Content Strategy

UX’s New BFF!

Copyright © 2015 (Re use not permitted without written permission of author)

Christopher S. LaRocheSeptember 24, 2015

• What the hell is content strategy? • Do I need to care about content

strategy? • How the hell does this relate to

UX?

Content Strategy - Why

• Broadly speaking, Content Strategy is the concept of having all organizational content (marketing, support documentation, editorial, customer support documentation, technical communication, etc.) delivered to audiences in a consistent, clear, and efficient manner.

Content Strategy - Why

Content Strategy - Why

• Content Strategy was originally focused on marketing content and specifically on using social media in a consistent and clear manner.

• As this concept gains traction within organizations and especially at the higher management level, the scope and concept is expanding.

Content Strategy - Why

• Some of the building blocks of Content Strategy are a natural outgrowth of how we create content on the Web – it must be a much more streamlined and focused how we present information (described well in Redish’s Letting Go of the Words book).

Content Strategy - Why

• To help Content Strategy succeed, often documentation has become ‘single sourced’ with t he help and use of Content Management Systems (CMS).

• With content located in one location, streamlining and presenting a consistent message and information stream is viewed as easier, thought it is rarely that simple!

Content Strategy - Why

• There is an increasing expectation of a solid (and improved) user experience!

• Streamlining content is common (and often demanded!)

Content Strategy - Why

Content focus must be on customer

needs, not organizational

structure and silos!

Content Strategy - Why

• Defining key messaging that aligns with business goals and user needs

• Identifying what content and types are needed

• Defining the content delivery process (workflow)

• Setting benchmarks to measure success

• Maintaining content (governance)

What is Web content strategy?

Many organizations have no Content Strategy

• Result: Difficult to find information or transact

• Content is:– Hidden– Confusing– Inconsistent– Incomplete– Irrelevant– Out of date

Goals of content strategy

•Provide organization and structure to content.

Why does content strategy matter?

•Focuses the team on quality content

•Improves find ability of relevant content

•Meets customer/user content needs

•Strengthens organization’s image/brand

•Prevents the site from growing organically (like an unattended garden)

Define Key Messaging: Business Goals

• What does the business hope to achieve – their goals?

• Why will these changes achieve the goals?

• Marketing or product teams will be your primary source

• Try to state in measurable terms (benchmarks)

Define Key Messaging: Business Goals

• Functional groups within the organization may have different and conflicting goals

• Conduct stakeholder interviews

Define Key Messaging: Audience

• Who are the primary user group(s)– Work with marketing team to

understand audiences– You can’t serve every user group well!– Focus on primary audience groups

• User Experience activities and methods are critical:– User interviews– Ethnographic studies– Persona creation

Content Strategy – Bridge Gaps

• Content strategists often reconcile the gap between the business goals and the user needs, and aligns them so both goals and needs are met

Content Strategy – Bridge Gaps

• Content strategists also consider technology capabilities and limitations

• They bring these three areas together to provide the optimal user or customer experience

Identifying content needed

• What do users need to:

– Make a decision?

– Understand a concept?

– Be informed?

– Meet their needs?

• What content types best suit their needs?

Identifying content types needed

• Content types include text, photos, videos,

audio, documents, social media, etc.

• What types best suit users’needs? Consider:– Your sites subject matter– Audience demographics– Device(s)– Technology– Accessibility

Stakeholders may include …

• Senior executive or sponsor

• Marketing

• Business owner

• Writer and editor

• User Experience designer

• Advertising

• IT/Technology/Engineering

Identifying benchmarks

• Benchmarks help you determine the success of your content effort

• Benchmarks should be measurable to indicate contribution to an organization’s goals, such as ROI: Return on Investment

• Measurable benchmarks also increase value and credibility of activity/role/team

Identifying benchmarks: Examples

• Web Analytics are the easiest way to measure success:– Increase in transactions– Increase in goal completion– Site visit time– Page views– Time page– Number of visits per user– Number of pages visited

Identifying benchmarks: Examples

These metrics may include an increase or decrease. For example, fewer page view and higher transaction rate indicates a streamlined experience

Maintaining content: Governance• Establishing content guidelines for

your web site.– Ownership and decision-making

– Style guide. Examples: Tone, grammar, terminology.

– Templates. Example: Product page

– Content types

– Publishing cycle

– Archiving content

– Change process

But I'm one person without experience!

• “Most of all, don’t be afraid to ‘fake it til you make it.’ You don't need to be an expert in content strategy to dive in and start getting things done.” (Halvorson and Rach, p. 12)

Conclusion

• “…to sum up the mandate of a content strategy in a single phrase, it would be this: understand the gap between your user experience and your customers' needs, and fix it.”

