Creating a Visual Content Strategy that Scales | #IntelContent

@BuddyScalera • #intelcontent
Creating and Executing
Visual Content
Strategy
that Scales
Buddy Scalera
Sr. Dir. Content Strategy
The Medicines Company
The Annotated
Version!
Presented at the
Intelligent Content
Conference 2017.

Disclaimer
The views expressed here do not necessarily
reflect the views or opinions of my employer.
All views and examples are my own.
Important
disclaimer stuff.
Read me.

Hi.@BuddyScalera
BuddyScalera.com
WordsPicturesWeb.com
On Slideshare:
https://www.slideshare.net/buddyscalera
Presented at the Intelligent Content
Conference 2017,
March 30, 2017 in Las Vegas.
http://bit.ly/2nMwu2k

Journalism
Publishing/
Digital
Agency Life/
Digital
Manufacturing/
Digital
Health & Pharmaceuticals
Geek
Content
Career path.
It’s who I am.

@BuddyScalera • #intelcontenthttp://www.ComicBookSchool.com
Comic book
writing.

http://www.ComicBookSchool.com
Comic book
educator.

The web is a visual medium.
Pictures are visual.
Designs are visual.
Words are visual.
Humans are visual.

65% Identified as Visual Learners
65%
30%
5%
Visual Auditory Kinesthetic
Learning Styles of Medical Students -
Implications in Education
Curr Health Sci J. 2014 Apr-Jun; 40(2): 104–110.
http://bit.ly/2nEa064
We are visual learners.
http://bit.ly/2nEa064

30-60%60%
http://www.quora.com/How-much-of-the-brain-is-involved-with-vision
30%
http://discovermagazine.com/1993/jun/thevisionthingma227
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/brain-games/articles/brain-games-watch-this-perception-facts/
A significant portion of
the brain is involved in
visual processing.

We See Images (Really) Fast
13ms100ms
Approximately how
long it takes to
blink.
Neuroscientist Dr. Brad Wyble
(https://twitter.com/bradpwyble)
measured that the brain can
identify images seen for as little
as 13 milliseconds.
http://bit.ly/2oq3Qad

Three Things
1.Plan Consistently
2.COPE Mostly
3.Govern Ruthlessly
Visual content strategy is a
huge topic. It’s not practical to
explore the entire topic in 45
minutes. Instead, here are
some actionable tactics for
content strategists.

Three Things
1.Plan Consistently
2.COPE Mostly
3.Govern Ruthlessly

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTION
CONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER
Planning Consistently
for a User Journey
Content planning usually works best
when you start with a User Journey.
This is my structure for user journeys.
I wrote a 3-part series on how to
measure content along the user
journey:
http://bit.ly/2fu6FQ6

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTION
CONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER Plan for multiple content
resources. As your
customer/user moves along
their journey, their content
needs will evolve. There is no
magic image that answers
every question for every step
of the user journey.

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTION
CONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER
About
Features &
benefits
Comparison
Details
+
Actual
customers!
Qualified
leads
Tell a friend
These are the content types for
steps along the user journey.

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTION
CONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER
About.
Features &
benefits.
Comparison.
Details.
+Actual
customers!
Qualified
leads
Tell a friend.
Shopping for a crossover vehicle
may start with a Google search
with an appropriate keyword.
These ads and this content makes sense
for someone early in their user journey.
The basic, category-level keywords
indicates a basic search to collect
insights and filter results. These ads will
take the user to basic, high-level
content.
Google knows you want to
see cars at this stage of
your search.

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTION
CONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER
About
Features &
benefits
Comparison.
Details
+
Actual
customers!
Qualified
leads
Tell a friend
Screenshots made with Snagit:
These landing
pages have
different
personalities.
They all show
the cars, but
they send a
visual message
about their
product line.
Basic layout with
a stark white
background. No
frills, all
business.
Modern. White cars &
white type on a black
background. Serious
tech/performance.
High-end experience
photography. Aspirational
luxury story with the home
in context.

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTIONCONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER
About
Features &
benefits.
Comparison
Details.
+Actual
customers!
Qualified
leads.
Tell a friend.
It’s not easy for brands to do head-to-
head comparisons with their
competition. Third-party trust sites
supply this comparison. Brands may find
it hard to compete with this content.
Photo story:
We have clever
features.
Photo story:
This is a big,
comfortable car
that’s safe for
the family.

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTION
CONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER
About.
Features &
benefits.
Comparison.
Details.
+Actual
customers!
Qualified
leads
Tell a friend
Photo story:
You want this car. We have
unique colors to match your
unique personality.
Photo story:
If you buy this car, our
dealership can service
your vehicle with the right
parts and trained service
professionals.

SEEKER
ACTIVE
SOLUTION
CONSIDER EVANGELIST
PRE
SEEKER
About.
Features &
benefits.
Comparison.
Details.
+Actual
customers!
Qualified
leads.
Tell a friend.
Photo story:
People are never happier with their car than the day they pick it up. Everyone
tells their friends. These car dealers fail to be part of this celebration, so they
get no value or lift from social media evangelism. A missed opportunity!

