Everyone’s making content. But not every team is making impact

In a time where everyone is creating content, influence is the true differentiator. Not just reach or virality, but the ability to shift perception, drive action, and deliver tangible business value.

That doesn’t happen by chance — it happens when content marketing teams are built with purpose, clarity, and cross-functional strength. In my two decades leading media, content, and digital teams — from large broadcasters to digital-first environments — I’ve seen firsthand what makes content teams influential, and where many go wrong. During my time at MultiChoice, I led Group Digital Content across multiple platforms and markets, ensuring our work wasn’t just creative, but commercially aligned. Before that, at Kagiso Media, I worked across brands like East Coast Radio, Kaya FM and Jacaranda FM, where speed, agility, and connection to community were crucial to content performance. These experiences have shaped my approach to building teams that matter.

The first principle is intentional team design.

Influence doesn’t come from stacking creatives — it comes from structuring a team with a blend of strategy, creativity, and performance. At the core, every high-impact content team needs three anchors: the strategist, who ensures the work ladders up to business objectives; the creator, who brings brand stories to life in culturally relevant ways; and the distributor, who understands platforms and how to optimise content for discovery and engagement. These roles form the triangle of influence.

Secondly, culture beats process — but the right culture needs to be cultivated.

The best teams I’ve led were not just skilled, but deeply connected to the “why” behind the content. At MultiChoice, that meant elevating content discovery, driving product awareness, and creating emotional connection with viewers. At Kagiso, it meant using digital content to reinforce radio’s intimacy and bring audiences into daily conversation. In both spaces, content thrived when teams felt ownership — when they were empowered to experiment, pivot, and co-create.

Another non-negotiable is data fluency.

It’s no longer enough to just make great content. Today’s creators need to understand what performs, why it performs, and how to optimise it in real-time. Whether it’s using social listening to inform narratives or A/B testing creatives for paid media, performance thinking must be embedded into the DNA of the team. I have seen companies with standalone data and insights departments but the insights are kept only for the execs to look at or once a month a report is shared. How can a team influence real-time thinking without access to real-time data? But it’s equally important to apply the right data to the right goals. One of the most common points of confusion I see — even in large teams — is the lack of clarity between what organic content is meant to achieve versus paid media.

Organic content is about connection: brand-building, community nurturing, relevance, consistency, and trust. Paid content is about scale and precision: targeting, acquisition, performance. When you expect organic to do what paid is built for — or treat paid content like an extension of your organic feed — both lose effectiveness. Strong teams know the difference and craft content strategies that respect the unique strengths of each.

To really get this right, businesses need to build or reshape their content functions to be both influential and efficient. This often means rethinking outdated workflows, breaking silos between brand and digital teams, and building confidence in new content formats — particularly video and short-form storytelling. I’ve also seen the value of integrating creator partnerships, community management, and platform insights into the broader marketing strategy — not as a bolt-on, but as a core component of brand-building.

Ultimately, the most successful content marketing teams are not defined by how much they produce, but by what their content achieves. Influence is earned — through relevance, consistency, and collaboration. And with the right structure, mindset, and leadership, content teams can become powerful engines of business growth.

If you're looking to evolve how your brand shows up online, build stronger content systems, or empower your team to create with more impact — let’s connect.