Rahel Bailie and Noz Urbina. “CS for Decision Makers”.http://contentstrategyfordecisionmakers.com/the-book/

Conclusion

Questions?

•Slides posted by the end of the weekend:

http://www.slideshare.net/silvaire65

Bloomstein, Margot. (2012). Content Strategy at Work: Real-world Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Morgan Kaufmann.

Halvorson, Kristina & Melissa Rach. (2012). Content Strategy for the Web, Second Edition. Berkeley, CA: New Riders.

Kissane, Erin. (2011). The Elements of Content Strategy (A Book Apart No. 3). New York, NY: A Book Apart.

Kuniavsky, Mike. (2003). Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research. San Francisco, California: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.

Leibtag, Ahava (2014). The Digital Crown: Wining at Content on the Web. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufman.

McGrane, Karen. (2012). Content Strategy for Mobile (A Book Apart No. 8). New York, NY: A Book Apart.

Morville, Peter & Louis Rosenfeld. (2006). Information Architecture for the World Wide Web – Third Edition. Sebastopol, California: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Bibliography

Structured Content is Like Your Closet (http://www.contentrules.com/blog/structured-content-is-like-your-closet/)

A Brief History of Content Strategy (http://firehead.net/2013/06/a-brief-history-of-content-strategy/)

Web Writing Style Guide (http://www.hampshire.edu/web-writing-style-guide.htm)

Writing for the Web (http://ucm.rutgers.edu/web-ecommunications/web-writing)

Web Style Guide – Third Edition (http://webstyleguide.com/)

User-centric vs. Maker-centric Language (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/user-centric-language/)

Strategy is coherent, unified, and understood (http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/strategy-coherent-unified-and-understood)

Empathy and Content Strategy: on Teaching, Listening, and Affecting Change (http://eatingelephant.com/2012/10/empathy/)

Content Strategy and UX (http://www.slideshare.net/olivierrenard/content-strategy-ux)

Bibliography

Intranet information Architecture (IA) (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/intranet-information-architecture-ia)

Top 3 IA Questions about Navigational Menus (http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ia-questions-navigation-menus/)

Content Templates to the Rescue (http://alistapart.com/article/content-templates-to-the-rescue)

Content is all the Matters on the Web (http://sixrevisions.com/content-strategy/content/)

Why Big Content is Worth the Risk (http://moz.com/blog/why-big-content-is-worth-the-risk)

Interview with Content Strategy author Ann Rockley (http://wordspicturesweb.com/2013/05/22/ann-rockley-interview-content/)

Folksonomies: A User-Driven Approach to Organizing Content (http://www.uie.com/articles/folksonomies)

Developing and Creatively Leveraging Hierarchical Metadata and Taxonomy (http://boxesandarrows.com/developing-and-creatively-leveraging-hierarchical-metadata-and-taxonomy/)

Bibliography

Managing Content in the Manner it Deserves (http://intentionaldesign.ca/2014/02/17/managing-content-in-the-manner-it-deserves/)

Training the CMS (http://alistapart.com/article/training-the-cms)

5 Key Tips for a Successful Social Media Content Strategy (http://mashable.com/2011/01/10/social-content-strategy/)

26 Tips to Create a Strong Social Media Content Strategy (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-to-create-a-strong-social-media-content-strategy/)

Icelanders turn in first draft of crowd sourced constitution (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-08/01/iceland-constitution)

Content Strategy – in 3D! (http://boxesandarrows.com/content-strategy-in-3d/)

Responsive Design is a poor man’s Content Strategy (http://www.roodlicht.com/responsive-design-is-a-poor-mans-content-strategy/3175?lang=en)

Bibliography

Content Strategist as a Digital Curator (http://alistapart.com/article/content-strategist-as-digital-curator)

Content Re-Framing: A digital disruption survival guide (http://informaat.com/blog/content-re-framing-a-digital-disruption-survival-kit.php)

The ‘Governance’ Component of Content Strategy Success (http://blog.siteimprove.co.uk/the-governance-component-of-content-strategy-success)

Orchestrated Content: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach (http://scattergather.razorfish.com/1199/2012/10/26/orchestrated-content-a-cross-disciplinary-approach/)

Taking your seat at the strategy table; Three must have leadership skills (http://uxpamagazine.org/taking-your-seat-at-the-strategy-table/)

A look at the past, present, and future of Content Strategy with Karen McGrane (http://csforum2013.com/?p=1808)

Bibliography