Content and communications
Where the twain should meet


Diana Railton

IABC France
www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-misunderstood-lines-in-literary-history.php
Key points


Content supports communications
Content takes communications forward
Multi-skilled digital teams
Integrated strategies
Cross-organisational collaboration
1   Content and content strategy
2   Communications
3   Communications and content strategy
4   Digital teams and governance
1 Content and content strategy
„I have difficulty with the
concept of content –
it smacks of a term coined in
desperation to describe a
disparate and amorphous
group of extraordinarily different                   http://mikeduran.com


concepts and products with the
idea of somehow “bucketizing” it
(thank you, America)...‟
Jeremy Probert, Corporate Communications Director,
in his blog The Wordmonger
What is content?


„A hairy, complicated beast‟

Kristina Halvorson
What is content?


„A hairy, complicated beast‟

Kristina Halvorson
What is content?


‘Anything that conveys
information to humans‟

Erin Kissane
What is content?


„Business-critical content‟

„Relationship content‟

Rahel Bailie and Noz Urbina
What is content?


„Content is story.
And content strategy is
story telling.‟

Prateek Sarkar
former director of user experience, Walt Disney
at Confab 2011
What is content?


Anything that goes into a communication
channel
Multi-channels,
platforms and
devices




                                        www.slideshare/KMcGrane/
                  adapting-ourselves-to-adaptive-content-12133365
www.tobstar.com.au/images/responsive_diagram.png
Curtesy Google
Wikipedia comms
Multi-devices

Create once, publish everywhere

COPE
‘Intelligent content’ helps you COPE
What is intelligent content?

‘Content that is structurally rich
and semantically categorized,
and is therefore automatically
discoverable, reusable,
reconfigurable, and adaptable‟

Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper
What is content strategy?
Strategic multi-channel corporate publishing
What is content strategy?

‘Content strategy is an emerging field of practice
encompassing every aspect of content, including
its design, development, analysis, presentation,
measurement, evaluation, production,
management, and governance.‟

Former Google Knol on content strategy
What is content strategy?

„Content strategy is the practice of planning for
the creation, delivery and governance of
useful, usable content.‟

Kristina Halvorson
CORPORATE
 WEBSITE
Kristina Halvorson
„Organizations invest tremendous resources on
developing the framework for a great user
experience – fabulous design, robust content
management infrastructure.

Yet when it comes to the content itself, there‟s
often a gap.

The end result is that the value proposition for
customers can‟t be delivered...‟
Rahel Bailie
IPG.book.com
A repeatable system
Plan




Measure                       Create
              Content
              strategy



     Govern              Deliver
Governance

 Centralised
 publishing




  Devolved
 publishing
Content marketing
Corporate publishing
Corporate journalism
 Brand journalism
  Branded media
   Brand content
  Branded content
 Inbound marketing
Customer publishing
 Custom publishing
What is content marketing?

Creating and distributing valuable content to
attract, engage and acquire customers

* communicating without selling
* information to make buyer more intelligent
* brand loyalty

Adapted from the Content Marketing Institute
B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, budgets, and trends,
Content Marketing Institute
Econsultancy, Sept 2012
www.searchnewsmedia.co.uk
www.searchnewsmedia.co.uk
Unified content strategy
2 Communications
THE COMMUNICATIONS PROFESSION
Marketing comms
Brand management
Advertising
Public relations / reputation management / media relations
Investor relations
Government relations
Advocacy comms
Internal comms / employee engagement
Publications
Events
Corporate social responsibility
Change management / crisis comms
Digital comms
Channel management, websites, intranets, social media ...
Community management
Content
+++
Photo: billjacobus
Photo: timpeartrice
68,000 members
‘The Never-Ending
Turf War between
PR and Marketing’
Call for integrated communications


„If we persist in this argument, we will never be
able to set in place a sound communications
strategy‟
Call for integrated communications


„United we stand, divided we fall‟
INTEGRATED
COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
‘... the opportunities and complexities of
content are forcing divisions together in
efforts to avoid duplication, neglect, and
conflict.’
Julia Hood, PR Week US, April 2012
‘So much of the digital land-grab has focused
on execution. In the case of content,
communications has an opportunity,
virtually a mandate, to be its true strategic
leader.’

