For the past few years, Content Strategists have been crusading for the need for organizations to develop and implement a content strategy to help plan, create, manage and analyze their content across channels… mostly web. In 2012, other web professionals, such as user experience designers, social media strategists and web developers, will start to seek out content strategy planning for mobile and e-commerce experiences.

2 – Content Strategy Apps Will Abound

Last year, a few notable content strategy apps came to the party early: DivvyHQ and InBoundWriter to name a few. With a wealth of opportunity to automate or simplify content strategy processes like content audits, inventories and editorial calendars, 2012 promises to see a few new apps, like Content Insight, help Content Strategists and organizations with the tactics of content strategy.

3 – “Information Overload” Will Go Mainstream

Already the subject of popular articles in the Harvard Business Review and The Economist, the topic of information overload will gain popularity with the mainstream press. As organizations battle with content bloat and increasingly fractured digital channels, Content Strategy will be the identifiable and championed solution by those in the know.


4 – “Curation” Will Be The New Buzzword

Curation is sweeping the nation. Seen as a viable solution to producing and re-purposing content for distinct target audiences, curation minimizes human resource demands and maximizes ROI by creating a more engaging and relevant user experience. As a buzzword, however, curation runs the risk of becoming synonymous with short-cut, poor quality, editorial-slant driven content and Content Strategists will need to rise to the occasion by continuing to focus on publishing content that is authentic, relevant, and consistent.

5 – Content Strategy Will Become A Business Process

Content strategy is often focused on as a discipline/profession, however as a practice it has the potential to become ubiquitous to the content processes currently under the domain of more time honored business channels like marketing, communications, public relations and customer relationship management. As content strategy moves from the introduction phase to the growth phase, 2012 will see other related disciplines starting to adopt content strategy practices as their own and the focus will no longer be on a small subset of industry veterans, but on the bigger implications and opportunities for content owners across disciplines.

Agree? Disagree? What are your Content Strategy predictions for 2012?

In a world where online content is the strongest influencer of a business’s success, it’s important to make sure that the content we publish is consistently at the top of its game.

Like all other business assets, content has both an extrinsic and intrinsic value:

Extrinsic Value of Content – How much it costs to maintain physical resources (both human and technological) to create, publish and govern content.

Intrinsic Value of Content – How much the content is worth to a company in terms of messaging, positioning, reputation and sales.

When Assets Resemble Liabilities

Of course the prior is the one that many organizations focus on with respect to their bottom line. As a result, they only see content as a liability as opposed to an asset because the outlay of capital required to pay for content is steep. Good content costs money.

Content’s sell at the boardroom table, therefore, is to focus on its intrinsic value. Business is about numbers. If we can’t show quantitative results related to ROI (and we can’t.. at least not directly), the only way to get buy-in for creating, publishing and governing content is to focus on its intrinsic value to the organization.

What Is Intrinsic Value?

Intrinsic value really comes down to worth. For instance, paper money may be worth the denomination indicated, but the paper it’s printed on might only be worth pennies. So a Content Strategist’s job is to figure out how much content is actually worth to an organization.

Determining Intrinsic Value

Typically, intrinsic value has a number associated with it.

Since content doesn’t exist in a bubble, and typically forms part of a greater Marketing/Communications/Customer Service Management effort, these need to be factored into the overall equation to provide the most accurate assessment of a content’s intrinsic value.

While the math here is simple, arriving at the numbers to plug into the equation may be a lot harder. On your part, it might require some educated guess-timating based on budgets and other tracking metrics in place.

Regardless, it doesn’t take a statistician to see that the number you arrive at for the intrinsic value is far greater than what many people give content credit for – especially when you compare it to its liability-disguised extrinsic value.

Cost Benefit Analysis

Most organizations don’t invest in assets until they’ve performed a Cost Benefit Analysis of the acquisition in question. Here’s where many Content Strategists’ arguments fail to win over the CFO. It’s one thing to say “content is a business asset”, it’s another to prove it. A “just because” answer in business is the equivalent to saying that the organization should bring in a circus every month as it could raise the morale of employees and, in turn, potentially increase productivity. Bollocks!

