Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Epic List of Content Strategy Resources


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by Jonathon Colman posted on February 4, 2013
      
      23

UPDATE: Thanks so much for your positive response! I’ll be updating this post and adding new resources soon based on your great feedback. And I hope to see you this week at the Intelligent Content 2013 conference, where I’m speaking about Enterprise SEO and Content Strategyon Thursday, 2/7 at 2:00pm PT. Stop by and say howdy if you’re there!
Since I left SEO, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Content Strategy. What is it? What books and blogs should people read to learn about it? What conferences should folks attend and who are the experts in the field?
I thought I would assemble my favorite Content Strategy resources into a list that has everything all in one place for folks who, like me, are new to this field. This makes it easier to find for those who are interested, not to mention easier for me to share when I get questions.
But I also created this list as a way of thanking all the amazing, brilliant, and talented content strategists out there who inspired me with their work and insights. In a way, this list of content strategy resources is my love letter to the industry that welcomed me into its halls.

But First: A Definition of Content Strategy

So what do I mean by Content Strategy anyway? Is it the same thing as Content Marketing? Let me set some expectations before we jump into the resources so that you know what to expect.
Diagram describing the critical components that Brain Traffic considers in every content strategy
Diagram describing the critical components that Brain Traffic considers in every content strategy.
Graphic by Brain Traffic
Kristina Halvorson of Brain Traffic (whom you’ll see included in the lists below)states in A List Apart that “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.”
I think that the word plan plays a keystone role in that definition. Planning is an essential skill for content strategists, who often do quite a bit of research within organizations to examine workflow, standards, governance, process design, publishing systems, and several other factors that go into the second part of Kristina’s definition: “…the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.”
I love her distinction between the words useful and usable. A content experience must be both in order to be truly successful.
Rachel Lovinger of Razorfish (also in the lists) adds to this definition in Boxes and Arrows when she states that content strategists use “words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences.” Note that here she specifically references both language and data, which indicates that we’re talking about “big-C” Content, not just blocks of lorem ipsum text. It’s also clear that we’re talking about experiences and how content enables experiences that help users succeed at their goals (and businesses to succeed at their objectives).
In the same article, Rachel adds that “content strategy is to copywriting as information architecture is to design,” which further helps us dispel the myth that all content strategists care about is text. We care about content as experience, which is why we focus on content inventories and audits, workflow mapping, publishing systems and processes, delivery channels, and so on. Remember: useful and usable.
Of course, there are a lot of further definitions and nuances explained in the resources below, but the above summations are essentially what we mean when we talk about the big picture of Content Strategy as a discipline and community of practice. Because of the emergent understanding that content is more than just text, you’ll find that there are natural connections to related disciplines such as Information Architecture, User Experience, Interaction Design, Content Management, and yes, even Content Marketing.
So are Content Marketing and Content Strategy the same? No, but they are clearly related, so a better question to ask might be: are these two practices compatible with each other? Definitely! Can and should content marketers work with content strategists to help improve user experiences, publishing workflows, and delivery to channels? Yes, please!
Bringing these two disciplines closer together for the benefit of organizations and their users is one of my professional goals, which is yet another reason why I created this resource — I need your help to make that happen.

Content Strategy Books

There are several other books out there that would be helpful for content strategists, such as Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, Peter Morville & Lou Rosenfeld’sInformation Architecture for the World Wide Web, and Jesse James Garrett’s The Elements of User Experience among many, many others.
This list is not meant to (and cannot) be exhaustive. But I’ve tried to include the authoritative canon for practicing content strategists along with some newer additions (and editions!) that have appeared in the last year or so. They define the discipline, lay out its scope and modes of practice, and offer standard tools and techniques for building success.
That said, Content Strategy is still evolving and is actively being codified and expanded by practitioners all around the world, so I expect that many more books will appear in the future.

Content Strategy Online Magazines and Journals

Note how related industries (particularly user experience design and information architecture) recognize the value of content strategy and strive to include it among their topical areas of focus for practitioners. I think that speaks to a fundamental understanding that our work overlaps with other disciplines and that we have a lot we can learn from each other. No one need practice alone.

Content Strategy Blogs

Yet another incomplete list! I scoured speaking rosters at conferences, followed citations, and looked at the folks organizing Meetup groups to put this together. But as long as this list of content strategy bloggers is, I’m sure there are many more out there.

Content Strategy Articles and Blog Posts

Similar to the other sections above, this list is incomplete and there’s no reasonable way to make it complete. But this list is largely made up of the writing that inspired me to look beyond SEO/Inbound marketing to content strategy.
What I’ve tried to do here is to choose authoritative articles and posts that make up the foundation of how content strategists approach their work, interact with neighboring disciplines, and solve common challenges. And I also tried to add in a somewhat diverse set of voices sharing novel, related ideas from industries that are not too far removed from Content Strategy.

