Content creation strategies

Image via WikipediaCreating unique content probably sounds daunting, especially if you are running a small business and you are already head cook and bottle washer. To ease some of the burden of creating content you should first come up with a strategic plan for all your inbound marketing initiatives including content. Here are a few thoughts on building a content strategy. If you have other good strategies please share them.
What makes good content?: As described in the previous post, content needs to be high quality, relevant and non-pitchy. 
Forms of content: The items you produce do not need to be a War and Peace sized endeavor. People are already inundated with loads of content so it makes sense to make your materials easily digestible and simple to understand. As such, think of delivering quick snippets from research you have done or read, trends you are seeing in the market and why they are important and what they mean to your customers, and, possibly most importantly, links to other content providers that you consider valuable (see here for a post from Hubspot on the importance of link building). You should also consider developing some white papers and cases studies on how you solved a customers pain.
Shareable: All of the blogging platforms have widgets that allow readers to share your content with others. Make sure you have enabled them.
Tracking: Tracking how readers are reacting to the content is extremely important as it will allow you to spot what your followers are most interested in and not interested as in reading and sharing. There a number of different tools available to track your content (good overview here). At the very least you should use a service like bit.ly for simple tracking purposes. 

These are just a few simple thoughts on how to develop a content strategy. Please share your own.