Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Content Strategy

A community exploration of an emerging field of practice.

What is content strategy? Good question! We're working here to provide a basic definition of the field of interactive content strategy, its body of knowledge, and its practitioners.

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Overview

Content Strategy is an emerging field of practice within the discipline of User Experience Design (UXD). It also describes in a professional context the roles, work products, knowledge, methodology, and perspectives of content strategists.

Content

Content is substance. No matter the platform, publication, or format, content refers to everything that conveys meaning:

“Content includes the text, graphics, video, and audio that make up an interactive experience.”—Kristina Halvorson
“Technically, Web content can be anything that appears on a website, including words, pictures, video, sounds, downloadable files (PDF), buttons, icons, and logos.”—Richard Sheffield
“Information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience in specific contexts.”—Wikipedia[1]
“Everything is content.”—Rachel Lovinger quoting Chris Sizemore[2]
"Simply put, content is contextualized data."—Rahel Bailie[3]

Content Strategy

Content strategy is an emerging field of practice encompassing every aspect of content, including its design, development, analysis, presentation, measurement, evaluation, production, management, and governance.

Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web [4], defines content strategy as "the practice of planning for content creation, delivery, and governance."

In The Web Content Strategist’s Bible, Richard Sheffield emphasizes the importance of editorial process to content strategy.

Agency Content Lifecycle via Erin Scime [5]

Content Strategy: Methodologies

How does one apply this thinking or "do" content strategy? Rahel Bailie shares her methodology:

The content lifecycle is a repeatable system that governs the management of content. The processes within a given content lifecycle are system-agnostic. The processes are established as part of a content strategy, and implemented during the content lifecycle.

Aspects of a content lifecycle

The content lifecycle covers four macro stages: the strategic analysis, the content collection, management of the content, and publishing, which includes publication and post-publication activities. The content lifecycle is in effect whether the content is controlled within a content management system or not, whether it gets translated or not, whether it gets deleted at the end of its life or revised and re-used. The analysis quadrant comprises the content strategy. The other three quadrants are more tactical in nature, focusing on the implementation of the content strategy.

Rahel Bailie's methodology for content strategy.

Analysis

In the analysis phase, the content lifecycle is concerned with the strategic aspects of content. A content strategist (or business analyst or information architect or writer) examines the need for various types of content within the context of both the business and of the content consumers, and for multiple outputs on multiple platforms.

The analysis has a bearing on how the content strategy is implemented in the other quadrants of the content lifecycle. On a new project with new content, this is the beginning of the process. Much of the time, the process will start somewhere else in the cycle; a lot depends on a multitude of factors involved in changing content from a current state to its future state.

Collection

Content collection includes the garnering of content for use within the framework set out in the analysis phase. Collection may be through content development - creating content or editing the content of others, content ingestion - syndication of content from other sources, or incorporation of localized content, or a hybrid of content integration and converge - such as integrating product descriptions from an outside organization with prices from a costing system, or the convergence of editorial and user-generated content from social media for simultaneous display.

Management

The management quadrant is concerned with the efficient and effective use of content. In organizations using technology to automate the management of content, the management aspect assumes use of a CMS of some sort. In organizations with smaller amounts of content, with little need for workflow control, and virtually no single-sourcing requirements, manual management is possible. However, in large enterprises, there is too much content, and there are too many variations of content output, to manage the content without some sort of system to automate whatever functions can be automated.

The content configuration potential is enormous, and builds on the information gathered during the analysis and collection phases. The solutions will be highly situational, and revolve around the inputs and outputs, the required content variables, the complexity of the publishing pipeline, and the technologies in play. The most basic questions are around adoption of standards and technologies, and determining components, content granularity, and how far up or down the publishing pipeline to implement specific techniques.

Publish

The publishing quadrant deals with the aspects of content that happen when the content is delivered to its output platform and ensuing transformations, manipulations, or uses of the content. Publishing the content is only a point in the first lifecycle iteration; there are post-publishing considerations such as re-use and retention policies that require attention.

Content Strategists

But the perspectives content strategists bring to content depend strongly on their professional training and education.

For instance, some specialize in content analysis, which roughly describes work with metadata, taxonomy, search engine optimization, and the ways in which the sound application of these concepts supports content.

Others outline web editorial strategies, guidelines, and tools, which may extend to organizational change management. This form of content strategy may be concerned with developing new forms of content, such as multimedia, or various “presence management” technologies like microblogging.[5]

There is yet another stream of content strategy advancing information architecture goals. In this case, content strategy may only involve writing site copy for new website pages and adapting the content on existing ones.