A cost benefit analysis adds up all of the positive factors for making a business decision and puts them up against the sum of all of the negatives (usually the hard cost of doing something). The difference between the two gives organizations an indication of whether something is advisable to do, or not.

Here’s where the intrinsic value of content comes in handy. The arguments by the business are usually hung up around expenses (the negatives). By having already calculated the intrinsic value of content, you now have a sound business case and quantifiable argument for continuing to invest in what you know (and can soon prove) to be the organization’s biggest asset — its content!

In many creative disciplines, Content Strategy included, our own persistent introspection however can start to swallow us whole as we seek to define and champion our creative output for public scrutiny.

“Do we listen to the quality of the ideas being shared any more? Ask yourself how often you’ve blindly followed the ideas of anyone within any industry – design or otherwise – because of their success online.” ~ Jeff Parks

The launch of the much-anticipated Contents magazine last week is the perfect example. After much fanfare about the publication (and I’ll admit, having a Content Strategy webzine is a smart idea), the inaugural post left me wondering if we had reached a point in the industry where there are no new ideas. Because after the “rah-rah” championing of a cause has died down (and let’s face it, we’re clearly milking this championing thing), it’s time to get down to the business of doing not just telling.

And herein lies the rub of creative thought …and ideas …and forward-thinking:

Inspiration, both as a way to frame our thoughts and as a way to motivate others – requires care and feeding. Otherwise, it turns creativity from a thing of unique, thought-provoking beauty into something inherently ugly like group-think.

It’s easy to get caught up in group think. We do it all the time in our daily lives. Either consciously or subconsciously, many of the decisions we make every day are a result of group think: from the coffee shop we choose to frequent to the cars we choose, or choose not to drive.

As this video shows (unfortunately embedding is disabled, but it’s worth the watch), even the most creative minds in the design industry are influenced by the external stimuli that surrounds them.

So, I ask you, are we doing our clients a disservice by consistently reading the same blog posts from the same “thought-leaders” espousing the same refrain, and then blindly adding our own mimicry to the mix?

Embrace Soul Objects

Kip Voytek recently gave a talk at Ignite NYC (and on Radio Johnny) about the sugar-high we get from our digital lives. Where consumption doesn’t just refer to the information we devour, but the creative wasting away of our ideas when we forget to seek out inspiration from outside of the confines of our industry. Maybe it is time to unplug and seek inspiration beyond a 140 characters…

Creative geniuses (like Husvar whose re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland is real, jarring and thought-provoking) shun the status quo and seek to find truth in interpretations of their own perception. They embrace the rabbit hole effect by not playing victim to its surrealism, but rather by empowering themselves with it to break free of the status quo.

Content Strategists are seeking to carve out their own niche within an industry already fractured by practitioners who rightly or wrongly silo themselves into one specific discipline.

Many spend more time arguing over which tools and practices are better rather than getting down to what really matters:

What is the client’s problem and what tools/experiences/perspectives can I provide that will bring about the most effective solution.

I think this may have to do more with my frustration with where the web industry is going as a whole than where it came from. Back in the 1.0 days, anyone who wanted to work online had to “know it all”. While it wasn’t always called: Information Architecture, User Experience, Content Strategy or Content Marketing, these practices made up the whole of the solutions we delivered.

Understandably, as the web “grew up” so too did its practitioners, specializing and refining their talents into specific areas to offer a level of expertise that was impossible under a generalist title of the early days.

As a result, however, a new generation of professionals are coming out of school and into our industry with a specific niche already in mind. Armed with a degree and a desire to become a “Content Strategist” they dive straight into their area of specialization without looking at all of the subtle nuances that make up the finer points of Content Strategy: Marketing, Communications, Language, Writing, Information Architecture, User Experience.

When speaking to a few of these newbie attendees at the conference, they blatantly and ignorantly denounced the need to know User Experience, Content Writing, or even Web Coding. I just don’t know how anybody can properly advise on “strategy” without having first learned the “tactics”.

