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Content Strategy 101
- 3. Agenda 9a: Introductions 9:15a Why content strategy? How to advocate for content What if it’s me? How-To: The tools 10:30a Break 10:45a Return 11:45a Questions?
- 4. Right now: >Your name >What you do >Why content?
- 16. Not just articles. Not just text. Not just pages.
- 24. Ange Engag r e Entertai Infor n Persuad m Amus e e Scare
- 25. Not just information. Communicating emotion.
- 27. Who is content for?
- 29. s
- 30. s People Custome Boaters Ohio rs Gardener s grad s Audience class 18-34 of ’72 Preteen girls Users Keurig owners Moms
- 31. How to advocate for content
- 33. Writers Author sPodcaster sVideographe rsGraphic Photograph artists ers
- 34. Writers Author sPodcaster sVideographe rsGraphic Photograph artists ers
- 35. Editor Writers Author s s Podcaster sVideographe rsGraphic Photograph artists ers
- 36. Editor Writers Author Marketer s ssPodcaster sVideographe rsGraphic Photograph artists ers
- 37. Editor Writers Author Marketer s ssPodcaster Product Videographe smanagers rsGraphic Photograph artists ers
- 38. Editor Writers Author Marketer s ssPodcaster Product Videographe smanagers UX designers Graphic rs Photograph artists ers
- 39. Editor Writers Author Marketer s ssPodcaster Product Videographe smanagers UX designers Graphic rs Programmers Photograph artists ers
- 40. Editor Writers Author Marketer s ssPodcaster Product Videographe smanagers UX designers Graphic rs Programmers Photograph artists C-Suite The ers
- 41. Editor Writers Author Marketer s ? ssPodcaster Product Videographe smanagers UX designers Graphic rs Programmers Photograph artists C-Suite The ers
- 44. Business Production Strateg Operatio Design Analytics Developme Revie Testing Upgrade
- 45. Business Production Strateg E N T Operatio O N T Analytics C Design ! Revie Developme Testing Upgrade
- 46. The 11th-hour shitstorm McGrane —With thanks to Karen
- 47. What if it’s me?
- 48. How to talk about content* *The what-not-to-do edition
- 49. “I need a bigger budget.”
- 50. “I need a bigger team.”
- 51. “I need you to care as much as I do.”
- 54. But we’re not in the content business.
- 55. “Embrace that you are a publisher.” Content Officer at Chief —Ann Handley, MarketingProfs
- 56. “The one with the most engaging content wins.”Joe Pulizzi, — Content Marketing Institute
- 59. Great content is a business asset.
- 60. How-To
- 61. “Content strategy guides your plans for the creation, delivery and governance of content.” Halvorson and Melissa —Kristina Rach, Content Strategy for the Web
- 65. Get more customers Make more money
- 66. Get more customers Make more money Increase spend/cart 5% Decrease time-to-repeat- purchase 5% Get 10,000 people to contact senators
- 67. What’s the business goal?
- 70. More on audience understanding Killer Web Content [Gerry McGovern] The Yahoo! Style Guide Letting Go of the Words [Ginny Redish]
- 72. What are our user stories?
- 73. Susie has never been to a conference like this. She wants to convince her boss to give her time off and pay for it.
- 74. Susie has never been to a conference like this. She wants to convince her boss to give her time off and John came last year and had a pay for it. blast. He wants to sign up right now.
- 75. Susie has never been to a conference like this. She wants to convince her boss to give her time off and John came last year and had a pay for it. blast. He wants to sign up right now. Preston is trying to raise his profile. He’d like to apply to speak.
- 76. Susie has never been to a conference like this. She wants to convince her boss to give her time off and John came last year and had a pay for it. blast. He wants to sign up right now. Preston is trying to raise his profile. He’d like to apply to speak. It’s 5/31 and Jan can’t remember what time things start tomorrow.
- 77. Susie has never been to a conference like this. She wants to convince her boss to give her time off and John came last year and had a pay for it. blast. He wants to sign up right now. Preston is trying to raise his profile. He’d like to apply to speak. It’s 5/31 and Jan can’t remember what time things start tomorrow.
- 78. Our stuff: What do we have?
