The content type can be specified when creating the request content itself.
Note that the example below adds 'application/json'' in two places -- for Accept and Content-Type headers.
var client = new HttpClient();
client.BaseAddress = new Uri("http://example.com/");
// ACCEPT header
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(
new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));
var request = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Post, "relativeAddress");
// CONTENT-TYPE header
request.Content = new StringContent("{\"name\":\"John Doe\",\"age\":33}",
Encoding.UTF8, "application/json");
client.SendAsync(request).ContinueWith(responseTask =>
Console.WriteLine("Response: {0}", responseTask.Result); );