1. A Crash Course in
Content Strategy
A workshop at the
School of Visual Concepts
March 2, 2012
Your host: James Callan
@scarequotes

2. (This workshop stands on the
blog posts and books of giants.)

3. Introductions!
Who are you?
What brings you here?
What’s a website that has good content?
What do you like about it?

4. People don’t visit your site
to see amazing design.

5. People don’t visit your site
for a great user experience.

6. They want your content.

7. “Like a gentleman in a finely crafted suit
who wants to burp you the alphabet,
even if your website looks nice, no one
will stick around to hear what
you have to say if you don’t
craft something compelling.”
Jason Santa Maria
@jasonsantamaria
http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/the-elements-
of-content-strategy/

8. (Note: user experience, design,
and the other things that make up
your website are also important.
This isn’t a contest.)

9. Content is not a nice-to-have.
Content is not an add on.
It’s a business asset.
It has value.

10. Because ...
it brings you customers,
wins you fans,
builds you an audiences,
and earns you money.

11. It’s also a lot of work,
if you want to do it well.

12. U.S. Findings: Web Use +
Perceptions of Content Credibility

13. “You are all in publishing!”
Jeffrey Zeldman,
king of the web
http://www.zeldman.com/2011/03/15/web-design-is-publishing/

14. You need to get it right.
Enter content strategy.

15. What is content strategy?

16. First word: What is content?

17. “In the web industry, anything that conveys meaningful
information to humans is called ‘content.’”
Erin Kissane
@kissane
The Elements of Content Strategy

18. “Content is contextualized data.”
Rahel Bailie
@rahelab
“A Practical Definition of Content”

19. “Content is anything an organization
or individual creates and shares
to tell their story.”
Ann Handley
@marketingprofs

20. illustrations images
tweets
help articles navigation
words
photos
audio
slideshows
interface copy
podcasts Facebook posts
blog posts infographics comments
cartoons video
white papers error messages

21. (It’s not just words.)

22. Word two: What is strategy?

23. It’s a plan for getting stuff done
in order to achieve a goal.

24. “Wikipedia’s strategy was creating
a set of rules that got people to generate
more than 18 million articles.”
Erika Hall
@mulegirl

25. Put ’em together:
What is content strategy?

26. “Content strategy for the web is about bringing
editorial skill and methods into website planning. In
order to create good content, you need a plan for
how you’re going to get it and keep it coming.”
Elizabeth McGuane
@emcguane
http://mappedblog.com/2010/10/04/fear-loathing-
and-content-strategy/

27. “Content strategy is to copywriting
as information architecture is to design.”
Rachel Lovinger
@rlovinger
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/content-strategy-the

28. “I am a firm believer that content strategy
is communication design.”
Nicole Jones
@nicoleslaw
http://swellcontent.tumblr.com/post/4072864686/
demystifying-content-strategy-part-i-the-term

29. “Content is story.
Content strategy is storytelling.”
Prateek Sarkar
Director, Creative Services
Walt Disney Parks and Resorts

30. That’s a broad range of answers.
Content strategy is a broad field.
Practitioners come at it from different
perspectives, and tend to specialize.

31. Where do content strategists come from?
From “Apes of Wrath,” a Warner Bros. short.

33. Is content strategy UX?

34. You can’t create a great user experience
around bad content.

35. Without content strategy,
it breaks down.

36. There’s overlap.
But they’re not the same thing.

37. “Content strategy helps organizations use content
to achieve their business goals.”
Melissa Rach
@melissarach

38. “(God help a business if UX isn’t one of
their business goals, but helping the user
isn’t an inherent part of content strategy).”
Melissa Rach
@melissarach

39. It’s not only user experience.

40. Is content strategy marketing?
(Marketers have been very excited
to talk content strategy!)

41. Content strategy
vs.
content marketing.

42. Content strategy:
The plan. The big picture.

43. Content marketing:
The execution.

44. Content marketing:
Branded content that helps you
differentiate yourself and make sales.
Content that sold gum:

45. Content strategy is not only user
experience.
It’s not only marketing.

46. It’s also data modeling.
And product design.
And change management.
And social media.
And editorial.
And content management.
And information architecture.
And content development.
And other stuff.

