Content Strategy

Overview

Content Strategy is an emerging field of practice within the discipline of User Experience Design (UXD). It also describes in a professional context the roles, work products, knowledge, methodology, and perspectives of content strategists.

Content

Content is substance. No matter the platform, publication, or format, content refers to everything that conveys meaning:

• “Content includes the text, graphics, video, and audio that make up an interactive experience.”—Kristina Halvorson
• “Technically, Web content can be anything that appears on a website, including words, pictures, video, sounds, downloadable files (PDF), buttons, icons, and logos.”—Richard Sheffield
• “Information and experiences that may provide value for an end-user/audience.”—Wikipedia[1]
• “Everything is content.”—Rachel Lovinger quoting Chris Sizemore[2]
• "Simply put, content is contextualized data."—Rahel Bailie[3]
  

Content Strategy

Content strategy is an emerging field of practice encompassing every aspect of content, including its design, development, analysis, presentation, measurement, evaluation, production, management, and governance.

Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web [4], defines content strategy as "the practice of planning for content creation, delivery, and governance."

In The Web Content Strategist’s Bible, Richard Sheffield emphasizes the importance of editorial process to content strategy.

Agency Content Lifecycle via Erin Scime [5] 

Content Strategists

But the perspectives content strategists bring to content depend strongly on their professional training and education.

For instance, some specialize in content analysis, which roughly describes work with metadata, taxonomy, search engine optimization, and the ways in which the sound application of these concepts supports content.

Others outline web editorial strategies, guidelines, and tools, which may extend to organizational change management. This form of content strategy may be concerned with developing new forms of content, such as multimedia, or various “presence management” technologies like microblogging.[5]

There is yet another stream of content strategy advancing information architecture goals. In this case, content strategy may only involve writing site copy for new website pages and adapting the content on existing ones.

All content strategists are familiar with a wide range of applications and tools, and frequently are responsible for implementing and training individuals to best use them.

Collaboration with Content Strategist via Richard Ingram [6]

Education and Professional Background

• Library and information sciences
• Computer sciences
• Creative and performing arts
• Advertising and marketing
• Rhetoric and composition
• Technical writing and communication
• Journalism
• Professional editors and writers
  
• Communications
• Liberal arts
• Management consulting

Prominent Employers of Content Strategists

These Fortune 500 or internationally renowned brands employ or are hiring content strategists by name:

Work Products

The work products typical of content strategy are diverse:

• Content inventory
• Copy deck
• Content assessment
• Editorial strategy
• Content audit
• Content gap analysis
• Comparative content analysis
• Content and messaging strategy
• Content conversion/migration strategy
• Content flow schematic
• Content approval workflow
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy
• Metadata strategy
• Editorial calendar
• Brand strategy
• Style guide
• Glossary
• Terms of Use

Here are some further ideas for literal applications of content strategy by Colleen Jones.

Consistency via Business Guys on Business Trips [7]

Specializations in Content Strategy

Feedback Form