All this, of course, is not Confab’s fault or even the bourgeoning Content Strategy discipline as a whole. It’s the sign of the maturation of an industry that has grown on the fringes of traditional business. While the web is over 10 years old, some companies still treat it as an afterthought. As a result, our practitioners are still scrambling to achieve legitimacy both within the corporate structure and amongst their peers.

I have heard rumblings within the web sphere of people wanting to go back to the days of the generalist, and after this conference, I somewhat have to agree.

It’s not that I don’t think specializing in one particular discipline is wrong. Certainly any speciality deserves a breadth and depth of knowledge within a particular field to really advise clients on the absolute best practices or solutions available.

However, there are certain industries, like the Web, and disciplines like Content Strategy where the depth of the knowledge required is less important than the breadth.

Because when you think about it, a huge chasm exists between what our clients want:

An attractive website that works.

And what we spend hours debating over:

How do we define Content Strategy?

In the end, it is our clients who ultimately define the end state. If we can deliver an engaging experience using all of the tools and best practices available to us, then why are we delving further and further into the nuances of a particular practice?

I’d like to see a web conference that delivers tracks on Interaction Design, User Experience, Content Strategy, Content Marketing and Social Media. Where we can be empowered to help clients by embracing the rich breadth of our industry, instead of continuing to silo it.

“…ultimately content strategy and design share many common goals and challenges. It’s telling that many of the techniques, approaches we take to reach these goals and overcome the challenges are very much the same. The real test is how well we can collectively execute on a shared responsibility.” ~ Chris Detzi, EightShapes

We berate traditional business for organizational structures that silo disciplines (e.g. the Marketing Department vs. the Communications Department) and are then frustrated when they can’t look at the bigger whole necessary for success on the web today.

It’s true what they say about glass houses… and in the virtual world where transparency is the key, we might want to start taking a long hard look at ourselves and start practicing what we preach.

In an increasingly iconographic-driven space inspired by mobile apps and fueled by content grazing, the finely crafted written word doesn’t stand a chance.

Or does it?

With the proliferation of mobile and tablet devices, it has becoming increasingly imperative for organizations to create a content strategy that panders to the very nature of consumable content by creating “Content To Go”.

Essentially the digital equivalent of restaurant take-out, content to go acknowledges that users want the same content and experiences that they would have on a website, but defined by their own content viewing parameters of their mobile device.

“If you are developing mobile content strategies then you need to adapt your user personas to user scenarios because what your users are doing when they access your content means more than anything else in the picture at that moment”.
~ Mobile Content Strategy: Creating User Scenarios

Any content published on a mobile device is competing for your reader’s attention against any number of other distractions in the world around them. However, the inverse also remains true for quality content worth reading where engagement, like with books, is engrossing.

“..books can become merely a means to escape from reality. Reading can be rather like eating food.  Up to a point one eats from physical necessity, but beyond that one is doing it for pleasure, because one likes the taste of food, or possibly just to fill up time.”
~ Meditation In Action

So, while digital content may be consumed on the web, organizations can also benefit from their users’ incessant appetite for information by producing quality content meant to be savoured …on their mobile or tablet device.

How Do You Do Start Integrating Mobile Content Into Your Overall Content Strategy?

While the content-attention paradox of website content suggests 250 words or less on a web page (more like 80-150 words in 2011), the only option for longer content used to be a “print this” button. With a mobile content strategy, organizations can plan for a fifth kind of web content for their website …content that is meant to be read – not consumed – on a mobile or tablet device.

Note: This mobile content strategy is not the same as a mobile site design strategy in that it plans for the creation, publication and maintenance of content specifically created for reading on a mobile or tablet device. Mobile site design and its associated content is more about task-based content than readable content.

Mobile Content Publishing Tools

Not all websites are meant for mobile and not all mobile sites are meant for the web. The same holds true for digital content. In this burgeoning mobile content publishing field, there are a number of front-runner apps that organizations should consider integrating into their websites as a means of proactively including content to go into their overall content strategy.

Instapaper

OnSwipe

iPad, Blackberry, Droid, PS3, In-Dash Car Console – Virtually all digital devices now connect to the Internet. Be cognizant that your content may not be viewed as you intended. Is your content scalable? Accessible? Consumable?

