The energy of content: harnessing its power using strategy
1. The energy of content:
harnessing its power using strategy
Kate Thomas
Content, Seriously: Real strategies for real content
21 January 2016
2. Content is the currency of digital
Literally – sites and apps make lots of
money
Figuratively – without content, digital is
a sad, grey place
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9. More than currency, content is digital’s who, what, why and when
No one would disagree with this. Everyone knows content is important
But why is it so hard?
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14. Taking this approach creates order,
harmony, satisfaction, a positive
atmosphere where people can
prosper
Get it wrong, and progress and
possibility is hamstrung. The world is
chaotic, inefficient, frustrating and
sad
15. As content strategists, if we recognize content as energy,
it gives us a framework we can use to guide clients
out of their digital confusion
17. So think about content in this way:
• Evergreen content is stored energy, energy that sits there fulfilling a quiet role
of a potential <something>
• Or the more eye-catching, moving energy of well written headlines, pull quotes,
compelling images, news items… that creates kinetic energy
18. Energy buzzes around content all the time.
• It can overwhelm people and
organisations
• Cognitive frameworks (plus systems
and processes) aren’t used to thinking
beyond the present and immediate
future
• The (almost) palpable frustrations
where people can’t see a way out of
their fog of confusion
But it’s also the positive energy that
fizzes when a project finally gets its
legs and things are coming together
20. Why content strategy, and content strategists?
Lots of people do content these days:
• (content) marketing
• SEO
• copywriters
• project managers
• account managers
• designers
21. To answer that, let’s step back in time.
Content wasn’t always this energetic or complex
Prior to 2007 and the iPhone, digital existed – for most people – on a desktop or
big laptop
• No apps
• No portability (as we know it now)
• No mobile (at scale)
There were big screens, limited interaction, no (well, not much) transactional content
24. In 2006…
• Publishing to a website = book/magazine publishing – one thing was published
at one time
• No always-on publishing – people weren’t connected 24/7 (remember, there’s no
real mobile/portability)
• We were still the experts (editors in chief, web editor, editor…)
• We understood publishing, how people read, how the message needed to be
structured for maximum effect
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27. The digital energy genie is out of
the bottle
Content strategy =
business strategy
Our collective content strategy
heads are above the parapet
And we need more than our good
word to justify our actions
28. So why content strategy and not:
• (content) marketing
• SEO
• copywriters
• project managers
• account managers
• designers
Because strategy.
Because:
• planning
• systems
• resources
• technology
30. Create a gap analysis, post-team brainstorm
to identify opportunities to leapfrog
competitors, top-performing content (via site
data) and requirements.
Then, we look at the competitive landscape to understand
benchmarks and how we can set them.
We try to understand organizational pain points and readiness and users’ online
behaviour, needs, frustrations etc.
What informs a holistic content strategy?
1 2
Begin development phase
Stakeholder interviews
User research
Competitive audit
Content audit
Next, we evaluate current content for quality or begin to
gather the raw material for scripts, articles, video,
and/or copy creation.
3
4
Content strategy
Develop a content strategy that makes
recommendations around formats, topics,
sourcing, distribution, delivery
mechanisms, tagging, etc.
Gap analysis
5
36. How are we going to use content’s energy for good?
• Measurement frameworks make content accountable
(and helps acknowledge the real costs – in money and time – of successful content)
• More than ever, we need infrastructure and tech to deliver content
(not at energy’s scale, but a useful analogy to recognize the realities of content today)
• We must align with UX and IA and tech
(on joint terms, not just theirs)
• And the sales department, marketing, customer service, engineering, the
warehouse… ALL areas of business
(because content and digital is too important to be left to the web team)
37. How does content strategy help…
Marketing
“I need a lot of content.”
•How does that content
support our agreed
audience/ brand
objectives?
•Editorial and publishing
plan
•Content distribution
CEO
“What’s the ROI?”
•Content is an asset
•How content moves
through organisation
•Governance
•Risk management
Courtesy Kristina Halverson, https://gathercontent.com/blog/how-to-explain-content-strategy-to-anyone
38. The future?
right content - right people - right time
The days of editing a page with a WYSIWYG editor are on their way out
Networked systems and databases, always the home of technical documentation,
are becoming the model for standard publishing
e.g. we have eBay that has shifted millions of pounds out of the retail economy into personal pockets.
But also figuratively…
Without content, we can’t be frivolous and procrastinate, losing hours in Internet time sinkholes
More seriously, we can&apos;t understand what&apos;s going on in the world, or learn.
And we can&apos;t get by.
To pay someone money and be paid a salary. To buy insurance, sign up for a gas or electricity account, apply for a visa, organise grocery deliveries, buy an airline ticket… everything today is assumed to happen online. And if it’s happening online, it’s happening with content.
Take away the content - how can governments and companies expect people to function?
