Hey, it could happen.

There are three things, however, that we DO know for sure:

1. We have AT LEAST eleven more months to rock the Brain Traffic blog.
2. Blogs, like all content, are only successful if it provides value to the user.
3. We’d like you—yes, YOU—to tell us what topics you’d like to see discussed on this blog.

That’s right, there are 22 Brain Traffic employees standing by. We eat, sleep, and breathe content. What would you like to learn more about? How can we help you?

Make your suggestions in the comments section below or on Twitter (@BrainTraffic). We’ll address as many as we can. And treat this year’s editorial calendar as if it were our last!

Thanks in advance for your suggestions. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

* Does anyone else see this whole Mayan calendar debacle as a content workflow problem? It’s more proof that content that hasn’t been updated regularly can cause all sorts of problems (i.e., conspiracy theories, mediocre movies, etc.). No? OK. Erm. Nevermind us.

Now, old-timey (2007) content strategy logic says you need to audit all of your content. You need to see it all with your own human eyes. And if you have a small site (less than 5,000 pages or pieces of content), you probably still should review every piece.

But manual audits get more and more unrealistic as sites get bigger. Who has the time to review 25,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 pieces of content? For our client with 100,000,000 pages, it would take 20 people working full-time for 270 years to manually view all of those pages. Obviously, that’s not an option. Unless you could hire an army of robots. Speaking of …

Can’t robots just do it?

It depends on what kind of audit you’re performing. If you are doing a quantitative audit—simply finding out how much content you have, where it lives, and associated keywords; yes, there are technical tools that can help.

But, if you’re doing a qualitative audit—where you’re trying to learn about the substance, accuracy, and quality of your content, robots can’t help you out. Well, maybe if you had a robot like C-3PO (fluent in six million forms of communication), or this guy:

Image by Sean Tubridy. All rights reserved. 

But you don’t. So, what else can you do?

Sample-size it!

You can pick a sample—a subset of your content—to review. Although a sample doesn’t replace a total site audit, it does help you reduce uncertainty about your content. Scientific and marketing researchers have been doing sampling for years, and when done correctly, sampling can give you a fairly accurate indication of your overall content situation.

You can choose your sample randomly or base it on various factors, such as user segments, product categories, content purpose, location on the site, etc. It all depends on why you’re doing the audit and what you want to learn.

How much is enough?

There’s no rule or benchmark to use. It would seem like the more content you could review, the better off you’d be. That is somewhat true, but mostly you just have to look at enough content to see patterns emerge. On a relatively small site (i.e., 10,000 pieces of content), you might need to look at half of the content before the patterns become obvious.

On a million-page site—you might look at only 0.01% of the content. That’s still 10,000 pages … so you’re not exactly off the hook. But hopefully you’d recognize some kind of valuable patterns by then. You might not have the same level of certainty as you did with the smaller site audit, but you’ll have some ideas. And you probably aren’t going to learn anything else by auditing another 1,000 or 10,000 items—the percentage of items reviewed is still so low that the change in the margin of error is microscopic.

So where do I begin?

Your sample depends on the size of your site. Here’s a rough table of suggested sample sizes (adapted from market research sampling guidelines):

Sampling doesn’t lead to a perfect picture of your content. But a sample audit can provide useful information to support arguments for funding, make the case for content work, or demonstrate progress. And save you from spending the rest of your life staring at a spreadsheet.

Photo by Rhiannan Walton

EMERGING VOICES

One of my favorite parts of attending any content strategy conference is hearing from new and emerging voices in the content strategy community. And, CS Forum’s program was jam-packed with `em.

You can check out the entire speaker lineup, but here are a handful people we think you should know about (alphabetically by first name, because alphabetizing is cool):

Daniel Eizans (@danieleizans): Contextually relevant content strategies

This talk introduced a series of smart, detailed ways of understanding — and meeting — the needs of our users based on the contexts (personal, situational, behavioral, etc.) in which they encounter content. We'll likely see a lot more discussion of user contexts and content strategy in the near future, not to mention a lot more bright ideas from Dan.