- 85. Qualitative audit ? ? ? Quantitative audit Inventory Matrix
- 86. Inventory
- 87. Inventory you’ve *List what got
- 89. Site crawlers
- 90. Site crawlers Export from CMS
- 91. Site crawlers Export from CMS Copy-paste, copy- paste
- 93. What to put on the spreadsheet
- 94. Handout: Page 2 Inventory Items There’s no “one right list” of information to capture in a content inventory and audit. These are some things you should consider, depending on your business goals and the state of your content. • Index number [You create] • URL [if applicable] • Headline • Content summary [or content if short] • If page-based: Navigation information • Template • Supplements [Image, audio, video, PDF, etc.] • Sharing/other tools available • Analytics • If audio or video: File type, length, file size, format • If image: File type, dimensions, file size • If PDF: File size • Restricted to certain audience? • If public: SEO information: Browser title, keywords • And more!
- 95. Handout: Page 1 Content Inventory ID URL Headline
- 96. Right now: >Work with your group >Start an inventory >Chunks or pages? >Capture several items
- 97. Now we know:
- 102. Simple: Pick one
- 103. Simple: Pick one More: Think about industry-specific usage
- 104. Simple: Pick one More: Think about industry-specific usage Customize: Add organization- specific info
- 105. Why?
- 110. consisten funny t serious helpful reserved snarky innovativ irreveren e t
- 112. MidwestUX.com reaches out to designers, developers and others interested in the user experience. Our tone is collegial and professional. We convey eagerness to learn.
- 115. We say...Register today. We don’t say...Yo! It’s the hottest ticket in the Midwest! Get yours now. [too slangy]
- 116. We say...Register today. We don’t say...Yo! It’s the hottest ticket in the Midwest! Get yours now. [too slangy] We say...MidwestUX means top- notch speakers and networking.
- 117. We say...Register today. We don’t say...Yo! It’s the hottest ticket in the Midwest! Get yours now. [too slangy] We say...MidwestUX means top- notch speakers and networking. We don’t say...MidwestUX attendees find that the networking and speakers are beyond compare. [too stilted, passive]
- 120. Internet or internet? email, e-mail, E-mail, what??
- 121. Internet or internet? email, e-mail, E-mail, what?? attendees, registrants, participants, MWUXers? [If the latter, how do we say it?]
- 122. Internet or internet? email, e-mail, E-mail, what?? attendees, registrants, participants, MWUXers? [If the latter, how do we say it?] 615.500.4131, 615-500-4131, (615) 500-4131? What about the 1- ?
- 123. Internet or internet? email, e-mail, E-mail, what?? attendees, registrants, participants, MWUXers? [If the latter, how do we say it?] 615.500.4131, 615-500-4131, (615) 500-4131? What about the 1- ? Should we call out time zone in copy?
- 124. Internet or internet? email, e-mail, E-mail, what?? attendees, registrants, participants, MWUXers? [If the latter, how do we say it?] 615.500.4131, 615-500-4131, (615) 500-4131? What about the 1- ? Should we call out time zone in copy? Should we mention that prices are in USD?
- 126. Is it the right content?
- 127. Is it any good?
- 128. How to rate
- 130. Really important!
- 131. Rate facets.
- 133. What else?
- 134. Gap analysis
- 141. Wireframe
- 144. Wireframe ? ? ? Page template Content template
- 145. Content templates: Start with something you’d wireframe.
- 146. Handout: Page 3 Content Template This list should get you started to create content templates for your work. You won’t use every item on every template, and you may need to add items of your own to consider, depending on the needs of your site. Items in italics don’t appear to the user but may be very helpful to content creators. • URL ! Keywords? • Section • Audience(s)/Availability • Message • Style and tone notes • Browser page title! Char lim? • Headline! Char lim? Keywords? • Body/Media file! Char lim/Pagination/File specs? • Sidebar [Another content item?] • Image/Supplementary files! Specs? • Thumbnail! Specs? • Caption/Description! Char lim? • Related links [Definitely other content items.] • Summary! Char lim? • Categories • Tags
- 147. Right now: >Work with your group >Make a template >Which content item? >List info you need
- 150. What for?
- 151. What for? Examples
- 153. Handout: Page 3 Content Template This list should get you started to create content templates for your work. You won’t use every item on every template, and you may need to add items of your own to consider, depending on the needs of your site. Items in italics don’t appear to the user but may be very helpful to content creators. • URL ! Keywords? • Section • Audience(s)/Availability • Message • Style and tone notes • Browser page title! Char lim? • Headline! Char lim? Keywords? • Body/Media file! Char lim/Pagination/File specs? • Sidebar [Another content item?] • Image/Supplementary files! Specs? • Thumbnail! Specs? • Caption/Description! Char lim? • Related links [Definitely other content items.] • Summary! Char lim? • Categories • Tags
- 155. Metadata: Useful in the CMS Useful for placement But...