All content strategists are familiar with a wide range of applications and tools, and frequently are responsible for implementing and training individuals to best use them.

Collaboration with Content Strategist via Richard Ingram [6]

Education and Professional Background

Content strategists emerge from a variety of formal academic and professional disciplines:

Library and information sciences
Computer sciences
Creative and performing arts
Advertising and marketing
Rhetoric and composition
Technical writing and communication
Journalism
Professional editors and writers
Communications
Liberal arts
Management consulting

Prominent Employers of Content Strategists

These Fortune 500 or internationally renowned brands employ or are hiring content strategists by name:

Content Strategy: Deliverables

The work products -- or deliverables -- typical of content strategy are diverse and depend on the needs of the company and the background of the content strategist. Shelly Bowen provides this insight:

Some content strategists are also (deep down) writers, editors, designers, or information architects. This background influences not only the strategy, but also the deliverables.

Shelly Bowen also offers this deliverables list as a guide:

What Are You Trying to Achieve?

Summary of company goals

What Do You Own?

Content inventory or audit
Content assessment (quality and quantity)

What’s Missing?

Content gap analysis
Comparative content analysis
Competitive analysis

How Do You Present the Words?

User personas
User scenarios (think believable stories)
Editorial strategy
Core messaging strategy
Sample content
Content templates
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy
Brand strategy
Metadata strategy
Style guide
Glossary

Where Does It Go?

Copy deck
Channel strategy
Content conversion/migration strategy
Content flow schematic
Community and social strategy
Visual presentation recommendations
Wireframes

How Do We Make It Happen?

Content approval workflow
Communication plans
Community moderation policies
Content production workshops and training
Content sourcing review and plans (people, tools, budget, time)

How Do We Stay Organized?

CMS requirements
Business rules
Taxonomies
Responsibilities
Schedules

How Do We Know It’s Right?
Usability tests

Benchmarks

Checks and balances

Summary of company goals

Success metrics

What’s Coming Up?

Editorial calendar

Here are some further ideas for literal applications of content strategy by Colleen Jones.

Downloadable Work Templates and Guides

Content Inventory/Audit (.xls) by Kevin P. Nichols
Content Market Matrix (.xls) by Kevin P. Nichols
Content Matrix (.xls) by Kevin P. Nichols

Current State Stakeholder Protocol Guide (.pdf) by Kevin P. Nichols

Consistency via Business Guys on Business Trips [7]

Specializations in Content Strategy

Among their competencies, these experts are uniquely proficient or known for their contributions to a specific topic, subject matter area or related professional discipline. Editors' note: This list does not convey the range of each specialist's competencies, only an area of expertise. Expect to see this taxonomy itself to evolve over time. Your feedback is welcome.

Advertising and User Experience

Karen McGrane, Bond Art+ Science
Chris Moritz, Campbell-Ewald

Analytics

Clare O'Brien, CDA

Branded and Custom Content

Craig Bromberg, Independent Consultant (Blog)
Joe Pulizzi, Z Squared Media

Content Development

Richard Sheffield, UPS (Web Content Strategy Blog)
Kenneth Yau, Independent Consultant
Shelly Bowen, Exceptional Web Content

Content Modeling

Jeffrey Durland, Independent Consultant (LinkedIn Profile)
Paul Ford, Independent Consultant (School of Visual Arts)
Margaret (Mags) Hanley, Web Technology Group

Digital Archives

Erin Scime, HUGE (dopeData Blog)

Enterprise Content Strategy

Kevin P. Nichols, SapientNitro (kpn digital | interactive)
Seamus Walsh Earley and Associates | Enterprise Content Strategy

Editorial and Publishing

Jeffrey MacIntyre, Predicate
Stephanie Hale, Rosetta

Marketing and User Experience

Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic

Account Content Marketing and SEO

Seamus Walsh, Sales Alignment

Semantic Web

Rachel Lovinger, Razorfish (Scatter Gather Blog l Meaningful Data Blog)

Social Media and User Generated Content

Margot Bloomstein, Appropriate Inc.

User Assistance (Technical Communication, Training, Support)

Rahel Bailie, Intentional Design

User Experience

Colleen Jones, threebrick
Bob Maynard, R/GA
Elena Melendy, Independent Consultant (Blog)
Eric Reiss, FatDUX

Web Writing

Ian Alexander, Eat Media
Erin Kissane, Happy Cog
Ginny Redish, Redish & Associates, Inc.
Carolyn Wood, pixelingo

Link to article

by Julie Vollenweider on August 11th, 2011

When I speak with folks about possible content strategy projects, it usually doesn’t take too long for the “Tell me about a typical project” topic to come up. In a consulting environment, most people understand that this is a tricky request—especially if it’s our first conversation.