Content Strategy Conferences, Events, and Meetups

Truth be told, I wasn’t expecting to find so many Content Strategy events. So I was happily surprised to see so many meetups all around the world, so many conferences focusing wholly on Content Strategy (or at least in part), and so many venues and organizations that think this topic is important to share and learn. That’s really encouraging and speaks well to the name that content strategists are making for themselves and their work.

Content Strategy Online Discussion Forums and Groups

Have I missed something big here? I’ve had some difficulty finding strong, large, and engaged online communities discussing Content Strategy. Maybe content strategists tend to communicate with each other more directly (e-mails, Twitter/@-mentions, private direct messages, etc.) rather than in larger online group discussions? Maybe there are more gated communities (Facebook groups) that I can’t see into with common Google searches? Or perhaps content strategists prefer real-life encounters, such as the above conferences and meetups, rather than in online forums?
Something else that crossed my mind is that perhaps the industry of content strategy is too young to have gathered around a central, core Web venue. Could that be the case? There are large groups and communities of writers/editors going back to the early days of the Internet (and certianly before the Web). But content strategy as a discipline didn’t really take off until early 2009. So perhaps we’re still too new to have organized ourselves in this manner.
It’s also interesting to me that content strategists seem to cluster around this handful of LinkedIn and Google properties. I’m surprised that content strategy agencies, software developers, and/or events organizers haven’t jumped on this market opportunity. My guess is that one of them will this year or next. A large, engaged, and owned Content Strategy community would be a valuable asset and a powerful group. It could hold quite a bit of authority in the industry and have great impact beyond just education and training.
Among other things, it occurs to me that a large, international group of agency, in-house, and independent practitioners representing hundreds of thousands of the best Web sites in the world might be able to bend content management system (CMS) providers to their will. Improving content management, publishing, and governance tools would have the huge impact of improving the state of content and user experience for just about everyone online.
If I had the means (and time!), then I’d start working on this today. But I bet that someone smart already is, or will soon begin.

Yes, Virginia, There are Even More Content Strategy Resources Out There!

What, That’s Still Not Enough for Ya?

Well, after going through over 200 content strategy resources, you made it all the way to the end. Congratulations!
If you’ve created an influential, valuable content strategy resource that I forgot to mention here, please forgive me. No offense intended! If I accidentally left you and your work out, please just know that the spirit is willing, but the fingers (and clock!) are weak.
Is there anything missing from this epic list of content strategy resources?Please let me know on Twitter @jcolman or by sending me a note. I greatly appreciate your patience and willingness to share. Many thanks!
      
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About Jonathon Colman

 is a content strategist, SEO & inbound marketer, speaker, and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. You can follow him on Twitter @jcolman, Google+, and LinkedIn. Feel free to contact him directly.
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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