- 156. ☐ Featured
- 157. Collecting metadata you don’t use is an expensive habit.
- 159. Things happen here!
- 160. Just 1 rule
- 161. Don’t over- process.
- 162. M V P
- 164. How many people does it take to have a process?
- 165. Define Create Review Publish
- 166. The Day 2 problem —With thanks to Jeffrey MacIntyre
- 169. We haven’t touched: Accessibility Testing Structured content Semantic tagging CMS design/development More!
Hinweis der Redaktion
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- Let’s go around the room real quickly and introduce ourselves...just a few seconds each. Networking is such a valuable part of a conference, and you may want to get to know someone across the room at break or later this week.\n\n\n
- If you’ve been in web development or any kind of design for a while, you know about the flavor-of-the-month club. And I want to start by telling you that I’ve been around long enough to be a member of the same club. One question that content strategists get is, how are you different? We’ll answer that as we go through the morning, but I’d like to set the stage by having us think at a 30,000-foot view for a few minutes.\n
- \n
- Looking at this page, we’d all agree that [copy block] this is content, right? What about this? This? This?\n
- This is content.\n
- This.\n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- \n
- Even this.\n
- In the web industry, perhaps as a holdover from print, we can get into a bad habit of thinking about content in terms of pages. It’s convenient, to be sure, but it’s misleading. Content is multimedia, but it’s also not just flat.\n
- All of these things are vehicles for information. [Draw mr. information in car.]\n
- Let’s think about what that content, that information, does. \n
- It can scare us. [Or give us goofy expressions.]\n
- Make us smile.\n
- Engage us.\n
- Make us angry.\n
- Make us laugh.\n
- Content can do far more than inform us.\n
- So don’t neglect the emotional aspects of content.\n
- Content is a vehicle for communication. [Draw mr. information in car, write communication on side.]\n
- \n
- Lots of companies like to say that “the public” is their audience. Even if you’re Wal-Mart, or Starbucks, or McDonald’s, “the public” isn’t your audience. Who doesn’t shop at Wal-Mart? Anyone else not like Starbucks?\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Your audience isn’t everyone. You have to know who, specifically, you’re talking to, and what, specifically, they want to hear. We’ll talk more about the need for research instead of assumptions when we get into how-to. If you want to get the content right, you have to first identify who it’s for -- and to understand what they need much moreso than you need to think about what you want to tell them.\n
- Let’s also talk about whose job this is. [characterize the audience] in your organization, whose job is it to care about content?\n
- Let’s talk first about who owns the content in your organization. I don’t mean who owns the rights -- but a copyright discussion would make a great workshop all by itself. I mean, who in your organization is responsible for the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- These are the kind of people we think of as content owners -- the creators, no matter what the medium. But what about this other group of people? Do any of them own the content?\n
- Then if you think about the web development process itself, you realize this is an even more complicated question. \n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- The natural question here is, where does the content happen? It often gets shoehorned in one place or another, right? I’m sure you know the right answer...it has to be part of every step. Let’s also be clear that when we’re talking about web development here, we could be talking about mobile, print production, point-of-sale communications....any channels you use to talk to your audience.\n\nIf the content work doesn’t begin by the time the strategy work begins...you set yourself up for problems down the road. I’m only thinking of you...I want you to miss out on a well-known project phase:\n
- Has anyone been on a web project where last-minute information about content did NOT derail things? Often, that’s the point when Creek Content actually gets the call. You got close to launch, and someone had the “Oh-shit” moment about content. We want to avoid that. Today we’re going to give you the tools to do that, even if no one else in your organization is thinking about it.\n
- In many organizations—even very large ones—the person who owns the content is the one who was willing to stand up and say, this stuff matters. By virtue of being here today, you may own the content in your organization.\n
- If you find yourself as the content owner -- or, as the one who cares most in lieu of a real owner -- it’s important that you know how to talk about it. Here are some things that don’t work, especially when you’re talking to the folks who hold the purse strings:\n
- Let me know how that works out for you.\n
- See the last slide.\n
- Again, not going to happen.\n
- \n
- You have to find your organization’s pain point. Chances are, there is a content issue associated with it. When you can demonstrate how improving the content will improve the bottom line, or efficiency, or understanding of customer behavior, then you’re in business.\n\nPart of the challenge of this sort of work is figuring out how to quantify the need, and what success looks like. If this is a challenge you have, you’ll want to make a note of this. I just saw a great talk from Melissa Rach of Brain Traffic at the Confab conference earlier this month, and she mentioned a book that I’ve already ordered: How to Measure Anything, by Douglas Hubbard. \n