2. The Message IS The Medium


Pride yourself on being a forward-thinking, innovative company? Perception is reality. Content created for social, mobile and tablet is not just a nice-to-have, it’s a requirement for the next decade. See Commandment #3.


3. Content Can’t Be Re-Purposed


We know that content written for print doesn’t work online. It works even less in a fragmented digital device market. Content must be planned for, created, and published for the medium. Content with contextual hyperlinks is only 2-dimensional. It’s time to start thinking in 3 and even 4D.

4. Content Is Non-Linear

There is no start, middle and end. All content is “in medias res”. Much like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, your user determines what they will read, how much, and how they will interact with your content. Don’t assume anything.

5. Content Is A Line Item

You can’t budget content (or anything created for digital consumption for that matter) as a one-time expense. Content Strategy is a recurring expense. Don’t just focus on content creation either. You need to monitor, edit, revise, and test your content to ensure you are reaping its full value. Remember: It costs money to make money.


6. Fear Not Foreign Tongues

Thanks to technology, language is becoming less of a barrier to communication. Google Translate and the Google Translate App are just the start. While we’re not there yet – it won’t be long before content translation won’t be the organization’s responsibility but that of the individual. Shift your focus towards creating great, plain language content that is easy to read, understand and share no matter what language you’re publishing in.

7. Content Is Consumable

This isn’t Shakespeare. Digital content is consumed, not cherished. While Shakespeare strove to attain immortality through writing, digital content creators die a certain death each time they publish. And that’s a good thing. Digital content is a fast food economy. Users graze and consume it faster than you can publish. What might be the hottest blog post today is a forgotten link in a matter of days or weeks. Keep up with demand.

8. Content Must Be Shareable

You can’t own content. Once you release it, you want people to share it. That‘s how you build word-of-mouth …and relationships …and value. Make your content relevant and easy to share through all viable channels. Include “Tweet This”, “Email This” and “Share This” buttons on all consumable content published.

9. Don’t Make Content A Commodity

It might be a consumable, but it’s definitely not a commodity. Content is a business asset. Highly valued content yields high value results. Content isn’t just a nice to have investment anymore, it’s a business driver. Invest wisely.

10. Content Should Always Exceed Expectation

Sell the sizzle! Savvy users are demanding digital content delivery in sexy new ways. Don’t underestimate their expectations. While you may not yet be delivering content in innovative ways, others already are. It’s time to start turning content on its head!

A Common Scenario:

Traditional marketing/communications managers or even CEO’s read web content and automatically dismiss the value in it because it doesn’t read the way they think it “should”:

- Long, complex sentence structures
- Third person voice
- Gobbledygook business terms
- Written from the perspective of the business (“We”)
- Industry or corporate acronyms

The Problem:

The above represents a style and tone that has become synonymous with “professional”, “credible” and “authoritative”. But, it’s a style that doesn’t work on the web.

The Solution:

So, how do content writers within an organization help to change the perceptions of content writing in those who are accustomed to the out-dated traditions of the passive voice?

1. Web Analytics Data
2. Word Clouds

First, analyze your analytics.

Note which pages are being read, and which ones aren’t. 9 times out of 10, the pages that are most important to the organization aren’t even close to being in the top 10 of those being viewed by your target audience. If it’s a document that’s important to the company, but clearly not important to the reader, then you have to ask why it’s even being offered online in the first place.

[Of course, I know how large organizations work and I know that pulling down the "Important Company Document" is never going to happen. So this is when you move to step 2 - revising the content!]

Next, start by creating a word cloud of the page in question.

In content marketing, we use word clouds to illustrate the prominence of keywords within a web page. In this case, use the word cloud as a way of demonstrating organization-centric vocabulary and messaging. Here’s a word cloud I created from a web page on the Government of Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans website:

From the words alone, you can tell this is a traditional “top-down” approach to messaging.