47. Different content strategists
have different specialties.

48. Front-end content strategy
What your audience sees and
experiences. It includes:
• User experience content strategy
• Marketing and editorial content strategy

49. Back-end content strategy
This is how to make the content work
well. It includes:
• "Intelligent" content
• Content governance and operations

50. (That breakdown courtesy of Kathy Hanbury.)
@kathyhanbury

51. The benchmark definition:

52. “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication,
and governance of useful, usable content.”
Kristina Halvorson,
Content Strategy for the Web

53. Creation:
Who’s providing your content?

54. Publication:
How are you getting your content to users?

55. Governance:
When do you add, update, and archive content?

56. Useful:
How does this content benefit you?
How does it benefit your user?

57. Usable:
Can people find, consume, and act on your content?

58. What makes good content?

59. “Good content” is in the eye of the
beholder. Ultimately, your users decide.

60. What are your goals?
What is your content supposed
to achieve for you?

61. “There’s really only one central principle of good
content: it should be appropriate for your
business, for your users, and for its context.
Appropriate in its method of delivery, in its style
and structure, and above all in its substance.”
Erin Kissane
@kissane
The Elements of Content Strategy

62. Good content is:
• Appropriate
• Useful
• User-centered
• Clear
• Consistent
• Concise
• Supported
Erin Kissane again. Seriously, read her book.

63. How do you know
if your content is good?
Inventory and audit.

64. Inventory: What content do we have?

65. Audit: What content do we need?

66. The content inventory:
The cornerstone of any
successful content strategy!

67. The content inventory

68. Yes.
It really is a massive spreadsheet
documenting your entire site.

69. How do you do a content inventory?
Click each link on your site.
Document what you find.

70. Things often tracked in a content inventory:
• Page ID/number
• URL
• Page Title
• Parent
• Page Description
• Components
• SEO Information (metadata, keywords)
• Who inside the organization owns that content.

71. The inventory is quantitative.
What’s on the site?

72. Followup: the content audit.
That’s qualitative: How good is what you’ve got?

73. Basic audit: ROT analysis.
Look for content that’s:
Redundant
Outdated or
Trivial

74. More thorough audits can track all kinds of qualities.
Is content on brand?
Is it clear?
Is it meeting customer needs?
Is it in a usable format?
(There are many possible measures.)

75. EXERCISE #1:
Let’s evaluate some website content.

76. Step one: Let’s do user analysis on ourselves.

77. (Note: in the real world, this is a bad idea.)

78. “We cannot advocate for those whom we do not know—
or, even worse, those whom we assume we know.”
Corey Vilhauer
@mrvilhauer

79. You’re scoping out a food truck’s website.
What content would be useful and usable?

80. Business goals:
Ideally, we’d talk to the business owner.
If you owned a food truck,
what would you want your website
to do for you?

81. SPLIT INTO TEAMS OF TWO
I’ll give each team a food truck’s website.
Your job: Perform a quick inventory.
How much content is on the site?

82. And a quick analysis: Is it useful and usable,
based on our goals? Check for ROT:
redundant, outdated, or trivial content.

83. WORTH CONSIDERING:
Does the content work on mobile?
Are they linking to Facebook or Twitter or
Yelp, and if so, are those up to date?

84. Spend a half hour on your analysis.
Then prepare a quick overview: How’s the
site’s content? What needs fixing?

85. Present:
• Three words that capture the food truck’s
voice. What makes it distinct?
• Three recommendations for how content
(new, deleted, changed) could improve the site.

86. And we’re back.

87. So we’ve identified problems.
Now what?

88. Remember the nutshell:
1. What content do we have?
2. What content do we need?
3. Fill the gap: edit, create & curate.

89. Erin Kissane’s even shorter breakdown:
1. Evaluate.
2. Design.
3. Execute.

90. One thing to keep in mind:
Content strategy is a process. It’s a cycle.
It never really ends.

92. Content strategy is a web design discipline.
Content experts should be involved
from the beginning of a web design project.
(Some would argue “content first.”)

93. It’s not a perfect world, of course,
so that doesn’t always happen.

94. “The end goal is not great content.
It’s a great thing.”
Erika Hall
@mulegirl
From her Confab presentation.

95. More evaluation tools:

96. Stakeholder interviews

97. Talk to everyone involved with the
content, preferably one-on-one, about
what they need and want from the
site’s content.