Diana Railton (@dianarailton): How content strategy supports communications strategy

Diana's talk created a bridge between the practice of content strategy with the closely related world of communications strategy. She was both pragmatic and frank about the challenges both practices face as more communication goes online. So sharp and so good.

Irene Walker (@1rene): Let’s talk accessibility

By introducing us to several friends with disabilities and their online content challenges, Irene made an extremely compelling case for spending more time on accessibility. Not because we’re legally obligated, but because it’s the right thing to do. (Incidentally, Irene works for August Sun, the company that will host the 2012 CS Forum in Cape Town. Yes, South Africa. Right on.)

Lise Janody (@lisejanody): Balance & compromise (Weaving localization into a content strategy)

Content localization is a big, big topic. Some consider it too big for a short conference session, but not Lise Janody. She tackled it head on. In a mere 40 minutes, Lise provided a valuable introduction to localization, globalization, translation, and internationalization. Phew. All that smarts and she lives in France, too. Not fair.

Richard Ingram (@richardjingram): How did we all get here?

Ok, this is cheating. Many of you already know Richard from his brilliant infographics about content strategy. But this was his first-ever talk, and it was a winner. He presented the results of his survey on the varied backgrounds of content strategists. And—you guessed it—he made it all into another interesting infographic. Mmmmm… juicy data.

OH, AND WE TALKED, TOO

I suppose, we should also let you know that the Brain Traffic team also did some talking. Kristina Halvorson moderated the closing panel, and two of us did presentations, which you can see here:

Erin Kissane (@Kissane): Making sense of the (new) content landscape

Melissa Rach (@melissarach): CS Methodology: A DIY project

Thanks to conference hosts Jonathan Kahn (@lucidplot), Randall Snare (@randallsnare), and Destry Wion (@wion) for a lovely time.

Did you attend the forum? What were your stand-out moments?

(click image to enlarge)

Of course, editorial calendars are not just for questionable news organizations. They can also be a valuable tool for perfectly reputable organizations who want to manage content-related activities effectively. So, here’s the skinny on making an ed cal that works for you.

Calendaring: It’s not as easy as you think

Editorial calendars seem easy enough. There are plenty of calendaring tools and templates online, free to anyone. You put some stuff into a spreadsheet or app and you’ve got a calendar (fancy color-coding optional). Easy-peasy, right?

Unfortunately, the chances of somebody else’s calendar template being exactly what you need are slim-to-none. So, before you go searching online, take a minute to focus your efforts.

Start by defining a purpose

It sounds like common sense, but the first step toward a successful editorial calendar is defining why you’re creating it. The purpose for your calendar may be a variation on one or more of these common themes (get as specific as possible):

• Improve content quality or relevance
• Integrate content across various channels/brands/business units
• Fulfill user needs (by profile, lifecycle, or topics of interest)
• Align content with business goals/campaigns/events
• Measure/record content success or value
• Allocate resources (human and budgetary) or justify resource needs
• Manage all content creation/curation/maintenance activities

When identifying purpose, don’t forget to think about:

• Who is going to use the calendar and why?
• How will it be shared/used?
• Who is going to maintain the calendar?
• How often will it be updated/shared?
• How will you know if the calendar is working?

Pick and prioritize calendar variables

Once you know the purpose, you can start choosing what to include on your calendar. There are literally hundreds of content-related variables that could be tracked on an editorial calendar.

List all of the variables/data points you think are relevant to your calendar, then rank them in priority order. It’s tempting to include every tidbit of information you have, but in this case, less is usually more. Focus your calendar on the top priorities, and consider eliminating the bottom priorities to make your calendar easy to use and maintain.

For example, let’s say you work for an organization that provides services to elementary school teachers. You might consider including the following variables (for simplicity’s sake, I’ll only include 10):

• Date (e.g., May 14)
• Channel (e.g., website, print newsletter, Twitter)
• Content element (e.g., home page article, newsletter sidebar, video)
• Teacher profiles (e.g., new teacher, kindergarten teacher)
• Teachers’ events (e.g., National Teachers Association Convention)
• Holidays and seasons (e.g., Christmas, autumn)
• Hot topics (e.g., student testing, school security)
• Content creator (e.g., web editor, Sue in marketing, third-party provider)
• Content workflow step (e.g., schedule interviews, get outline approved, create content)
• Budget (e.g., $5000)

Depending on your priorities, your calendar will vary. If the purpose of your calendar was to integrate all channels around user hot topics, your calendar might look like this:

(click image to enlarge)

Alternatively, if your calendar was mostly intended to manage resources and budgets, it might look like this:

(click image to enlarge)

One last word of advice

Editorial calendars do not have to be fancy or complicated. Whatever works for you, works. Once you identify the purpose and key information elements on your calendar, you can make your own simple spreadsheet or go online for more inspiration.