Next, rewrite the content in a manner keeping with proper writing for the web techniques:

- Using the researched vocabulary of your target audience
- Plain language
- Short, sound-bite sentences
- Bulleted lists
- Task-oriented
- 150-250 words maximum (if possible)
- Proper use of headers and calls to action

Then, create another word cloud of the revised content:

This word cloud still contains organizational vocabulary, but you can see clearly the message has tipped in favour of a more balanced approach biased towards the target audience – gone are the acronyms and prominence of organizational program names.

Using this method, factual data and qualitative illustrations stress the results of proper web content writing and serve to bolster support for the investment of time and resources from those who still control both budgets and message.

Related Video:

That’s why organizations that use gobbledygook business terms or industry jargon on the web decrease the value of their message by failing to connect and engage with audiences online.

So when we talk, in business, in terms of “verticals” or, in government, in terms of “branches”, and then structure websites to mimic this approach to organizing information, the potential for even greater dissociation with our target audience exists.

Now you aren’t just using words that hold no meaning for your target audience, you’re also labeling important navigational elements in a way that provide little context within your target audience’s frame of reference.

The tricky part about meaning is that what is significant to you may not be significant to all. Significance is determined by background, experiences, culture, values, etc.

Words Are As Much A “Signifier” As They Are A Conveyer Of “Significance”

Last September, Jeff Parks of i.a. consultants inc and I put on workshops in Jamaica through the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce. Jeff asked participants to organize colored candy pieces in any way they liked as a way of illustrating how organizational bias can influence how website’s are structured and navigational elements labeled.

It’s amazing the many different ways you can organize the same six colors!

In a conversation between two people, both have the opportunity to clarify ambiguities to derive meaning and understanding. Unless organizations are willing to do their homework up front to properly identify their target audience, and then research and define the vocabulary they use when referring to, and finding, specific products and services online …the messaging on their website will always be a one-sided conversation. Organizational bias is just one of the reasons many companies hire web content strategists and writers to bring a fresh perspective to their company’s website.

If you are interested in learning more about how to structure and label information in a way that is valuable to your target audience and your business, Jeff and I will be putting on similar workshops to those we conducted in Jamaica last year. Find out more at http://www.followtheuxleader.com

Perhaps it is how we conquer new frontiers, by staking claim of what is known, before we explore the infinite possibilities of what is not. As the sunset period of Web 2.0 is upon us, it stands to reason that we yearn to solidify definitions before we charter the organic fringes of the Semantic Web …where “relationship” defines meaning over “explanation” and “description”.

Definitions, by their very nature, distill explanations into their simplest form and in doing so often overlook precious nuances of interpretation and opportunities to gain broader perspectives beyond literal meaning.

We can’t always explain things within the compartmentalized reality of what we know.

This past week Jason Schubring at Six Revisions posted The Web Content Strategy Pyramid as a means of explaining the structure of a well-balanced content strategy.

I, myself, have used the familiar pyramid approach to visually explain Web Content: The Anatomy of 150 Words or Less and The Four Kinds of Web Content. In fact, everyone from Maslow to the FDA’s Food Pyramid (the source of inspiration for Schubring’s illustrative definition) have relied upon this basic shape as a rudimentary infographic for their ideas.

The problem with the pyramid is that it applies structure to a structure-less effort. Connecting and communicating with people cannot be delineated by shape. Proportionately it can …but for a strategy based on “the purpose of the website” or the “goals of an organization”, the nuances are too easily lost with a cut and dried approach.

I’m not saying Schubring intended the pyramid to exclude the nuance of strategy …and the 579 people who re-tweeted it obviously felt it was of value (and it is!) however, the very nature of a strategy means individualization.

My fear, as we strive to define the essence of what it is that we do is that we stop looking at possibilities for inclusion.

“I’m frustrated with the characterization of content strategy as “good writing” or “operational issues.” They are unnecessarily limiting, even if taken in the context of the web. I know there’s a design component here, a newly emergent set of  challenges that comes with preparing information to be delivered online.

Content strategists are designers, just like I am. And like me, the information architect, the “stuff” content strategists design is somewhat more abstract, somewhat less defined than a couple million pixels. But, aside from the composition of content, content strategists haven’t (to my satisfaction anyway) defined what it is they design, what’s the output of their work.”

