

[Hanuman]

I usually send a .xlsx to the writers with the keyword and notes on what to do.

That's the brief, right? Depending on the industry and topic, you may have to include more, or less.

 

[Encrypted]

It depends.

If you work directly with writers (have your own writing team):

New hires: you should send content briefs as part of the training process.
Old writers: content briefs are unnecessary most times. They already know what you like, how to structure content, e.t.c.

If you work with a content agency: Content briefs are absolutely necessary.