Why is every content project unique? Why are they all singularly challenging? Why is it so rare that a client is on top of their content?
Because content is the energetic life force of digital.
And just like energy, if left uncontrolled, it&apos;s inefficient, expensive, and hamstrings and frustrates people and progress.
This is energy out of control and unchecked. A bushfire in Australia – very destructive. Yes, an extreme example of uncontrolled energy.
(The equivalent for content? Not easy to find. Donald Trump’s runaway hair and the path it might furrow in the US presidential campaign perhaps?!)
[bushfire image http://www.blacksaturdaybushfires.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Black-Saturday-Bushfire.png]
Less sensationally, energy can often just be wasted.
In an average house, particularly in the UK, unless specific preventative steps are taken, energy seeps out of the ceiling, walls and floor, resulting in increased energy use and higher bills.
[house - http://archinspections.com/nj-home-inspection-helpful-home-owner-information/nj-reduce-home-energy-bills/]
So what’s a better approach to managing energy?
Getting it right first takes planning. Every government has an energy policy.
This is a press release about the UK government’s vision for the UK’s energy system.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-direction-for-uk-energy-policy
Second, it needs systems and resources, infrastructure.
(Solar panels, such as these in Nevada, would be part of an overall energy plan or strategy.)
[solar panels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Nevada]
Third, it needs smart technology.
With energy - we&apos;re warm, well fed, able to function after the sun’s gone down.
Without it... well.
[energy efficient globes http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/domestic/energy-efficient-lighting]
There is sometimes the (almost) tangible energy in the meeting room of frustration and impotence when discussing a client’s content problems and it feels like there’s no way out. Problems seem insurmountable, the content can’t be tamed. This energy feels so real it’s as if you can almost reach out and grab it.
On the right, more positively, there’s also the energy that buzzes when things go right.
How are we going to make the most of this energy? Why, with content strategy of course!
And like any energy, to do its job it needs planning, systems, resources, technology
So to answer why content strategy... let&apos;s step back in time.
Mobiles did exist - but we used them to make calls.
Thanks to the WayBack machine, we can see exactly how the Internet looked 10 years ago.
Blocks, squares, no fluidity to the interface or experience. no swiping.
John Lewis’s site is a print brochure transformed onto the web - there’s no immediately obvious way to buy from the website. On second glance however, there is - but it’s a bit subtle. The top right nav has Your orders and Checkout. Web design circa 2006 isn’t about making it easy to transact; people had to click through several pages first. Amazon’s one-click purchase feels a long way from this page.
And Direct.gov, the precursor to Gov.uk is all about the links.
This is on its way to being user centred; the language and labels largely reflect people and their needs, not government departments. But the content hierarchy is flat - all information is equally important
Which of course meant we weren’t really in control. The content was just part of the story of understanding.
Marshall McLuhan 1964 image source: http://www.slideshare.net/annejo83/week-13-the-medium-is-the-message)
Happily, over the past few years publishing hurdles have tumbled, boundaries between tech and ux and content are dissolving and suddenly content, at last, is being treated as the star it always was.
[Hollywood walk of fame image http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Hollywood_Walk_of_Fame]
So how are we going to justify our decisions? Competition is tight - we have other disciplines nipping at our heels
Because we design the systems that help harness the energy of content.
And we do that via deliverables and artefacts. Let’s take a closer look at these now.
A content strategy – normally a PPT presentation. The culmination of research, insight, knowledge.
First, you start with interviews and user research - what is the problem you&apos;re trying to solve
Next - competitor review. Who&apos;s doing this well? Or badly? Doing this helps make a stronger case
Third - what content exists? Not just their website, but the whole digital ecosystem
Fourth - gap analysis. What&apos;s missing. By this point, you can start to spot the holes
Last but not least - the actual strategy, where you bring these four things together, tie them with your expertise and start making recommendations
This is an example of a plan to track page-level content changes during a site overhaul.
Columns J to O indicate intersection with related projects. Columns P to V indicate where a page is part of a user journey.
Column AA is a link to the related content brief for that page. In this project, briefs were managed using JIRA, the issue and project tracking tool.
On the left, a calendar showing activity for one quarter in five specific areas:
Information architecture changes
Design and component issues/updates
Content hygiene e.g. broken links
SEO
Content creation
On the right, the editorial calendar for CMS Wire for Jan-Aug 2016 showing the themes they’ll cover each month.
And a copy template, reflecting structured content fields that will be mapped to the templates in the CMS.
The cover sheet links through to related and supporting content.
These deliverables - and others - are used at different points in a content strategy process/project. To maximise effectiveness, they need to relate and link e.g. by using the same field names, file naming convention etc
Two resources I know of.
Both full of helpful advice and practical tools
Change is our salvation,
As well as the cost, there&apos;s also the loss in revenue and inefficiencies of trying to do content without systems in place
How content strategy helps
As we can see with the emergence of new tools such as GatherContent