What’s this “COPE” thing?
Create
Once
Publish
Everywhere
(2009)http://www.npr.org/sections/inside/2009/02/clean_content_portable_content.html
COPE was a
revolutionary
concept in 2009.

Learning to COPE
• Build content management
systems
– Not web publishing tools
• Separate content from display
• Ensure content modularity
• Ensure content portability
(2009)
http://bit.ly/2n1P1uf
http://bit.ly/2ntTWzn
And it was a content
engineering problem.

are not
the
same.
Text &
images
Truth Bomb.

COPE-M (COPE Mostly)
Text
•Inherit style
•Flow to fit the
container
•Easy to change
Images
•Maintain design
•Scale to fit the
container
•Not as easy to
change
Awkwardly
pronounced
“Copum.”

Microsoft (2017)
http://bit.ly/2neM4F5
Plan ConsistentlyScreen sizes as of
this minute.
Microsoft!

My kids. Their dog.
Desktop size.
Tablet size.

Responsive Art Direction
<head>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
</head>
<picture>
<source media="(max-width: 499px)" srcset="responsivegirlsdog/GirlsDog_200w.jpg">
<source media="(max-width: 799px)" srcset="responsivegirlsdog/GirlsDog_400w.jpg">
<source media="(min-width: 800px)" srcset="responsivegirlsdog/GirlsDog_800w.jpg">
<img src="responsivegirlsdog/GirlsDog_800w.jpg" alt="Girls source at 800w"/>
</picture>
http://bit.ly/2n93Bgj Screenshots made with Snagit:
Meta tag in the
Head for viewport.
Picture tag displays
different images at
different viewport
sizes.
Available here.

154k 79k 36k
File sizes. File sizes. File sizes.
Sometimes
COPE is fine.
Sometimes
scaling your
image works.
Sometimes
you want
more control
over how
your content
renders.
http://bit.ly/2n93Bgj

http://bit.ly/2nuAKlg Screenshots made with Snagit:
Available here.

For desktops this is fine.
You may want to get it
smaller for mobile
devices.
If your page loads this
image a thousand times a
day or more, you can save a
lot of bandwidth with
smaller images.

Three Things
1.COPE Mostly
2.Plan Consistently
3.Govern Ruthlessly

Governance
• File storage
• File naming
• Template management
• Life cycle management
• Usage (e.g., saying no!)
Just because you can add images,
doesn’t mean you should.
Governance means that you have
to help your team make the best
decision for the user you’re serving
with your content. Sometime that
means you have to say ”no.”

When is
it?
Where is
it?
Who is
it?
What would I expect to see
here? Photos of the thought
leaders who are speaking.
That would get me excited
to register for the event.
There was only a single line
of text here. It didn’t even
include the date or location.

Oh.
I had to blur out these
images, but they were just
logos of companies, not
people. We go see people
speak. Even if they
represent companies, we
see people on a stage.
Show human faces, not just
logos to make a human
connection.
Vital date and location
information was locked in an
image. Sure, they got some
data that I opened the
email, but it wasn’t a very
good user experience. I had
to work to get information
that should have been easy.

There was another image
that had to load…this
Register Now button at the
bottom of the email.

Send email,
not a
mini website.
In this email, there was text. It wasn’t
formatted. It didn’t include images. It
sounded like an actual email from an
actual human. Not only did it look good
on a smartphone, it looked good in my
Inbox. It was an email that looked like an
email, not like a miniature website.

Three Things
1.COPE Mostly
2.Plan Consistently
3.Govern Ruthlessly
#MakeContent
If you work in Content Strategy,
you should make content. Don’t
just make content for your job,
make content for yourself.

Thank You.
Buddy Scalera
Sr. Dir. Content Strategy
The Medicines Company
#MakeContent

Appendix
The following slides were not
included in the presentation.
You may find them useful.

Special Thanks to a Great Team
Thank you to Content Marketing Institute for the opportunity to share this story at ICC 2017.
• Joe Kalinowski
• Michele Linn
• Kelley Whetsell
• Wally Koval
Joe Pulizzi | Robert Rose
• Andrea Larick
• Marcia Riefer Johnston
• Cathy McPhillips
• Monina Wagner
• Pam Kozelka
• Stephanie Stahl
• Peter Loibl
• Jodi Harris

Links You’ll Love
• Conflict Is Story: What It Means for Marketing Storytellers
http://wordspicturesweb.com/2015/01/24/conflict-is-story/
• How Tigers Influenced Your Visual Processing
• http://wordspicturesweb.com/2016/07/30/boxes-tiger/
• Movie Poster Creates JAWS-Dropping Visual Storytelling Lessons
• http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/08/jaws-visual-storytelling-lessons/
• Say No to Stock Photography and Create Authentic Images
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/06/create-authentic-images/
• What Keeps Brilliant Visual Content From Being Shared
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2014/04/brilliant-visual-content-sharing-barriers/

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