What is decidedly easier for me to address—and relevant to the “typical project” question—are the common scenarios in which people are prompted to consider content strategy and what organizations hope to (and do!) achieve with content strategy efforts.

So c’mon—let’s channel Olivia Newton-John and get typical! (Confession: I was going to link to her “Physical” video, but I watched it for the first time in years and got too uncomfortable. No wonder my parents wouldn’t let me watch early MTV. Look it up and re-watch at your own risk.)

CLIENT DRIVERS AND TRIGGERS FOR CONTENT STRATEGY

Something has changed, or is about to change at my organization.

We are in the process of transitioning to a new content management system. Now would be a great time to clean up our content so we don’t have to migrate ‘junk’ to the new platform.
We’ve reorganized. Now, it’s not exactly clear how our new teams are supposed to work together to create, publish, and maintain content.
I just took a new position and content is on my plate. Now, it’s really difficult for me to take care of my day-to-day editorial updates and be smart about planning for the future.
Our analytics and/or user research is showing us that our consumers aren’t finding/getting what they need. Now would be a great time to turn that around and impact our quarterly numbers.

My organization realized the complexity of our content.

We have and/or produce a LOT of content … in seven different languages.
There are a ton of people involved in requesting, creating, publishing, and maintaining our content (e.g., CMS users, geographic regional teams, product teams, etc.).
Many different audiences interact with our content—and they have varying needs, objectives, and expectations.

DESIRED EFFECTS OF CONTENT STRATEGY

If everything goes according to plan, with content strategy we will have …

An actionable, achievable plan to prepare for, develop, or implement a content strategy. We’ll be able to take this plan, execute it, and evolve it over time.
Quality content that meets user needs and achieves business objectives. Quality means it’s relevant, accurate, consistent, clear, purposeful, and generally awesome.
Clarity on:
- What kinds of content is needed (topics, types, sources, etc.) and what message(s) content needs to communicate to our audience(s).
- How content is prioritized, organized, formatted, and displayed.
- What processes, tools, and human resources are required for content initiatives to launch successfully and be maintained over time.
- How key decisions about content and content strategy are made—including how those changes are initiated and communicated.

ACTUAL CONTENT STRATEGY RESULTS

Progress is made (which sets the stage for saving or making money). Sometimes, having an external (neutral) expert come in to talk about content strategy is all it takes to move things forward. For organizations that are set up to implement content strategy, but have no time or resources available to actually develop the overall strategy—getting the plan is the necessary push. In any scenario, this resulting progress is usually the stuff that makes the day-to-day content team happiest.
Money is saved. Yes. It’s true. Content strategy work can help companies save money. For example, a content strategy effort might examine and evaluate content that is licensed. If any of this purchased content is duplicative, or doesn’t meet criteria for the user and business—that’s an opportunity to save money by discontinuing the license for irrelevant content. Or, in an organization that uses a blend of online and telephone support for products, having a clearly defined strategy for the information best served online can help reduce call volume (and therefore operating expenses). These are the kinds of results that senior leaders really care about.
Time is spent efficiently (and more money is saved). When there is a clear understanding of who does what to which content and when, everyone involved in content processes can be more efficient. Consider this—a product manager wants to feature details on a new product on the company website. She spends time locating the company editorial style guide, and agonizes over the wording for the new web content. She then spends time tracking down who might be able to help with this request (via a manager, IT, or marketing). This is time the product manager could be using to do what she does best—improving the product. Additionally, this is time spent doing the work someone else is already paid to do—the website editor, who can create and publish the content in a quarter of the time the product manager spent. A solid content workflow strategy can uncover and improve a situation like this. Frankly, I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t get excited about this type of result.
Consumers are satisfied (and money is made). Offering content that’s relevant, easily found, and used for its intended purpose goes a long way toward audience satisfaction. Satisfied content consumers are the ones that contribute to your goals as an organization. They buy your widget. They donate money. They subscribe to your service. They recommend you to friends. Happy customers always equal happy business stakeholders. Everybody wins!

Even though there are unique circumstances at almost any organization, there are definitely some universal themes for content strategy needs and outcomes. These themes are about as “typical” as it gets when it comes to our project work at Brain Traffic.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Testing mobile content

Content Strategy Can Save Us All From Slobdom

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by Meghan Casey on August 4th, 2011

With content—like everything in life—it's easy to fall behind. Things get busy, a few content pieces get neglected, and before you know it, there's a big sloppy mess.