However, if you’re looking for something absolutely sensational, I hear there are several editors from News of the World looking for work that would be happy to help you.

Since “Part 1” was published, content strategy has gained a lot of ground in the business world. However, justifying budgets and resources for content projects is still a major challenge. So, here, at long last, are seven tips to help you measure content effectively.
 

(photo by HeyThereSpaceman. cc licensed)

Disclosure: There’s no silver bullet

I wish I could give you a simple, foolproof way to make all your content measurement dreams come true. Unfortunately, there’s no magic app or secret mathematical equation that does all the work. Sure, there are tools that streamline the measurement process, but no matter how many fancy widgets you buy, measuring content value will still take a significant amount of time and attention.

1. Don’t worry about exact numbers

Before we talk about how to measure content, let’s talk about measurement itself. Most people think of measurement as a practice of absolutes (I am exactly 5 feet 9 inches tall, my dog weighs exactly 98 pounds, etc.). With this mindset, things that can’t be measured exactly can’t be measured at all.

This perception is reinforced in the business world. As I explained in my previous blog, our economic system was created when most products were tangible things, such as shoes or chairs. Calculating the manufacturing costs, units sold, and price for these products is relatively easy. The CFO sticks all the data in a fancy Excel spreadsheet and poof: the company’s year-end profit from shoes is exactly $4,829,006.56. (I’m oversimplifying it, but you get the gist.)

However, when somebody tries to measure something intangible—like the value of content—it’s impossible to come up with an exact number. So, people assume content is immeasurable.

Luckily, most scientists, mathematicians, and statisticians say exact measurement is a myth. To them, the goal of measurement is to reduce uncertainty. Get this: it’s impossible to eliminate uncertainty all together—all measurement is based on assumptions. That means, when measuring content value, you don’t have to come up with precise numbers. You just need to provide enough information that your stakeholders feel comfortable making a decision. Think estimates, not exacts. Now, doesn’t that seem easier?

2. Start by defining what you’re measuring

Ok, so how do you reduce uncertainty? The first thing you need to do is decide what you’re measuring. It might sound simple, but it’s actually one of the trickiest parts of the process. The key is to get as specific as possible, because the more specific you get, the more uncertainty you’ll be able to eliminate.

Start by answering the following questions:

• How are you defining “content”? Many people forget to answer this critical question. I have my own ideas about what content is, but your definition will depend on your situation. You may need to break “content” down into smaller distinct categories. For example, if you define content as “text,” you may need to define several types of text (marketing vs. help text, intro paragraphs vs. sidebars, etc.). List each component or distinct type of content individually—they may need to be measured differently.
• What does the content help the user do? In other words, what is the function of the content? Most project teams identify high-level user tasks, but they don’t go deep enough. You need to get into the dirty details. For each piece of content, list as many functions as you can and rank them in order of importance. The more explicit the function, the better. For example, instead of saying the “content on our furniture store website facilitates the buying process,” you might say content on a product detail page needs to:
  • Accurately describe the furniture
  • Justify the cost of the furniture
  • Provide clear details about furniture customization options
  • Guide the user through the purchase process
• What are the desired characteristics of the content? In addition to function, most organizations want content to have certain traits. For example, they may want it to be professional (no spelling errors) or “on brand.” Again, the more information you can gather about these characteristics, the more easily you will be able to measure them.

3. Assign values to your functions and characteristics

This step really pushes content people out of their comfort zone, because it involves math. And assumptions. I promise it’s not as hard as you think.

For each of the functions and characteristics you identified, assign a value based on data or educated assumptions. (You can use monetary amounts, percentages, or arbitrary point systems. Just as long as you use numbers.) Document all of the data and assumptions you use, so you can show them to your stakeholders later, if necessary.