- [How many in the room are?]. Even if you ARE the person responsible for content, chances are that your organization doesn’t think IT is. If you don’t work in traditional media or journalism, it’s often hard to get your organization on board with the idea that it has to use content strategically. I have a couple of thoughts to help you with this.\n
- Ann Handley is a well-respected voice in marketing, and she’s telling us not just to deal with the content, but to value it.\n
- And Joe Pulizzi, founder of Junta 42 and Content Marketing World, gets right to the point when he says that content works for your business -- if you nurture it.\n
- This is how most organizations think about content. It sucks up assets....money, time, resources. \n
- And this is how we ought to treat our content. It IS an asset, but we have to use it effectively.\n
- This is what we have to understand, and how we have to act.\n
- \n
- From the bible....which I highly recommend you buy.\n
- We’re going to walk through a set of tools to help you with your content work.\n
- In our work, we’re going to use the MidwestUX site as our example. If you prefer, you can use your own site, but for some activities we’ll break into small groups to collaborate, and when we do, let’s all use the MWUX site so that we can compare our notes.\n
- Way too many projects kick off, design, develop and launch without anyone ever talking about the point. This is where your project ought to start, every time.\n
- A lot of business goals look like this. I don’t want to dis this...it’s better than nothing and it’s honestly a decent start. But it’s just a start. \n\nI want your goals to be a lot more specific than this. Something like....\n\n[Write in: Your goal here.]\n
- Let’s go back to our site. We’re just going to work as a group for this one -- and I need a volunteer to make a few notes for us on the post-it. Write big....we’re going to refer back to this later.\n\nOK, what is the business goal of the MWUX site? Do we have more than one?\n\nThese are great. Let’s talk about what else we need to know. You can probably guess based on our discussion earlier....\n
- You have to use research, not guesswork, to know your audience. Even if you’re new to the market.\nWho has used personas? They are a great tool, if they’re research-based. If they’re not, you’re probably better off without them. Non-research-based personas can trick you into making dangerous assumptions about your audience.\n
- Let’s go back to our site and just work as one group again, but another volunteer to take notes? \n\nWho is our audience at the Midwest UX site?\n\nThese are great. \n
- If you’ve been in UX for a while, you’ve probably done persona work, but I want to recommend these three resources as really doing a nice job of understanding your audience from the content point of view. Ginny’s book is several years old, but there’s a 2nd edition coming out this fall.\n\n
- Now that we know our audience, do we understand what they want from us? This is also probably a familiar area to UXers -- we’re talking about user stories.\n
- Let’s divide into groups of 3 or 4 before we go back to the site this time. I’d love for each group to come up with at least a couple of user stories, then we’ll get back together and share them as a group.\n\n[Share user stories....] \n
- Here are a few that I came up with while I was planning this workshop.\n\n
- Here are a few that I came up with while I was planning this workshop.\n\n
- Here are a few that I came up with while I was planning this workshop.\n\n
- Here are a few that I came up with while I was planning this workshop.\n\n
- Here are a few that I came up with while I was planning this workshop.\n\n
- Here are a few that I came up with while I was planning this workshop.\n\n
- Here are a few that I came up with while I was planning this workshop.\n\n
- Now we know what we want to do...we know what our audience wants. But we get to the crux of the matter: Does our content meet those needs? Let’s figure it out.\n\nBREAK HERE?\n
- \n
- Here’s a place where you will see how new the content strategy discipline is. There is not a solid agreement on terms, or even strategies themselves. You will see some of these terms used interchangeably, so please don’t be alarmed or think that you’re not playing inside baseball. No one is, yet. \n
- Here’s a place where you will see how new the content strategy discipline is. There is not a solid agreement on terms, or even strategies themselves. You will see some of these terms used interchangeably, so please don’t be alarmed or think that you’re not playing inside baseball. No one is, yet. \n
- Here’s a place where you will see how new the content strategy discipline is. There is not a solid agreement on terms, or even strategies themselves. You will see some of these terms used interchangeably, so please don’t be alarmed or think that you’re not playing inside baseball. No one is, yet. \n
- Here’s a place where you will see how new the content strategy discipline is. There is not a solid agreement on terms, or even strategies themselves. You will see some of these terms used interchangeably, so please don’t be alarmed or think that you’re not playing inside baseball. No one is, yet. \n
- Here’s a place where you will see how new the content strategy discipline is. There is not a solid agreement on terms, or even strategies themselves. You will see some of these terms used interchangeably, so please don’t be alarmed or think that you’re not playing inside baseball. No one is, yet. \n
