Get strategy. Write content. Fly!
Much has been blogged and spoken about lately around the hottest new web topic to hit our shores; content strategy. But what is it? And, more to the point, do you really need it? The fact is that if your answer to either of those questions is “I don’t know”, then you obviously do.
What content strategy is
Content strategy, according to Kristina Halvorson of Brain Traffic, is “the practise of planning for the creation, delivery and governance of useful, usable content”. And, just as it sounds, it involves a lot of hard work and planning.
Firstly there’s the inventory: Do you know where everything is on your site and where it’s all kept? That’s what the inventory will tell you. It feeds into every other web discipline and will become the spine of your project.
Then there’s the planning, the documentation, the migration plans, content creation, the migration itself and finally the part that we all forget; your content aftercare and governance: who is looking after all of this carefully crafted and placed content after launch? If it’s nobody then you need to sort that out now. Having a manageable, robust content strategy in place should mean that you never have to.
Why social media can have a pat on the back
One of the biggest reasons that content is finally starting to command attention is thanks to social media. In general, we are all attracted to the newest, shiny thing. Some time in the early noughties, social media became that thing. But the problem is that just because you want a social media presence, it doesn’t mean that you always can, or should.
Social media knocked those unprepared for how massive a job it was to control completely sideways. The right resources were not in place and, as a consequence, those in charge of it (usually marketing personnel) began to flap. Enter the content strategist with their calendars and plans. Treating content for the web as if it was a publishing business, and with respect. Fancy that!
We are in the publishing business
It was Rachel Lovinger of Razorfish that crystallised this point at Content Strategy Manhattan Style a few weeks ago. She said that content is usually the mess at the eleventh hour. This is something that I have unfortunately experienced and I am sure that most other online professionals have had an issue with at one time or another.
The thing is however, that content is usually the main reason for delays and has massive knock-on effects and cost implications for the entire project when it gets left behind.
So why is content seen to be such a lowly, not-to-be-bothered with part of our web projects?
It baffles me, in spite of everything, how badly we all still treat our content. Halvorson says that this is simply because we have not yet realised that we are in the publishing business. There is no possible way that a magazine would treat content with the same contempt that we do online: it’s all far too often sloppy, out of date and poorly written. And this needs to stop.
Offline publishers know exactly what they want to say and when they want to say it, mostly months in advance. So there is absolutely no reason that we cannot do the same. And that’s where content strategy comes in.
We should treat our content as the valuable business asset that it is and not as a meaningless commodity. Then we will finally provide our users with useful, usable content. Which is what we all deserve to see on the web, isn’t it?
3 replies to “Get strategy. Write content. Fly!”
Angela, many thanks. This post truly made some light in my head. :)
Kudos!
[...] Get strategy. Write content. Fly! by Angela Barnard [...]
Hi! – Thanks for the comment! – It’s good to know that you enjoyed my post.