Half-Year Hunt: How to Recalibrate Your Content Strategy Before Q3
Introduction
July isn’t just the mid-point of the year; it's a crucial moment for brands to check in, reset, and re-strategize. We’re officially halfway through 2025 (crazy, right?!), and if your content strategy hasn’t performed as expected, now is the time to switch up your game plan. Waiting until Q4 to make massive strategy changes can leave you feeling stressed, pressured, and just overall chaotic. Think of July as a mid-race pit stop where you can pause to evaluate how you’ve been doing and determine where there are opportunities for improvement. This isn’t just about making a couple of headline and social posts tweaks, it’s about transforming your content to finish out the year strong.
Why Mid-Year Reviews Matter (More Than You Think)
Remember those ambitious marketing plans you made back in December? While you had the best intentions at the time, you have to remember how fast the digital landscape moves - an idea you had 7 months ago might not be as successful now. Trends are constantly shifting and evolving with AI-generated content, ongoing algorithm updates, and pivotal cultural moments that develop in the blink of an eye. Your audience’s preferences and behaviors are also dynamic; they are adjusting and changing their minds just as much. A mid-year review isn’t about discarding your plan; it’s about reacting in real-time while ensuring your content remains an effective approach. Conducting a quick check-in on your performance so far enables you to be proactive, rather than reactive, and ultimately, your content will be more effective.
What to Audit in Your Content Strategy
A thorough mid-year content review goes beyond just looking at vanity metrics. It’s about doing a deep dive into the strategy behind your content and understanding what drives real results for your brand. Here’s a look at some of the key categories that you should be looking at:
Platform Performance: Take account of where your content is performing best and where it's falling flat. Don’t be afraid to question your current performance and strategy - is your Instagram account performing the way you want it to? Take a look at each platform you are active on (and even those that you aren’t on) to ensure you're not leaving anything on the table. It might be time to explore newer platforms that are gaining traction with your target audience. Consider exploring Threads and Lemon8 to determine if they are worth engaging with your brand.
Content Formats: The effectiveness of content formats can change quickly. Is the long-form content you’ve been posting this year performing well, or are the quick, off-the-cuff reels bringing in more new followers? What about UGC? Take a look and compare the content you create in-house with user-generated content posts. Now is the time to adjust your cadence and post types for the remainder of the year, if needed.
Audience Engagement: Look beyond likes; dive deeper into engagement metrics. Take a look at your saves, shares, and comments. Have you noticed a shift in your online community? Have they grown or become dormant? These could be signs of how hot or cold your audience is, and if they need you to shake things up, or carry on business as usual. Staying in touch with your followers helps you tailor your content to something that truly resonates and builds a loyal audience.
Brand Voice & Consistency: In the fight to remain relevant, it’s easy to fall into the trap of copying and buying into anything that’s trending. Tempting, right? Before you jump on the latest trend, first take a step back to make sure it aligns with your brand. If you’re unsure, jump back a few weeks in our blogs to learn more about Trendjacking and how participating in a trend that doesn’t fit your brand can ultimately hurt you more than it could help.
Workflow & Team Capacity: Creating new and exciting content every day, and every week, is no joke - it’s hard work! Ask yourself, are you making the most out of your current tools and your team's time? Identify any weak points to determine areas for improvement in the workflow. You may find a bottleneck that your team is facing, such as outdated software or a need for new equipment. A quick check-in now can save you (and your team) hours of headaches in the long run.
Framework: TCQ’s Mid-Year Content Pivot Checklist
Okay, so you agree - it’s time to do a mid-year check-in. But where do you start? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Here’s our 6-point checklist to help you get a jump on things:
Pull your top 10 best and worst performers by engagement and conversion: This data is crucial for a better understanding of your audience, as it provides concrete insights into the type of content that falls flat with your audience.
Review what themes, tones, and formats are working: Identify which types of content perform exceptionally well with your audience, and if they are responding well to a certain topic, keep going! Alternatively, if a format consistently fails every time you post, it might be time to reevaluate and switch to a more successful one.
Cut the dead weight with underperformers or platforms: If something isn’t working, don’t hesitate - pull it now before you waste time and resources on something that won’t help build your brand.
Get real about your goals: Traffic? Sales? Retention? Community?: Make sure your content strategy has a clear goal; without it, you’ll never know how effective your content truly is.
Test + pilot new formats for Q3: It could be AI-generated visuals, lo-fi reels, or data storytelling: If you’ve been wanting to try something new, now is the time. Don’t be afraid to experiment with a new style of content or tone. Give it a shot, and pay attention to how they perform.
Reallocate your content energy budget (what’s draining you vs delivering ROI): Think of your time and resources as their own budget. What’s draining your energy without actually delivering, and what IS actually working for you? Shift focus if needed, and put those resources towards content that performs.
Smart Examples of Mid-Year Pivots
Glossier’s shift from influencer-led content to lo-fi community recs led to increased engagement and trust in Q3: Glossier’s team made a bold move and shifted their focus from highly curated influencer-type content towards more approachable UGC from real customers. This unedited, off-the-cuff content from their existing customers, who genuinely love their product, boosted engagement and built a strong foundation of trust with new potential customers.
Alo Yoga’s mid-year TikTok strategy pivot, from aesthetic poses to fitness advice and behind-the-scenes content, made them feel more relatable. Alo realized that their typical aspirational yoga content had hit a plateau. They realized that viewers found their content unapproachable and unrealistic, so they made a significant change. Their content strategy shifted from perfectly curated yoga content to everyday fitness advice, along with a behind-the-scenes look at the brand. They instantly became more relatable and approachable, and their analytics showed it.
The Risk of Not Reviewing
Ignoring the need for mid-year content review comes with significant risks:
You risk investing in formats and ideas that will continue to fall flat, AKA throwing money down the drain and wasting time on outdated assumptions.
You could miss fast-moving cultural shifts that could have made your brand pop: today’s world is highly sensitive to cultural nuances. A brand that can quickly adapt its content to align with current conversations and trends is sure to stay relevant and increase success.
You’ll be forced to make rushed, reactive changes in Q4 under pressure: waiting until the last minute to review your content strategy puts you at risk for having to make rash decisions to try and salvage what’s left of the year.
Conclusion
The purpose of mid-year reviews isn’t about shame or failure; it serves as a strategic tool. The review period enables you to pause and evaluate your current performance, allowing you to make informed changes that will drive success in the second half of the year. A strategic change made now will prove far more beneficial than the chaos that could occur during a massive content shift in November. Your creative approach to a mid-year review enables you to direct your brand’s path toward creating more powerful content that resonates and responds, rather than scrambling to make changes at the end of the year. Remember, stay proactive - not reactive.
Cheers to smarter content,
The Content Queens
