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Content strategy

Content strategy is the practice of planning for content creation, delivery, and governance. (source: Wikipedia)

Reality check: High-fidelity content enhances the design process

Professional UX organizations have discovered content and content strategy. Phew!

“As devices have proliferated, design patterns have matured, and user interfaces have evolved, user experience designers have kept pace with high fidelity prototypes. By employing high fidelity content, content strategists can keep pace too. We can evaluate, ideate, and gather feedback about our content approach much sooner than we ever could before. High fidelity content also affords a unique way to instill content strategy rigor in projects that might not think they need it. And last, but by no means least, high fidelity content helps everyone involved in the digital design process deliver flexible, meaningful content capable of creating relevant, engaging user experiences. Now that’s a reality worth embracing.”

Lisa Moore a.k.a. @writebyteUK ~ The Magazine of the User Experience Professionals Association 16.1

How to design killer micro-content

Micro, nano or pico content.

“Micro-content is small. In fact, it can be some of the tiniest bits of a framework and when it is done well, it’s often pretty invisible. The definition of micro-content has expanded in recent years and what was just a term used to describe labeling and calls to action is much more in today’s landscape.”

Carrie Cousins a.k.a./carriecousins1 | @carriecousins ~ design shack

What is the technical writer’s role in content marketing?

Switching labels or is technical communication now finally addressing a general audience?

“Technical writers should repurpose their information-rich content into content marketing deliverables that can be used to build relationships with potential audiences in the market. This content can help establish thought leadership, visibility, and trust with your audience so that when you start releasing and mentioning your 1.0 product, your audience adopts it.”

Tom Johnson a.k.a. @tomjohnson ~ I’d rather be writing

The birth of content

Data, information, knowledge and … all content-related?

“Believe it or not, there was a time when we did not talk about content. At least not in the way we do today. To some ears this will sound decidedly odd. To others it might even sound outrageous. But it is neither. I would like to suggest that the concept of content that we now associate with management and publishing has been shifting under our feet and that these changes should help us to define the term more precisely and to wield it more effectively.”

Joe Gollner a.k.a. /jgollner | @joegollner ~ The Content Philosopher

How mature is your omni-channel content strategy: A model to assess how you’re doing

A brain dump of how to assess a content strategy in a channel-oriented ecosystem.

Disclosure: I work at Informaat experience design (The Netherlands) ~ “Designing for omni-channel ecosystems not only deals with the interactive and visual elements of experiences, but also has a significant content dimension. In this post, the role, value and meaning of content in products, services and brand experiences are addressed. In this context, omni-channel content strategy is a mandatory precondition for excellent customer experiences and should be part of the customer experience excellence of organizations. For the purpose of analysis, we developed a maturity model with which we can assess the current state of omni-channel content strategies and for identifying steps towards excellent customer experiences in ecosystems with omni-channel services.”

Peter Bogaards a.k.a. /peterbogaards | @bogiezero ~ Informaat BiRDS

Why content reigns supreme in UX design

Finally, content is discussed by UX designers. Why does it take so long?

“We know that it’s not edgy to defend one of the most timeless pieces of advice in design, but we’re not doing it to grab attention. We simply believe that it’s far too easy to overlook content as a design fundamental when the bulk of work focuses on visual design elements.”

Jerry Cao, Kamil Zieba and Matt Ellis ~ FastCo.design

Creating good user experiences by focusing on content

There comes a moment, UX professionals will start designing from-out the content.

“Content is everyone’s business. People in many different roles work toward shared project goals—whether they’re content strategists, UX designers, product managers, or Web developers. The outcome of both business-focused and user-centered goals is the user’s experience, and that user experience should have one thing at its heart: content. The more you can embed content strategy into every step of your design process, the better the user experience will be. It is essential both that content be useful and that its presentation be usable. After all, it’s the content that brings users to your Web site.”

Robert Mills a.k.a. /robertmills81 | @RobertMills ~ UXmatters

Reclaiming social: Content strategy for social media

Social media definitely needs a content strategy, an omnichannel one.

“If the web industry had a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, social platforms would be at the very top—the least essential thing. No one ever visited a website and said, “Well, I was not able to register, but they had a really nice blog and quite an impressive Instagram feed!” But social has its place—and it is tied to so much of the work we already do. Whether you are working to increase conversions, looking for an additional source of user research, or want to enforce a consistent brand, social media should be part of your toolbox.”

Ida Jackson a.k.a. /idajackson | @virrvarr & Ida Aalen a.k.a. /idaaa | @idaaa~ A List Apart

Small CS: A shoestring approach to content strategy

Yes, you can start small, very small. With a strategy for your nano-content.

