When you're shaping a user experience, what tune do you sing — typography? Interaction affordances? Taxonomy? Keyword enrichment? Whether you're a designer, social media consultant, IA, SEO specialist, or PM, content strategy can help you more clearly understand your client's needs, articulate your approach, and align your tactical decisions with an overall brand-driven, user-centered message architecture. Here's how to make the case.
Presented by Margot Bloomstein (@mbloomstein) at Refresh Boston, December 8, 2009.
11. 11
Sorry…
If you’re watching this on
Slideshare, this was the point
in the talk where we all enjoyed
chocolate chip cookies.
As a metaphor and dessert.
12. 12
Planning for the creation,
aggregation, delivery, and
governance of useful,
usable, and appropriate
content in an experience.
What is content strategy?
15. 15
Designers
How do you visualize the
abstract without concrete
terms?
We need to look
traditional…
not conservative.
Make us look hip!
16. 16
Designers
How do you visualize the
abstract without concrete
terms?
We need to look
traditional…
not conservative.
Make us look hip!
More. Like. Apple.
23. 23
Budget?
Fewer rounds of creative
revision can more than pay
for content strategy-driven
concepting—especially if
your clients communicate
in words, not images.
24. 24
Budget?
Fewer rounds of creative
revision can more than pay
for content strategy-driven
concepting.
Design from the content out.
—Ian Alexander
34. 34
Strategists, IAs, & PMs
How do you budget by page
count if you don’t know
how many pages you need
to fully express your key
points or complete key
interactions?
36. 36
Thorough strategy
demands a quantitative and
qualitative content audit
• Conduct a head count
• Check for parity in length
and consistency in
structure
37. 37
Thorough strategy
demands a quantitative and
qualitative content audit
• Check currency,
relevancy, & accuracy to
the new message
architecture and brand
voice
38. 38
Content strategy
informs a more thorough,
comprehensive sitemap and
wireframes and more brand-
appropriate nomenclature
and calls to action.
40. 40
Content strategy
can help you identify other
content types—and can help
your client prepare for them,
gather testimonials, develop
case studies, etc.
41. 41
Budget?
Sell your client on not
wasting their money.
They invested in a new look
because they needed to say
something new, right?
43. 43
Writing is only one part of
content strategy.
It doesn’t raise the big
strategic questions.
Internal resources also don’t
offer a neutral, outside
perspective.
44. 44
SEO specialists
How do you write meta and
ad copy when the copy for
fulfillment and landing
pages keeps changing?
47. 47
Content strategy
can help you deliver higher
conversions.
• Map ad copy to evolving
communication goals in
the message architecture
48. 48
Content strategy
can help you deliver higher
conversions.
• Translate page titles and
descriptions for tone, not
just keywords, to better
fulfill brand promise
49. 49
Social media strategists
How do you get your client
to stop talking about
themselves and genuinely
engage?
And what’s an editorial
calendar anyway?
50. 50
Most organizations are determined
to talk about themselves instead of
interacting with audiences or
creating two-way content.
—Jeff Cutler
51. 51
Content strategy
can help you prioritize
the tenets of a message
architecture to ensure
consistency even in tweets.
52. 52
Content strategy
can inform editorial style
guidelines to support
writers with a consistent
voice and professional
multi-channel presence.
53. 53
Content strategy
can help you develop an
editorial calendar with
workflow to plan, create, and
expire content.
55. 55
Why do this?
• More air-tight solutions
• Save time, budget, and
energy on iteration
• More comprehensive,
cohesive user experiences
• Higher conversions
56. 56
Why do this?
• Get to “yes” more quickly
• Happier communication,
happier clients,
happier teams,
and happier users!
57. 57
Additional resources
• Twitter: #contentstrategy
• Content Strategy New England:
www.meetup.com/Content-Strategy-NE
• SXSW Content Strategy workshop track
• LinkedIn Content Strategy group (600+)
• ContentStrategy.com Google Group
• Content Strategy knol