Julia Hood, PR Week US, April 2012
Corporate communications is broader than PR
Corporate communications

A system that enables organizations to strategically
orchestrate and manage all types of external and
internal communications
en.wikipedia.org
COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
Wikimedia
Commons
Business Leaders in
Communications Study 2012

„The most comprehensive overview of the
function, structure and role of corporate
communications today and in the future‟



95 comms directors, FTSE companies
Business Leaders in Communications Study 2012
VMA Group
1 in 10 failed to see the relevance of social media




                                                      Wikimedia Commons
Are corporate comms departments
behind the digital times?
NEW DIGITAL MODEL OF
COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
NEW DIGITAL MODEL OF
COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT

Less formal messaging
More social and collaborative
http://community-roundtable.com/2009/06/the-community-maturity-model/
Community Maturity Model
              Stage 1       Stage 2       Stage 3                  Stage 4
              Hierarchy     Emergent      Community                Network
                            community


Leadership    Command and   Consensus     Collaborative            Distributed
              control


Content and   Formal and    Some user-    Community-               Integrated
programming   structured    generated     created content          formal, user-
                            content                                generated and
                                                                   community-
                                                                   created content

                                         Adapted from www.communityroundtable.com
Wikimedia
Commons PD-USGOV-NASA
http://p.twimg.com
3 Communications and content
         strategy
THE STRATEGY DEPARTMENT?




       Alan Sugar
Business strategy

                                            external and internal
Communications strategy                      comms strategies
                                                + digital strategy


       Content strategy                        publishing / editorial
                                             audiences, goals, issues
plan for creating, delivering, governing,        brand messaging
           measuring content                       tone of voice
                                            globalisation, localisation +
           repeatable system
                                             information architecture /
     Channel strategies                           user experience
                                               content management
           + digital strategy                    search, metadata,
                                              accessibility, design, IT



                                                Return on
 Auditing             Measurement
                                               investment
Business strategy



Communications                           Content
strategy Content                         strategy
                                          Channel
         strategy                         strategies




                      Digital strategy




             One unified content strategy
INTEGRATED
                                STRATEGIES




http://masdenglish.tripod.com
4 Digital teams and governance
www.toledoblade.com
Digital teams

New:

Boards
Steering committees
Units
Roles
www.digital-workplace-trends.com
The digital board
Strategic decision-making, leadership, coordination




            The digital board



  Internal and external communication channels
Digital Board: model 1                           CEO



                         Owner


Senior / middle
  managers



                                 Dedicated team
                             Issues - needs - strategies
                                   implementation


                                 Adapted from digital-workplace-trends.com
                                                                  Wikimedia Commons
Digital Board: model 2
                             CEO



                         Digital Board                          Official
                                                                decision-
                    Senior / middle managers                    making




                    Operational Board
                                                               Group
                   Operational representatives
                                                               consensus



                                   Adapted from digital-workplace-trends.com
Digital customer
experience:
governance
roles and
responsibilities

Forrester, 2013
The digital
centre of excellence
Marketing and
  communications
      teams



Digital / content teams
 in other departments
Jeremiah Owyang, Survey of 140 corporate social strategists, Altimeter Group, 2010



                                                                                     www.altimetergroup.com
20%   42%         35%


      Digital centre of excellence




                                     http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports
Digital Marketing
Organisational Structures
and Resourcing,
Econsultancy
2011

http://econsultancy.com/uk/reports
CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER?
CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER?
A combined team
                  Strategy
                  Goals
                  Audiences
                  Brand messages
                  Tone of voice
                  Channel selection

                  Content planning
                  Content creation
                  Content delivery
                  Content governance
                  Content monitoring
                  Content measurement
Strategy
                  Team
                  work
        Process


Digital
technology
MERCI!

@dianarailton

diana.railton@drcc.co.uk

www.drcc.co.uk

© DRCC 2013
All rights reserved

Content and communications where the twain should meet

Editor's Notes

  • #4 Twain derives from the Old English twegen, meaning two. The phrase never the twain shall meet was used by Rudyard Kipling, in his Barrack-room ballads, 1892:"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."There, Kipling is lamenting the gulf of understanding between the British and the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent. It may well be that he coined the phrase - at least, I can't find an earlier citation of it in print.
  • #9 Stronger multi-skilled teams to meet organisation’s business goals
  • #63 many comms departments now are called corporate communications departments.
  • #66 The person with the 360 degree knowledge of all the different functions who can bash everyone’s heads together and sort out all this mess!Must be strong leadership at top to sort out the power struggles. Power struggles get in the way of business objectives.
  • #73 1 in 10 failed to see the relevance of social mediaJust another comms channelWaste of timeFlash in the panAnd those who did saw no priority to recruit accordingly, just use what they have
  • #76 And collaboration
  • #77 And collaboration
  • #95 17% of organizations have a fully functional digital board = about 78Business functions play a much larger role as members of this bodyIntranet, websites, social media, .collaborative spacesDecision making must be based on knowledge and expertise, not powerHIPPO – highest paid person in organisation decides what goes on home page
  • #97 Digital Boards with high-level senior participation are less common than 12 months ago
  • #99 Can combine a digital board and a digital centre of excellence