- Let’s start with the most basic term. When you make a list of all the stuff you own, you’re compiling an inventory. In content strategy, this is usually one of the first pure-content tools you use. [The things we’ve talked about so far have applicability for lots of other areas. But now we’re down to the nitty-gritty.] We’re going to make an inventory, a list, of all our content.\n
- There are three main ways to go about this. You can use a site crawler, a piece of software that you set to spider your site and spit out a csv file that you can then use for further evaluation. This is what we often start with, especially on larger sites. The one we use most often is called Site Orbiter, and it’s a free file available for Macs. If you’re a PC person, I have a friend who recommends PowerMapper software, which does have a fee, but also has a free trial.\n\nDoes your CMS export?\n\nThe virtues of doing it by hand.\n\nNow, where are we going to store all this information? I know this is the part of the presentation you’ve all been waiting for:\n
- There are three main ways to go about this. You can use a site crawler, a piece of software that you set to spider your site and spit out a csv file that you can then use for further evaluation. This is what we often start with, especially on larger sites. The one we use most often is called Site Orbiter, and it’s a free file available for Macs. If you’re a PC person, I have a friend who recommends PowerMapper software, which does have a fee, but also has a free trial.\n\nDoes your CMS export?\n\nThe virtues of doing it by hand.\n\nNow, where are we going to store all this information? I know this is the part of the presentation you’ve all been waiting for:\n
- There are three main ways to go about this. You can use a site crawler, a piece of software that you set to spider your site and spit out a csv file that you can then use for further evaluation. This is what we often start with, especially on larger sites. The one we use most often is called Site Orbiter, and it’s a free file available for Macs. If you’re a PC person, I have a friend who recommends PowerMapper software, which does have a fee, but also has a free trial.\n\nDoes your CMS export?\n\nThe virtues of doing it by hand.\n\nNow, where are we going to store all this information? I know this is the part of the presentation you’ve all been waiting for:\n
- ...The dreaded spreadsheet.\n\nIn actuality, we find that a spreadsheet--Excel or Google Docs, either one--is a pretty good tool for this, depending on what you want to capture. It is less successful, though still serviceable, when you start talking about editorial calendars, but it’s not a bad place to start for an inventory or audit.\n\nThere are several companies working on improving on the spreadsheet, even for the inventory. So far, we haven’t used a tool that’s made us cast aside our decades-long affair with Excel, however.\n\n
- Let’s talk about what you need to put in the inventory. In your packet, you’ve got a list of items that you MIGHT want to capture. There are lots more that you could potentially capture...but what you need to know depends on your business goal, and the state of your content.\n
- You always need a column for URL or identifier, the title, and an index number. Other than that, the columns you’ll use depend a lot on what you’re trying to measure or evaluate.\n\n\n
- So, let’s give this a try. It’s pretty easy -- we’re just making a list. Work with your group, and let’s make a mini-inventory of the MidwestUX site. You don’t have to capture every page, or every piece of content. Let’s just get started and see what happens.\n\nOne of the first things you’ll need to decide is whether you’re capturing chunks of content, or pages of content.\n
- \n
- We’ve created a business goal. We know who our audience is. And we know what content we’re starting with. \n
- Now we just have to figure out if we have the RIGHT content.\n
- One of the things we’ll have to do is create a style guide. In design, we often think of the style guide as representing the brand colors, rules about how to use the logo, and more. But there are some really critical pieces of information that your content team needs to have in the style guide -- information on voice and tone, grammar, word usage.\n\nThere are several ways to create a style guide.\n
- \n
- If you’re picking an existing style guide to adopt for your organization, you’ll want to start by looking at some comprehensive guides like the AP, Chicago Manual of Style, the NY Times Manual of Style and Usage. \n\nIf you need something more specific, check the Yahoo! guide for internet-heavy usage guidelines, or see if your industry has one. Often, industry associations may be helping to standardize terminology and you can adopt their guidelines.\n\nFinally, each organization has its own eccentricities. Get your own organization’s needs in this document.\n
- If you’re picking an existing style guide to adopt for your organization, you’ll want to start by looking at some comprehensive guides like the AP, Chicago Manual of Style, the NY Times Manual of Style and Usage. \n\nIf you need something more specific, check the Yahoo! guide for internet-heavy usage guidelines, or see if your industry has one. Often, industry associations may be helping to standardize terminology and you can adopt their guidelines.\n\nFinally, each organization has its own eccentricities. Get your own organization’s needs in this document.\n
