“(…) the most employable people are hybrids.”
The first rule of content strategy: Don’t talk about content strategy
Can be the first rule of almost all fields of practice.
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Content strategy
Planning for Homepage Content
Homepage is a hierarchical concept, which doesn’t apply to a network. Every page is ‘home’.
“Let’s explore some helpful approaches to creating a meaningful, successful homepage.”
(Georgy Cohen a.k.a. @radiofreegeorgy)
Content, the once and future king
Shaping compelling experiences with data, lots of them.
“This is a new sandbox for technologists, data scientists, marketers, and experience designers. What are the corpora we have access to? What is lurking within our data smog? What are the new experiences we can create? No doubt we will continue to see art and humor, but let’s use those to inspire us as we imagine what else is possible. The biggest potential (and as always the hardest problem) is in the development of game-changing experiences. I look forward to seeing where this goes.”
(Steve Portugal a.k.a. @steveportigal ~ ACM Interactions November + December 2012)
Content Strategy Is A Process Not A Deliverable
Or to put it differently, it’s a verb, not a noun.
“Strategies involve objectives. They have to. Either a strategy supports the attainment of the objective or the longer term impact to outcomes after the objective has been reached. Either way, a strategy is something that uses tactics but is not exclusively about them. Strategies also have to support measurable objectives. That is, a strategy’s success can only be realized once an objective has been met and that objective has a set of metrics against which it is measured.”
(Kris Mausser a.k.a. @krismausser ~ The Discontented Company)
Structured Content is Like Your Closet
Based upon the principle of structure: common properties connected.
“Imagine you have a house with a decent-sized closet. But the closet only has couple of hanging rods across the top and middle. Into this closet, you put all of your clothes, from shoes and socks, to suits and ties, sweatpants, your entire wardrobe. And you try to loosely organize the closet – given that all you have are hanging rods. You have a hanger for all of your ties (hanging haphazardly across the middle), you have a pile of socks in one corner, your shirts are on hangers, but placed randomly on the bars. You get the picture.”
Your Content, Now Mobile
Congrats Karen with this major achievement!
“It is your mission to get your content out, on whichever platform, in whichever format your audience wants to consume it. Your users get to decide how, when, and where they want to read your content. It is your challenge and your responsibility to deliver a good experience to them.”
(Karen McGrane a.k.a. @karenmcgrane ~ A List Apart)
Orchestrated Content: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach
Next up: content choreography.
“In recent months, colleagues and I at Razorfish have been interested in a somewhat related effort to situate the practice and define how it gets things done. We have been looking at the discipline from a broader viewpoint, from the perspective of how content strategy abuts, intersects with, and influences other disciplines. We have proposed an approach to content that we call ‘Orchestrated Content’. Rather than focus on how content strategists work within their own discipline, phase by phase through the duration of a project, we look at how our practice is deeply interwoven with many other practices and plot out how content strategy functions across disciplines. We embrace the inevitably porous nature of the practice and highlight its role in tying together the larger strategy of transforming businesses.”
Content Strategy for Decision Makers: Connecting the dots between business, brand, and benefits
Content strategy 101 for people with a lot on their minds.
“If we were to sum up the mandate of a content strategy in a single phrase, it would be this: understand the gap between your user experience and your customers’ needs, and fix it.”
(Rahel Bailie and Noz Urbina ~ CS for Decision Makers)
Bring Mockups to Life with Real Content
Content, the 80-90% driver of transformational user experiences.
“How do you create the perfect pitch for your new product or service? With a bunch of screens filled with Lorem ipsum? We don’t think so! Here we share our experiences creating mockups for some tough presentations.”
(Antun Debak a.k.a. @adebak ~ UX Passion)
How Visuals Can Help Content Strategists Find Their Voice
Visual thinking and communication, the way to tackle many wicked design problems.
“It’s not just clients who are compelled by visuals. Visuals grab everyone’s attention in meaningful, memorable ways, whether we’re trying to influence project managers or CMOs. Content strategists use words to argue our points, yet our colleagues (UX and Creative, and even Project Management) use visuals. We should, too. Not sure how to turn data into information?
(Tosca Fasso a.k.a. @toscafasso ~ SUBTXT)
Empathy and Content Strategy: on Teaching, Listening and Affecting Change
Would this also apply to non-textual data?