“There are hundreds of things that you can do with your website if you break things down. Those big examples – NPR, Boston Globe, Marriott – these are awesome examples for understanding the complexity in content strategy. They’re fantastic for seeing how big things can get.But we can make things smaller as well. And, I want to be really clear—I know somebody that works with Marriott. They have the same internal issues that any small business does. Everybody has some kind of content issue that makes it hard to get stuff done. We all have that. The big companies, the small companies. Large universities, small universities. Non-profit, for profit.”

Cory Vilhauer a.k.a. /mrvilhauer | @mrvilhauer ~ Eating Elephant

Omnichannel is not the golden calf of content strategy

Content as the cement of the digital and physical human experience.

“Omnichannel is not a fad. It’s not some buzzword that replaces multichannel (although many people in the digital industry throw it around that way). Omnichannel also does not have to consider every existing channel out there or all channels (Latin definitions of omni aside). It’s not something to throw up — no pun intended — and display as something that is the be-all, end-all solution for all things within multichannel publishing. Omnichannel presents a model for placing the consumer at the center of a brand experience. In contrast, multichannel considers more than one channel. There may be a strategy behind multichannel, but in its essence, the term means more than one channel.”

(Kevin P. Nicols a.k.a. @kpnichols)

What happens when search engines become intelligent?

Then they have to become smart.

“We’re talking on and on about making content more intelligent these days – format-agnostic, self-describing with semantic metadata, and modular – for reuse, for omnichannel, for delivering the right content to the right user, etc. But what about search engines themselves?”

(Noz Urbina a.k.a. @nozurbina ~ Urbina consulting)

Content migration alone is not an effective content strategy

How strategic can a migration be?

“While fairly popular, ‘lift and shift’ is not a viable content strategy. It is a folly fueled by fear, limited resources, inexperience, and politics. There are better ways to ensure high-quality intranet content, and two award-winning designers offer their insights, proving that a bright attitude makes all the difference.”

(Kara Pernice ~ Nielsen Norman Group)

Defining intelligent content

Intelligent content or smart content?

“Content that is both digital and data-driven is poised then to be highly dynamic. This means that the content can be adapted quickly and efficiently to exactly suit the needs of different users. It is fundamentally responsive, which is much more than simply adapting to different viewing dimensions. Intelligent content that is genuinely dynamic can be programmatically adapted to reflect specific product versions, to incorporate customer-specific details, and to take into account a user’s location and even background. It can be adapted to work optimally in different formats, themselves produced automatically.”

(The Content Philosopher)

Intelligent content demystified: A practical, easy-to-understand explanation

I’m more into smart content. Smart as in CIA (CPU, Internet, and API).

“In very simple terms (…) intelligent content is an approach. Intelligent content is the approach of thinking through the way we structure (organize) and manage content – so that it can be managed as a strategic asset.”

(Robert Rose a.k.a. @Robert_Rose ~ Content Marketing Institute)

The new journalist is an information startup

Couldn’t have described it better.

“At the crossroad of journalism and entrepreneurship sits a new emerging profession, made up in good part by the skills of the classic journalist, in part by those of the researcher, of the librarian and of the new emerging content curator mixed in with those of the capable independent digital entrepreneur.”

(Robin Good a.k.a. @RobinGood ~ MasterNewMedia)

How to use an experience map to develop a winning content marketing strategy

Keep remembering, the map is not the territory.

“An experience map is a large visual of the path a consumer takes — from beginning to end — with your product. The goal of this map is to get everyone on your team on the same page about the customer journey — so it is to be shared. In addition, the map must be an easy-to-understand, self-contained unit.”

(Demian Farnworth a.k.a. @demianfarnworth ~ copyblogger) ~ courtesy of @thomasmarzano

How to adjust your content strategy for adaptive content personalization

It’s COPE again, but now relate to strategic thinking.

“(…) the underlying ethos of content marketing and user-centric content strategy involves karma: The more real value you give to consumers, the more that will come back your way. The more we can make our content adaptive, the more we can realistically deliver tailored, high-value content without running out of budget, resources, or time. We didn’t invent content marketing because we’re such clever marketers. Content marketing came to be because our audiences simply stopped listening. And who can blame them? The new model is based on attention-for-value-added exchanges rather than blanket messages. It’s a sustainable strategic approach to communication. It sure beats the days of just trying to out-shout the competition.”

(Noz Urbina a.k.a. @nozurbina ~ Content Marketing Institute)