How retailers will invest now for Holiday ‘13


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By FIONA SWERDLOW, HEAD OF RESEARCH, SHOP.ORG | Published: JANUARY 28, 2013
Be the first to comment | This entry was posted in Holidays, Research
The eHoliday 2012 post-holiday results are in! Conducted with our partner, BIGinsight, we polled both consumers and retailers earlier this month to see how the holiday season turned out. This data trove – spanning holiday results, consumer shopping, merchandising, marketing, gift cards, customer service and fulfillment – will be particularly useful to retailers come summer when holiday planning gets underway again.
With not a moment to lose in the meantime, savvy retailers aren’t missing the opportunity to start preparing for Holiday ’13 pretty much right now. We asked retailers both “Based on your experience this past holiday season, what ONE thing will you invest in this year for Holiday 2013?”, as well as, “Looking ahead, what ONE thing will you do differently for Holiday 2013?” Here’s where they’re focusing on this year – and you should, too.
  • Planning and assortment. At the very heart of retailing, inventory management continues to be a major focus area – from plain “inventory management” and “planning” to “Being better prepared with popular items”, “Inventory optimization of top selling items” and “Improved gifting.”
  • Infrastructure. “More servers” and “Boost server capabilities and streamline code for faster page loads” were two comments – clearly, no matter how experienced a retailer is, this is still never an area to be overlooked or under-resourced. Study your Holiday ’12 traffic and sales for patterns, plan for additional capacity now, become an expert at monitoring your site availability – and (obvious as this sounds) have Plans B and C mapped out, tested and at the ready. Make sure your testing extends to multiple devices and platforms, of course.
  • Marketing and promotions. Marketing and promotions investments this year include “more keyword buys”, email, natural search, paid search, and “personalized communication to increase conversion”, among others. Retailers also have lots of ideas of what they will do differently for Holiday ’13: “Better plan the online marketing spend across the tactics that drive traffic to the site”, “Better promo planning and market channel profitability analysis” and “Improve our email process and planning [to eliminate last minute changes]” all demonstrate retailer insight into specific changes needed. Promotion planning (“better”, “fewer”, “strategy”) in general has retailers’ attention. While there was only one specific mention of “mobile marketing”, we expect retailers to more significantly test mobile marketing waters this year than in the past.
  • Cross channel / customer experience. Retailers surveyed have their eye firmly on the holistic customer experience, from “Closer connection between [the] in-store shopping experience and online” to analytics that help them understand how a given customer interacts with the retailer across devices and touch points. Underscoring this focus further, the recently released Shop.org / Forrester Research“State of Retailing Online 2013: Key Metrics & Initiatives” study found that over half of those retailers surveyed are investing this year in “site conversion” as one of their top three initiatives (e.g. user experience and optimization of everything from product detail pages to checkout), and one-quarter are specifically undertaking a site redesign.
  • Mobile. Although still an area where retailers are figuring out where and how to invest for the best ROI, mobile investment areas this year span check out, general optimization, responsive Web design, and all things “tablet”. Per the same State of Retailing Online study, 43% of those retailers surveyed indicated that mobile and tablet are among their top three initiatives for 2013.
  • Fulfillment and customer service. Several retailers noted that they want to change fulfillment services and processes for their customers: “Providing better delivery options for last minute shoppers”, “Speed up delivery” and ‘Better timing for guaranteed Christmas Delivery” were some of the avowed changes to this area. As retailers recently have upped the ante on speedier / cheaper / more convenient fulfillment options, we asked retailers additionally, “In 2013, do you anticipate investing in (i.e. optimizing, expanding and/or adding) additional shipping and delivery options?” Over 3 out of 5 retailers surveyed told us that investing in shipping services was on their list for this year: for example, one in five plans to implement or expand “ship to store” service in their own store. Other service improvements under consideration: same day delivery, ship from store, free returns, and “Simplified shipping options and improved packaging.” The overall customer experience no doubt will benefit from these “last mile” improvements.
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Responsive Design on a Budget


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Over the last year or so we’ve seen an increasing emphasis put on the performance aspect of building responsive websites, which is great - there’s no point building a beautiful, scalable, touch-friendly site if it uses up half your monthly bandwidth allowance just to load the homepage.
But performance considerations add yet more complexity to an already complex mix. Very little is clear-cut; many decisions need careful, site-specific consideration in order to avoid actually making things worse, not better. Is it better to lazy-load styles for breakpoints other than the current one? Or should we rather load all the styles in one go? Are our intuitive assumptions about image dimensions, compression and resulting file size really correct?
All these things and more need careful consideration. And to yet further complicate things, there is also a careful balance to be struck between styling, images, slick functionality and site performance. A vanilla HTML page with no styles, JavaScript or images is likely to be fast indeed, but highly unlikely to achieve the aims of the client from a branding, design or user experience perspective. So more often than not decisions around performance are not simply a ‘development issue’ - they are deeply intertwined with the UX and design sides of the project.

Setting a budget

To help us make objective decisions around these sorts of issues on a recent project, we looked at the idea of having a total page size ‘budget’. Now this is certainly nothing revolutionary - and of course page size is only a small part of the performance puzzle - but using the ‘size budget’ as a touchstone throughout the UX and visual design process (as well as the dev process, of course) proved surprisingly helpful.
Suddenly discussions about what could or could not go in the design felt like conversations, rather than just the developer constantly saying “no!”. You want a huge header image at the top of the page? Sure. But that’s 100k of your budget used up, so you’ll have to lose a weight or two of web font to bring things back under the limit. Or maybe we can claw some of that back by removing the slider, and save on both JS and the extra images?
Deciding on the size of the budget is something that needs to be decided on a per-project basis, and will decide on many factors. Erring on the side of smaller rather than larger is always going to be better, but it’s important to be realistic with it too - it is hard to treat pie-in-the-sky numbers seriously because everyone will know that in all honesty they are never going to be hit.
The important point is to look at every decision, right through the design/build process, as something that has consequence. Having a pre-defined ‘budget’ is a clear, tangible way to frame decisions about what can and can’t be be included, and at a suitably early stage in the project. It can also potentially provide some justification to the client about why certain things have been omitted (or rather, swapped out for something else).

Performance is everyone’s problem

In our experience, the most effective way to build high quality responsive sites is to ensure tight collaboration between UX designer, visual designer and developer, to prototype early and go through small, quick iterations as a team to refine individual components and layouts. Using the concept of a size budget and making sure that everyone was involved in hitting that budget - right from the start - ensures that performance isn’t just seen as a ‘development problem’, but instead is rightfully viewed as something that needs to be considered holistically as the site takes shape.
We’ll certainly be using this again on future projects to help kickstart the performance thinking early on in the process.
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