- If you’re picking an existing style guide to adopt for your organization, you’ll want to start by looking at some comprehensive guides like the AP, Chicago Manual of Style, the NY Times Manual of Style and Usage. \n\nIf you need something more specific, check the Yahoo! guide for internet-heavy usage guidelines, or see if your industry has one. Often, industry associations may be helping to standardize terminology and you can adopt their guidelines.\n\nFinally, each organization has its own eccentricities. Get your own organization’s needs in this document.\n
- I do want to say, a LOT of people skip this step. They just start writing and building. There are two points I’d make to those who skip this part of the work:\n* If you don’t know who you are, your customers can tell. Woot! and Groupon have got their brands nailed down hard. When you get communication from these companies, you know who’s talking to you and what kind of relationship they want to have with you. Now think about your bank. Or your ISP. Or your grocery store. Do they have a consistent message and tone? Some do, some don’t. This makes a difference when you’re building trust and creating a customer relationship...skip these steps at your peril.\n* A lot of people skip this because they are the only content creator, or one of a very small team, and the work feels pointless. They KNOW what they want to say, and they’re the ones saying it.\n\nI worked at a company during the first dot-com era that had what we called “the bus book.” It was originally meant to be the “everyone get on the bus” -- from Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, where he talks about how you have to have the right people on the bus. It was our policies and procedures manual for everything from how to fill out a P.O. to how to update the website to how to order office supplies. \n\nYou can imagine what happened -- we all decided it was “the bus book” because it was what we’d need if Julia, the office administrator, or Lena, the website editor, got hit by a bus.\n\nBut that happens. Hopefully what will happen is you’ll get promoted or add a person to your team, but eventually, you’ll need to teach someone how to do what you do. Getting this down now, and writing it in a style guide, makes that a lot easier.\n
- Let’s go back to the Yahoo style guide...one of my favorite sections of this book is their work on voice and tone. Unless you’re using purely images, language is a significant part of the experience. Let’s get this right first. \n\nOne of the most important things to figure out is your tone. If you are speaking to bankers, you’re going to write and talk differently than if your audience is college students. One of the challenges that many organizations have is not fully understanding how they should talk. Margot Bloomstein has a great tool she uses for this situation--cardsorting to create a message architecture.\n
- So, those of you in UX are probably familiar with cardsorting. Has anyone not done a cardsort? [explain] It’s often used to help create navigation or for other classification and categorization needs. Donna Spencer wrote a great book on it, if you’d like more info about that. \n\nBut what Margot does is a bit different. Her message architecture exercise helps us figure out who we are.\n
- Some organizations don’t have any document to give them clear direction on how to talk to customers. More than you’d think. What a lot of organizations do is say, hey, we have some brand values. That shows us how we should communicate. And they stop there. \n\nEven for companies that have “brand values” or a mission statement, this is often something vague like: [click]\n\nThat is not helpful in figuring out how to communicate with people. So, here’s how Margot does a message architecture, to give the voice and tone a framework.\n
- You start out with a deck of about 150 cards with adjectives like these -- use some relevant to the industry, some that are ringers. Then you work with stakeholders to classify these into 3 groups:\nWho we are\nWho we want to be\nWho we’re not\n\nOnce everything is sorted, you work through the 3 groups to make sure that they’re internally consistent -- did you end up with innovative and conservative in the same bucket? What does that mean? -- and ensure you’ve got agreement from the group. Then, you can start to outline the voice and tone of your content.\n
- When you want to represent emotional, elusive topics like the ones you may have come up with for your message architecture, you need examples.\n
- Because it’s one thing to say something like this:\n
- And so much more helpful if you can say,\n
- And so much more helpful if you can say,\n
- And so much more helpful if you can say,\n
- And so much more helpful if you can say,\n
- Once you start down the road, think about all the common usages that you can illustrate. When you refer to these items in different ways all over the website, you’re just telegraphing to your audience that you’re sloppy and unprofessional.\n
- Once you start down the road, think about all the common usages that you can illustrate. When you refer to these items in different ways all over the website, you’re just telegraphing to your audience that you’re sloppy and unprofessional.\n
- Once you start down the road, think about all the common usages that you can illustrate. When you refer to these items in different ways all over the website, you’re just telegraphing to your audience that you’re sloppy and unprofessional.\n
- Once you start down the road, think about all the common usages that you can illustrate. When you refer to these items in different ways all over the website, you’re just telegraphing to your audience that you’re sloppy and unprofessional.\n