98. The goal is to get an idea of how
content works within the organization.

99. ASK QUESTIONS.
(Go with the classics: who, what, when,
where, why, and how.)

100. Who’s supplying the content?
Who is the target audience?
Who’s maintaining the content?

101. What content do we need?

102. When will we publish?

103. Where will we publish?
(Our site, email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

104. How will all of this get done?

105. And a big one, especially in discovery:
WHY?
Why do we need a blog?
Why do we need a Twitter feed?
Why aren’t we using a CMS?
Etc.

106. Once you’re done evaluating, it’s time
to design.
Some tools you might use to do so:

107. Message Architecture
What are your key messages?
How are you delivering them?
Does your audience believe you?

108. Your message architecture is
independent of form.
It’s not a tagline, or a mission
statement, or a video.
It’s communication goals.
Specific terminology.

109. illustrations images
tweets
help articles navigation
words
photos
audio
slideshows
interface copy
podcasts Facebook posts
blog posts infographics comments
cartoons video
white papers error messages

110. Editorial Style Guide
What’s our tone?
Which dictionary do we consult?
Do we use the serial comma?

111. Editorial process
Who’s creating our content?
How do we decide it’s good enough?
How do we evaluate its effectiveness?

112. Content Template
(a.k.a. Page Table)
What needs to go on each kind of
page? Includes both visible and invisible
content. Accompanies site map and
wireframes. Communication bridge
between subject matter experts and
writers.

113. Content Template
(example #1)
http://intentionaldesign.ca/2011/02/22/writing-templates/

114. Content Template
(example #2)
The Elements of Content Strategy

115. Content Template
(example #2, continued)
The Elements of Content Strategy

116. Editorial Calendar
How do we decide when to publish?
(Tweet twice a day? Update home page
when new products launch? Respond
to holidays? Respond to news events?
How quickly? Etc.)

117. There are more tools.
content matrices
content modeling
accessibility guidelines
SEO analysis
taxonomy
personas
competitive analysis
wireframes

118. Not every project requires every tool.

119. And content strategy is not, ultimately,
about learning a particular tool. The
tools help the process, but they’re not
the point of the process.

120. Also, not every project is a site-wide
redesign. Content strategy works on a
project-by-project basis.

121. ONE MORE THING ...
Governance!
How content strategy
plays out over time.

122. “If IA is the spatial side of information,
I see content strategy as the temporal side
of the same coin.”
Louis Rosenfeld
@louisrosenfeld

123. “When I look at where most websites fail, it’s in
managing their content over time.”
Karen McGrane
@karenmcgrane

124. Consultants and agencies:
People want to hear from you!
Yay, buy-in! But you don’t get to be
there for the long haul.

125. In-house:
Buy in can be a major challenge!
But you know the brand and business
goals, and you are there for the long
haul.

126. Content strategy is not a quick fix.
It’s a long process. One reason
content is valuable is because it’s
messy, and difficult, and requires a lot
of resources.

127. To keep your content working:
Track when content will need to be
archived or updated.
Use the editorial calendar.
Use a rolling audit.
Budget time to get that done.

128. Whatever your approach and your
background, learn about the other
areas of content strategy.

130. “It’s about seeing structures through the lens of
meaning and storytelling, and building relationships
across disciplines so that our databases reflect this
richness and complexity.”
Sara Wachter-Boettcher
@sara_ann_marie

131. “People’s capacity for bullshit is rapidly diminishing.
We need to respect people’s time and give them
relevant, purposeful content without the extra
cruft.”
Brad Frost
@brad_frost

132. “We should eliminate distractions for
people. If they came to read, turn the light
on and let them read. If they want to learn,
give them a quiet place to study. Whatever
they’re after, help them do it in peace. Make
it readable, watchable, and hearable—and
keep the ads out of the way.”
Nicole Jones
@nicoleslaw

133. Content strategy helps make the
web a better place.

134. I’m tired of yammering.
I know you’ve got questions. Shoot!

135. Resources:
I’ll post a bibliography and links and stuff on my blog:
http://scarequot.es
Come to a meetup with Content Strategy Seattle!
http://www.meetup.com/Content-Strategy-Seattle/
Join the Google Group, or LinkedIn discussion groups.
Follow smart people on Twitter.
Content strategists are a friendly, helpful group. (I think
it’s a job requirement.)

136. THANK YOU
Remember to fill out your evaluation.
Don’t forget to write.
james@scarequot.es
http://scarequot.es
Twitter: @scarequotes