“Our job is to help make useful, usable web things. Our job is also to ensure that the passion is passed along to the next in line – that we provide some level of empathy and empowerment for the people who will work the content long after we’re gone.”
(Corey Vilhauer a.k.a. @MrVilhauer ~ @MrVilhauer ~ Eating Elephant)
Content and the journey: Building a good user experience for news sites
Finally, content as main driver of the user experience.
“Discussions at recent news industry conferences have often referred to the importance of good user experience, particularly during discussions about how news outlets are reaching and interacting with their users on digital platforms. References to user experience could cover a range of aspects, including the user’s journey through content, an app or a news website, the usability of those products and the experience of consuming a single piece of content. For the purposes of this feature I asked managing editor of the Wall Street Journal’s digital network, Raju Narisetti, what user experience meant to him in the context of news and journalism.”
(Rachel McAthy ~ Journalism.co.uk)
Why Big Content Is Worth the Risk
So from Big Data, to Big Content to Big Wisdom?
“We all want the low-hanging fruit, but let’s be honest – the low-hanging fruit is rotten, bruised, and covered with the grubby fingerprints of all the other spoiled brats pawing at it. There’s a time for easy wins, but easy only gets you so far. Sadly, I see too many SEOs putting days or weeks of effort into crafting the perfect low-value scheme, when that same time could’ve easily gone into content that has real staying power and drives sales. I’m obsessed with ‘Big Content’ lately – resources that go beyond our narrow bins of blog posts, videos, and infographics. I’m going to show you how that obsession is paying off, and why building real content is easier than you think.”
(Peter J. Meyers a.k.a. @dr_pete ~ SEOMoz)
How to Bake Content Strategy into Your Web Design Process
How can ‘developing content’ be a part of ‘content development’? Self-referencing.
“Let’s face it, content development is still a massively frustrating process.”
(James Deer a.k.a. @jamesdeer ~ Six Revisions)
How Transmedia Storytelling will Transform the Role of the Content Strategist
But… what’s The Story to tell.
“This report provides clear foundations for the future of content strategy. It means Content Strategists can no longer afford to specialise in just Digital or even Social Media. You will need to expand your skill set to include a deep understanding of above the line, mobile, games and offline experiences. Transmedia Storytelling is not a fad; it’s the convergence of media channels to meet the need of the user.”
(Kohlben Vodden a.k.a. @kohlben ~ WhatWorksWhere)
We Must Develop Topic-Based Information Design
Always remarkable how people perceive InfoDesign.
“(…) in the age of the Web, and particularly of the mobile Web, topic-based information design is essential.”
(Mark Baker ~ Every Page is Page One)
Enterprise Content Strategy Comes Down To Governance and Workflow
Enterprises, the new hunting grounds for experience design.
“The problem today is that this bastion of the Industrial Revolution remains as businesses try to mobilize their human capital for the content demands of an always connected marketplace. Further complicating matters, workforce downsizing and the flattening of corporate hierarchies in the mid 1990’s continues to cripple many organizations in their ability to deliver the content needed to be successful in the Information Age.”
(Kris Mausser a.k.a. @krismausser ~ Follow the UX leader)
Bursting the Content Bubble (and Getting What You Want)
The context you’re getting into as UX and its related fields of practice gets more complex every time.
Presentation video – “As content strategy people, we need to learn about sales, metrics, figures, change management, PR, and marketing, if we’re going to get our content strategy adopted by our companies and our clients. Which means stepping out of our comfort zones, and having the courage to learn about other disciplines. Kate shows us how, by sharing her recent experiences doing exactly that.”
(Kate Kenyon a.k.a. @kate_kenyon)
Unified Content Strategy: Fact or Fiction?
Caring is just one thing, paying attention is another.
“(…) the notion that customers don’t care about the quality of content is bunk. People do care and content quality does reflect on the overall perception of the product and its creator.”
(Val Swisher a.k.a. @contentrulesinc ~ Content Rules)
The Psychology of Content Design
Content and Design are partners in a happy marriage.
“The way that we shape content is absolutely paramount to the success of our ventures on the web. Beyond this, the way that we design and craft user experiences should forever be considered not only important, but an integrated part of our content. With that said, this article is not an attempt to pit content against design. Instead, I will simply make the claim that good design is an integrated part of the content.”