Using our furniture website example from above, assigning values can go something like this:

• The average chair costs $500
• Analytics show that 50 people start the process of purchasing a chair online every day, but only 10 finish the process
• User research shows that the instructions on the purchase pages are very confusing
• We assume 5-10 people leave the purchasing process because of something unrelated to the site, and 5-10 leave the process when they see the shipping costs
• We assume the remaining 20-30 people would complete the purchasing process if the instructions were more helpful
• Therefore, the value of the instructional content is likely around $300,000-450,000 per month ($500 x 20-30 people x 30 days)
• The cost of fixing the content is approximately $25,000

(In this case, we can prove with a large amount of certainty that the price of the project is worth doing!)

A lot of work? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.

In some cases, documenting only your most important functions and characteristics is necessary to help your stakeholders make decisions with certainty. In other cases, you’ll have to do the whole enchilada. (Hint: Tons of data/assumptions can get confusing, so on big projects you may want to create a content scorecard or matrix. You could even put it in Excel—just like the CFO. See how official you’re getting?)

4. The more ways you measure, the more certainty you get

At Brain Traffic, when we ask a new web client how they measure content effectiveness, they often give us a Google analytics login and a smile. Analytics are great. But, no single measurement method captures the complete picture of content.

Try to use a variety of measurement methods, instead of relying on favorite or easy method. When you use two or more methods, you'll get more well-rounded results. Some common methods include:

• Analytics: use technology tools to collect data
• User research: ask the users directly what they want or observe their behavior
• External expert review: ask content experts or industry peers to review/rate content
• Internal expert review: get insights from knowledgeable people inside your organization, such as sales people or customer service reps
• Competitive comparison: measure direct competitors and your content on the same factors and compare

The more ways and more often you measure, the more certainty you get. But, you likely won’t be able to use all of these methods—just choose the ones that are most applicable to your organization.

5. Establish a baseline

Taking a baseline measurement is simple: before you make any changes, make sure you measure your existing content using the same metrics you’ll use on the new stuff. It can be painful to get feedback on content you already know is crappy, but the baseline will help you measure the impact of your future content work. And if all goes well, you’ll have handy, glowing before-and-after stats to pass around at your company’s next board meeting.

6. Measure regularly

Once your new content is live, set a regular schedule to measure the content using the established metrics. This will help you see how content performs over time as business and user needs change. In addition, it helps you understand how content activities change due to events like holidays or product launches.

7. Be realistic about measurement budgets

It’s important to plan a budget for your measurement initiative. Although measurement isn’t always expensive, it does take time, resources, and money. Scale your efforts to the size of the content project. If the whole content project is going to cost $50,000, you can look at basic analytics and do some informal user testing with your friends. But, if your company is looking to invest several million dollars in a content venture, $50,000 on measurement is money well spent.

Phew, I had a lot to say

Well, there you have it. Two years of pent-up measurement info in one ginormous blog. Although this is probably too much information for a blog, it’s just the tip of the iceberg in the content measurement conversation. In fact, it’s a tiny ice cube.

Measuring content value is important to content strategists, but it’s not just a content strategy issue. It’s one of the most important business discussions of the information age. There’s still lots to learn, let us know what you think.

I know. It’s wrong on so many levels—there’s the anti-monarchy angle, the feminist issues, and it’s at 3-freakin’-a.m. But, my preschool daughter loves princesses and brides, and I’m a sucker for feel-good pageantry. So, we’ll be there, bleary-eyed in our jammies, celebrating Wills and Kate with toasts of the multigrain-with-butter variety.

Kate: “What? I’m on the BT blog? Now I’m really famous.” The official portrait photographs for the engagement of Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton. (Copyright 2010 Mario Testino).

Saving the monarchy, sponsoring a content strategy project … it’s all the same

However, unlike watching Charles and Diana’s wedding when I was a kid, this time I understand that it’s not all fun and fairytales. I can almost feel the pressure on Kate Middleton from Minnesota. No doubt she’s getting exactly what she wants, but STILL. As if getting married wasn’t stressful enough, she’s a “commoner” expected to save the British monarchy (in fashionable, but not too extravagant, frocks). 