~ Dan Brown, Letter to a Content Strategist

The Web Copy vs Web Content Debate

Alice and Rachel over at Contented recently wrote a blog post outlining the difference between web copy and web content. In Web Content or Web Copy: What’s the Difference? they put forth “Over time, the two words have come to refer to different kinds of writing.” And they’re not entirely wrong given the two opposing tracts of web content development: marketing-driven and usability-driven.

My thoughts (which were graciously published as an addendum to the post), is that we need to start looking at the broader definition of “Web Content” as the vehicle that conveys meaning and message. This includes video, audio, copy and graphics.

If Content Is King, Context Is The Kingdom!

The key in an industry that is focused on the expanses of the Web is in broadening our definitions so that they remain inclusive over time …not precise narratives of exacting detail.

I argue that, in time, as we strive to further define our roles as Content Strategists we will, in fact, find ourselves boxed in by the very title we have given ourselves. Because, in reality, we are Context Strategists – extracting, deriving, interpreting, and conveying meaning regardless of the technology at hand.

In many ways, Context Strategy welcomes nuance and interpretation and better positions us for the information/relationship of the coming Web 3.0

Sadly, however, even by that very definition it might just box us in…..

As I’ve talked about before in this blog, content for most organizations hasn’t evolved past the online brochure paradigm adopted from the print marketing collateral days. An organization’s content is still driven by information pertaining to the products, services, about/history, and contact/location of the organization itself.

Problem: It’s Always About You!

Using this approach, website traffic arrives from search engines (or directly) to a website that PROCLAIMS everything it thinks you need to know about the business through the lens of its marketing department.

What’s Wrong With That?

The problem with this method is it fails to take advantage of the technology behind websites that make them so much more than just static brochures. We talk a lot about conversion online, but few websites actually take the time to recognize that a lot of what converts website traffic into paying customers is, in fact, the content …and the functionality of that content.

(This is also why generalist writers often end up writing web content that reads more like a brochure. Their lack of technical understanding of content functionality can impede the user experience-focused interaction necessary for a successful website over the long term.)

Functional Content

Here is a model I use to describe the four kinds of web content that should exist on every website in order for it to be successful. Hat tip to Gerry McGovern who is a passionate advocate of Task-Based Content.

The inverted pyramid is a figurative approach to funneling website traffic leads into customers. Of course, a website’s audience is not only SEO driven but also (hopefully) an online representation of your business as a value-added service for existing customers as well.

Reality Check: The kind of content you have on your website will not only increase its functionality but its overall value to your business.

To borrow from a typical sales model – In order to move from lead generation -> qualified leads -> paying customer, your web content must encourage repeat website visits from both organic traffic and existing customers.

Web Content Ideas For Layered Content Delivery

Here are just a few ideas of the kinds of content that might exist on your website. Bear in mind that the purpose of your website will always trump the type of content and the proportions that are present.

For instance, a government research lab will probably be heavily weighted towards providing mostly information-based content, whereas an e-commerce site might be less inclined to focus on substantive details.

Information-Based: Great source for search engine optimized keywords. Provides general information about the organization to establish credibility and trustworthiness. More does not necessarily equal better.

Task-Based: Great way to build a customer database. Encourages repeat visits through functionality and bookmarking. Asks the site visitor to interact with the website in a way that gives them what they need/value i.e. Download the PDF, complete the form, sign up today, try our online calculator etc.

Community-Based: (or Conversation-Based) A great place for reputation management and encouraging feedback. A source of inspiration for new products/services and evergreening of web content. Social media tools like blogs, twitter, facebook, youtube are an easy addition provided an overall strategy is involved.

Retention-Based: Convenient approach for 24/7 customer service. Password-protected area may be required. This content is most linked to offline business strategy as it provides online value to existing customers. Closed-loop marketing campaigns with offline tactics (i.e. promotions, coupons, give-aways) would be one application of this kind of content.

Unlike print brochures, web content is a two-way conversation between an organization and its customers. That’s not to say that brochure websites aren’t going to deliver results, it’s just that it’s time to make our online conversations more engaging to target audiences by providing content that is interesting, entertaining, and of most value to them.