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.

1. 1
Content strategy:
what’s in it for you?
Margot Bloomstein
Refresh Boston
December 8, 2009
#refreshboston

2. 2

3. 3

4. 4
Now, let’s talk
about you!

5. 5
©Skillset.org

6. 6
Deliver
on time
Stay in
budget
Give users what
they need
Please our clients
(and ourselves)

7. 7
Deliver
on time
Stay in
budget
Give users what
they need
Please our clients
(and ourselves)
Minimize
revisions
Rally everyone
around a vision

8. 8

9. 9

10. 10

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?

13. 13
Designers
How do you visualize the
abstract without concrete
terms?

14. 14
Designers
How do you visualize the
abstract without concrete
terms?
Make us look hip!

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.

17. 17
More. Like. Apple.

18. 18
More. Like. Apple.

19. 19
More. Like. Apple.

20. 20
Brand-oriented
content strategy can save
you time and money

21. 21
Brand-oriented
content strategy can save
you time and money
• Prioritize key messages
• Rally around concrete
terms

22. 22
Brand-oriented
content strategy can save
you time and money
• Use real copy for more
unified concepts
• Get it right in fewer
rounds of revision

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

25. 25
Content strategy
means you can sell your
client on predictability.

26. 26
Content strategy
means they can budget and
prepare for exact content
specifications—by content
type, keywords, and
character count.

27. 27
…and real content
means you can design more
thoughtful, interesting
templates.
Give control
to get control.

28. 28
Strategists, IAs, & PMs
How do you plan for the
future if you don’t know
what you currently have—
or what you need?

29. 29
What do we have?
©http://www.flickr.com/photos/ojaipatrick/142901730/

30. 30
Is it still good?

31. 31
Do we even need it?

32. 32
How will we get more?

33. 33
Do folks even like it?

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?

35. 35
Thorough strategy
demands a quantitative and
qualitative content audit

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.

39. 39
Content strategy
means you can conduct a
more useful gap analysis
against the new message
architecture.

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?

42. 42
But wait!
They already have
writers in the marketing
department!

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?

45. 45
And where should the
user experience begin?

46. 46
Content strategy
can help you deliver higher
conversions.

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.

54. 54
Why do this?

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

58. 58
Margot Bloomstein
Twitter: @mbloomstein
mbloomstein@yahoo.com
http://www.slideshare.net/mbloomstein
© 2009 Margot Bloomstein.
All logos and pictures are property of their respective owners.