Believe me. I know all about sloppy. Let me describe for you my bedroom circa two weeks ago. It was messy. Real messy. My clothes were everywhere. And, when I was looking for something, I found it by thinking about when I wore it last and using that information to determine its approximate place.

Fraggle Rock fans might be envisioning something like the picture below. You wouldn’t be far off.

My room, lots of websites

I’ve worked on a number of websites filled with the kind of clutter and disorganization that makes users as crazy as my room was starting to make me. Chances are, you’ve been there, too. So, especially if you’re newer to content strategy, I thought I’d share the process I followed—which was influenced by the way I think about my work—to get my room in order. Similar steps apply to our work on the web.

Enough with the chaos

The pre-Brain Traffic me would have put her clothes away any place she could find room. Not this time. I let some things I’ve learned from content strategy guide me.

Here’s how it went down.

STEP 1

I pulled everything out of drawers, laundry baskets, and suitcases and conducted a ROT analysis.

R = Redundant (too many of very similar things)
O = Outdated (also, doesn’t fit)
T = Trivial (includes impulse buys I wore once or never wore)

I donated or threw out about 10 large garbage bags of clothes. What was left was two good-sized piles of clothes—one to wash and keep and one to put away.

Content Strategy Tip 1

Big websites aren’t better websites. Get rid of the ROT.

You’d be amazed at what a difference you can make in the content on your site by just eliminating the stuff that is redundant, outdated, or trivial. For smaller sites, you might be able to do this in one fell swoop. For larger ones, you might have to take it a section at a time.

STEP 2

I inventoried what was left. Actually, I inventoried just the clean stuff as a representative sample.

As I started sorting, the logical ways to group my clothes became apparent. I did, however, modify my groupings as I went based on things like size and quantity (keeping in mind that I had stuff to wash that would need to fit this model).

Shorts: casual and workout
Long and capri workout/yoga pants
Casual tank tops
T-shirts
Long-sleeved casual shirts
Pajamas
Undergarments
Socks
Swimwear
Sweatshirts
Jeans
Dresses
Dress pants
Dress tops
Skirts

Okay, you get the idea.

Content Strategy Tip 2

Take stock of what you have.

Document what’s on your site—and in other places throughout your organization, for that matter. You’ll start to see patterns that will help you organize your content later. Begin here if you need help getting started with a content inventory.

STEP 3A

I surveyed the space (dresser drawers, closet, armoire) I had available to keep my clothes. From a quick review, I realized that I would have to store some stuff elsewhere. So, I weeded out the off-season clothes and put them in one of those under-the-bed containers.

Content Strategy Tip 3a

Build a library.

If one of your goals is to regularly publish content to your site to ensure people see something different every time they visit, it’s a good idea to develop content based on timely triggers that you can pull out when appropriate. Similarly, keep a reserve of evergreen content you can use to fill in the gaps.

STEP 3B

Next up was determining which space would work best for which categories of clothes. In my mind, I drew a site map of my organization model that looked a little something like the following graphic. And then I put everything away. But, some things changed as I went.

Content Strategy Tip 3b

Test your concept.

Once you have a solid idea for how your content should be organized, it’s tempting to put together a site map with a bunch of page stacks and call it good. In most cases, however, someone down the line will realize that some things just don’t fit. Do everything you can to make sure every piece of content that’s necessary to satisfy identified user and business goals has a place to live.

STEP 4

Once I got everything put away and started reveling in my accomplishment, I got to thinking. The conversation in my head went a little like this:

“This will have all been a waste of time if I can’t figure out how to maintain it.”

“You’re right. It will all be for nothing if you just let it get disorganized and cluttered again.”

So, I made some guidelines for myself related to maintaining and governing my clean room. They are pretty simple guidelines. It’s following them that will be tough.

When you change in the evening, put the clothes you wore back where they belong or in the wash.
If there is no room in a drawer or in the closet for an item you need to put away, find something to store or donate to make room.
If you buy something new, get rid of something old.
Conduct the ROT analysis at the end of each season.
Um, do your laundry, instead of just buying new clothes that you don’t need.
If your room is still clean at the end of each month, splurge on something special.

Content Strategy Tip 4

Make maintenance and governance a priority.

When you’re thinking about what content to include and how it should be organized, keep the sustainability of your ideas and how you’ll know whether they’re working top-of-mind. A website that you’re not able to keep up with after launch can damage your relationships with your customers or visitors. And more and more, you’ll be asked to prove that what you’ve developed is worth the effort.

In case you’re wondering, I’m just over a week in and everything is still in tip-top shape. All it takes is discipline and a keen desire to leave the mess behind.