- Once you start down the road, think about all the common usages that you can illustrate. When you refer to these items in different ways all over the website, you’re just telegraphing to your audience that you’re sloppy and unprofessional.\n
- Once you start down the road, think about all the common usages that you can illustrate. When you refer to these items in different ways all over the website, you’re just telegraphing to your audience that you’re sloppy and unprofessional.\n
- When we get done, we want these things to be represented in our style guide:\n\nNow, we have a business goal, an audience and their goals, content, style...and finally we can ask:\n
- First, we can take a look at our inventory and ask if each piece of content meets a user goal or a business goal -- ideally it meets both. If it doesn’t, we’ll mark it for review. \n\nIf it does, we still have more questions.\n
- Here’s where our work begins to change from an inventory into an audit. An audit makes some value judgments about the content. \n
- You can just do a binary rating -- content is good or it’s bad. Might be useful when you have to be fast -- if you’ve got a big site and need to quickly see where the glaring issues are. The problem is, there’s a lot of cleanup after this kind of rating. \n\nBetter...use a Likert scale.\n
- A Likert scale -- a 5-point scale -- is a great way to evaluate your content. \n
- Don’t rate your “content.” \n\n
- One rating for writing quality. One for voice/style. One for “on message.” \n\n
- When you’re using a Likert scale, you can use numbers...1-5, say. But sometimes adding words can help your team more effectively judge. \n
- Depending on your needs, you can add several additional tools at this point.\n
- A gap analysis is a fancy term we content strategists like to throw around. It just means, compare user stories and tasks to existing content, and see what you’re missing. Where are the gaps?\n
- This kind of exercise can also lead nicely into information architecture work. You’ve seen what you have, you’ve figured out what’s missing, you’ve made some value judgements. You can start to organize it. You can work on navigation, your site map, even move into wireframes.\n\n
- At this point, you’re ready to do one of two things: Fix your existing content, or make some new stuff.\nWe’re going to take the fork in the road for “new stuff,” so you can see the full cycle. \n
- First you’ve got to figure out whether you’re talking about content pages, or content items. If you’re just beginning design and development of a new site, you’ve got to think about how you are thinking about the content.\n
- When you look at a page like this, you have to figure out how this is represented in the CMS. And what you realize is that each of these items is a piece of content. It’s being pulled in somehow to this page, typically rendered on the fly.\n\nThen we have to figure out, how do we “design” a content item?\n
- \n
- Now let’s take another moment for terminology. This is a place where the names and concepts may be confusing at first, but the ideas themselves are pretty solidified for the discipline.\n\nA wireframe and a page template may be interchangeable. This is where we’re thinking primarily in terms of a page or frame that loads on your mobile or browser window. What goes on the page? You draw that out with boxes and lines, or ideally, sample copy and images, or prototype it. \n\nA content template is a little different, but it’s a great tool for content strategists.\n
- Now let’s take another moment for terminology. This is a place where the names and concepts may be confusing at first, but the ideas themselves are pretty solidified for the discipline.\n\nA wireframe and a page template may be interchangeable. This is where we’re thinking primarily in terms of a page or frame that loads on your mobile or browser window. What goes on the page? You draw that out with boxes and lines, or ideally, sample copy and images, or prototype it. \n\nA content template is a little different, but it’s a great tool for content strategists.\n
- Now let’s take another moment for terminology. This is a place where the names and concepts may be confusing at first, but the ideas themselves are pretty solidified for the discipline.\n\nA wireframe and a page template may be interchangeable. This is where we’re thinking primarily in terms of a page or frame that loads on your mobile or browser window. What goes on the page? You draw that out with boxes and lines, or ideally, sample copy and images, or prototype it. \n\nA content template is a little different, but it’s a great tool for content strategists.\n
- Now let’s take another moment for terminology. This is a place where the names and concepts may be confusing at first, but the ideas themselves are pretty solidified for the discipline.\n\nA wireframe and a page template may be interchangeable. This is where we’re thinking primarily in terms of a page or frame that loads on your mobile or browser window. What goes on the page? You draw that out with boxes and lines, or ideally, sample copy and images, or prototype it. \n\nA content template is a little different, but it’s a great tool for content strategists.\n
- Let’s start by thinking about something that we might wireframe for layout and design purposes. An article, an image gallery, a video page.\n
- Page 3 of your handout shows a list of information you may need to consider for your content template. Let’s take this list and make a template for a content item on the Midwest UX site.\n\n\n
- \n