The Analytics Dictionary: Demystifying Analytics Reports for Your Clients

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By AHAVA LEIBTAG | Published: AUGUST 9, 2011

If you are truly an effective content marketer consultant, at least 25 percent of your job is educating your clients about the digital marketplace. Clients look to you to clarify how things really work in cyberspace, and if you are good at your job, you take that seriously.

One area where my clients have a lot of questions is with analytics. Even when they are digital experts, it’s common for me to have to explain what the different benchmarks in analytics packages really mean.

Pick something real and relatable when explaining analytics

Fully explaining analytics would require more than one article; in fact, I have an SEO PowerPoint presentation on the topic that is 124 slides. However, here are some definitions of common SEO terms and how to explain them to clients. A great way to explain a website is to compare it to a printed book. I have found clients appreciate having real-world comparisons to help them visualize concepts in the digital world.

Because setting up the understanding is important, an introduction like the following can be really helpful:

“Analytics can be really confusing especially when you are not used to thinking in these terms. Analytics are like ratings for your website, and they help you capture the effectiveness of your content. I’ve found it’s helpful to think of your website like a book when thinking about analytics.”

After the introduction, I hand out a sample analytics report and walk through each of the following terms:

Landing page: This is the page on which your visitor starts engaging with your site. Think of opening a book to page 99 — that is the landing page.

Unique visitors: This is the number of people who visit within a certain date range. Think of this as a library: If four different people check out a book in the month of July, then there are four unique visitors for that book. Because each computer that accesses a website has its own unique ISP address to identify the user, your analytics package can record when a site visitor returns. This eliminates any concern about the validity of the unique visitor metric.

Visits: This is the number of times users come to any page on your site. In the book world, this would translate to the number of times any of your visitors open the book, even if it is only to read one page.

Page views: This is the number of pages viewed by a unique visitor during one site visit. In book world, this would be akin to how many pages were read by a reader during one interaction with the book.

Bounce rate: This is the percentage of visitors who come to one page and leave. In the book world, the visitor opened to page 99 and then closed the book without reading any other pages. (Important note: The bounce rate is often the metric clients get most stuck on, and I find it important to explain its duality of purpose. If you have a high bounce rate for an essential conversion page, then something is probably not right. But if you have a high bounce rate for a contact us page where the most important piece of content is, (such as a phone number), then you’ve probably designed the page perfectly for the given content. Just remember, your website has an average bounce rate, and that number can be misleading depending on your ratio of conversion pages to single-purpose pages like the contact us page.)

Exit rate: This is the percentage of users who exit after they have looked at two or more pages. In book world, this would translate to the number of times a customer looks at two or more pages in the book and then closes it.

Conversion: This is a completed goal on the site. It could be an action such as downloading a document, buying a product or entering information into a lead generation tool. In the book world, this might be akin to doing an activity or action specified by the book. To maximize conversions, it’s best to define your conversion goal before writing or building that page.

I’m curious. Please tell me how do you explain analytics to your clients?

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Content Strategy

A community exploration of an emerging field of practice.

What is content strategy? Good question! We're working here to provide a basic definition of the field of interactive content strategy, its body of knowledge, and its practitioners.

Contents

Overview

Content

Content Strategy

Content Strategy: Methodologies

Aspects of a content lifecycle

Analysis

Collection

Management

Publish

Content Strategists

Education and Professional Background

Prominent Employers of Content Strategists

Content Strategy: Deliverables

What Do You Own?

What’s Missing?

How Do You Present the Words?

Where Does It Go?

How Do We Make It Happen?

How Do We Stay Organized?

How Do We Know It’s Right?Usability tests Benchmarks Checks and balances Summary of company goals Success metrics What’s Coming Up?

How Do We Know It’s Right?

Downloadable Work Templates and Guides

Specializations in Content Strategy

Advertising and User Experience

Analytics

Branded and Custom Content

Content Development

Content Modeling

Digital Archives

Enterprise Content Strategy

Editorial and Publishing

Marketing and User Experience

Semantic Web

Social Media and User Generated Content

User Assistance (Technical Communication, Training, Support)

User Experience

Web Writing

Further Reading

Blogs on Content Strategy

Related Publications

References

CLIENT DRIVERS AND TRIGGERS FOR CONTENT STRATEGY

DESIRED EFFECTS OF CONTENT STRATEGY

ACTUAL CONTENT STRATEGY RESULTS

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

My room, lots of websites

Enough with the chaos

STEP 1

STEP 2

STEP 3A

STEP 3B

STEP 4

How Do We Know It’s Right?
Usability tests

Benchmarks

Checks and balances

Summary of company goals

Success metrics

What’s Coming Up?