- GatherContent has an interesting new tool that may be useful to help you create content templates, worth checking out. We usually do them the old-fashioned way, often first just writing out a few notes by hand, then moving into Word or Excel, depending on how structured the needs of the content are.\n
- When do you need a content template? This is one of the tools I always create, unless it exists already. You need it for the example, to share with the whole team. This -- to use a bad metaphor -- gets everyone on the same page.\n\nAnd perhaps more importantly for many of us in this room, this is where designers should REALLY love content strategy. You get down to the useful details that otherwise don’t appear until that 11th-hour shitstorm we were talking about earlier.\n
- When do you need a content template? This is one of the tools I always create, unless it exists already. You need it for the example, to share with the whole team. This -- to use a bad metaphor -- gets everyone on the same page.\n\nAnd perhaps more importantly for many of us in this room, this is where designers should REALLY love content strategy. You get down to the useful details that otherwise don’t appear until that 11th-hour shitstorm we were talking about earlier.\n
- When do you need a content template? This is one of the tools I always create, unless it exists already. You need it for the example, to share with the whole team. This -- to use a bad metaphor -- gets everyone on the same page.\n\nAnd perhaps more importantly for many of us in this room, this is where designers should REALLY love content strategy. You get down to the useful details that otherwise don’t appear until that 11th-hour shitstorm we were talking about earlier.\n
- Your content template is going to help you make design decisions because you can start to pull metadata about your content off of it. [Circle, discuss char lims, etc.]\n\n\n
- From our content templates, we can start to build the structure...the metadata and taxonomy of the site. We want to institutionalize the structure.\n\nQuick definition in case the terms are not familiar: Metadata means information about information. It’s info about your content. It may include description -- like tags or categories -- or structure -- like character limits -- or administrative data like which user created the file or what date and time the last change was made.\n\nTaxonomy is a hierarchical representation of your content. It looks like a tree. On a very simple site, the taxonomy and user-facing navigation may be the same, but once you get to any level of complexity, your taxonomy will often be far more complex than the navigation you represent to the user.\n
- Metadata is one of the most powerful tools you can use in a dynamic publishing system like a CMS. But here’s what you DON’T want to do:\n
- Metadata is one of the most powerful tools you can use in a dynamic publishing system like a CMS. But here’s what you DON’T want to do:\n\n[draw x]\n\nDon’t use metadata to manually place content.\n\nInstead of going around all your content and finding the images you like for the feature well on the home page, for instance, you want to write a rule for your CMS that says, pick featured images from a group that has these characteristics [and use metadata to define those].\n
- And a final warning about metadata.\n
- All of this information is moving us in the direction of governance -- planning for the lifecycle of our content.\n
- We know that we have to create some content. We’ve talked about it for [how long] now, and someone’s going to have to make something eventually.\n\nBut...who? how?\n
- This is where we need a process. Before we create that, you need to learn the most important rule:\n
- This is where we need a process. Before we create that, you need to learn the most important rule:\n
- In fact, what we’re aiming for is the MVP....the minimum viable process.\n
- Just 1. A process is the way you standardize and make your work repeatable.\n
- Here’s a really simple workflow, right?\nThe reality is a little different.\n\nWrite in: \nReality:\nWho/when?\nWho/With what tools/info?\nHow do you evaluate? Who? Why? Who makes judgment calls?\nWhat about metadata? Review? When retire/delete?\n
- Jeffrey MacIntyre is a well-known content strategist and one thing he’s spoken about is the day 2 problem. He says that post-launch is a project phase for content strategists, and you have to have your editorial strategy ready. You’re moving into operations. You have to have a plan for that.\n
- When you move into operations, you’re setting up a cycle. These three things will be constant, but you’ll also be feeding the cycle with resources [people, information], seasonality, and other input that may have an impact on your content.\n
- When you move into operations, you’re setting up a cycle. These three things will be constant, but you’ll also be feeding the cycle with resources [people, information], seasonality, and other input that may have an impact on your content.\n
- When you move into operations, you’re setting up a cycle. These three things will be constant, but you’ll also be feeding the cycle with resources [people, information], seasonality, and other input that may have an impact on your content.\n
- Today we’ve just skimmed the surface of content strategy. With the basics down, you can dig a lot deeper into the discipline.\n
- So....given all these things....all these tools, what is content strategy? Is it just the set of tools? I would say no...you don’t even use all tools for every content strategy project. But...what these tools can do, with regular use, is help you build a content strategy mindset, so that you approach all your projects in a new way. That’s the goal.\n
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