Odd as it may seem, sponsors of corporate content strategy projects are often under a similar type of pressure. Obviously, they don’t have 130 billion people commenting on their fashion choices, but, like Kate, many are knowingly:

• Committing themselves to a new role with increased responsibility and prominence
• Tackling a huge, “mission critical” initiative, where related past efforts have had marginal success (if any)
• Working in a fast-paced, technically-enhanced environment that their predecessors never knew and contemporaries don’t always understand     
• Facing political minefields and public scrutiny  

With all that stress, why do they do it? I’d guess both Kate and the project sponsors would say it’s because there’s an exciting opportunity, there’s something they love about it, and they believe they can do it. Additionally, if it all goes well, the benefits for their organizations (not to mention themselves) will be great.

Help your project sponsors be royally successful

As content strategists, we have to be content experts, but we also need to be strategists. Part of the role of a strategist is to help each project sponsor navigate his or her environment. It’s a nice thing to do, and it’ll make the strategy a lot more successful.

So, take a cue from the royal couple’s advisors. When appropriate, don’t be afraid to help your project sponsor:   

• Be prepared and confident. The future Princess of Wales has a lot to learn, fast. She’s apparently taking lessons in a variety of topics: royal etiquette, dealing with the press, and even the Welsh language. Pob lwc! (That’s “good luck” in Welsh. She’ll need it.)

  Good strategists ensure project sponsors are similarly prepared. Be sure your project sponsor is armed with knowledge about content strategy best practices, processes, and theories. That way, they can participate fully in project work and talk confidently about content strategy to other stakeholders when necessary.

• Earn trust from organization leadership. Just last week the Queen gave her official, written consent to the wedding of Prince William and “our trusty and well-beloved Catherine Elizabeth Middleton.” Trusty? Nice work, Kate. I’m guessing the Queen never said that about Fergie. 

  Helping your sponsor earn the trust of the CEO, CMO, or similar stakeholders is critical to strategy buy-in and implementation. Whether it’s creating talking points for your sponsor, giving a presentation, or facilitating a workshop, do what it takes to get leadership on board.

• Keep stakeholders informed, and interested. The PR wizards from Clarence House have done an excellent job of releasing information about the royal wedding at regular intervals. These timely updates throughout out the wedding preparations have kept everyone apprised of progress and kept them interested.

  Once the project is underway, make sure your sponsor has regular progress updates to keep stakeholders interested and involved.

• Get alignment before action. Kate and William were engaged for several weeks before it was announced to the public. That time gave the families and royal advisors a chance to get on the same page, coordinate activities, and come across as a unified, believable front.

  There’s nothing worse than 11th-hour political controversy—it derails the project and makes your sponsor’s job a nightmare. So, when it’s time to make big announcements around your strategy (introducing the strategic plan, launching strategy implementation, etc.), plan a few days in your schedule to ensure all of the key members of the project and leadership teams are aligned in advance.

And then they lived happily ever after

Take some time to understand each project sponsor’s stress points and alleviate what you can. When project sponsors (and their teams) have a positive project experience, there’s a significantly better chance that strategic recommendations will be approved and implemented. And that’s a happy ending for everybody.

As for William and Kate, I hope they have a happy ending, too. I wish them “longyfarchiadau” (that’s “congratulations” in Welsh). I’d also like to tell them: mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn llyswennod (“my hovercraft is full of eels”). Apparently, it’s a common Welsh phrase.

Afterwards, Evgeni glowered and ranted. He briefly stood on the gold medal platform at the medals ceremony. His official website declared him the “platinum” medal winner. He made it clear that you need a quad to compete. Vladimir Putin agreed. 

I don’t know about you, but we at Brain Traffic got the message. I mean, seriously, Evgeni  and Vladimir are not guys you want mad at you. So, we got to work.

THE CONTENT STRATEGY QUAD
As of today, the Brain Traffic team has been landing its own quad regularly for more than a year. But our quad isn’t an ice-skating feat—it’s an infographic describing the critical components we consider in every content strategy.  
 

WHAT IT ALL MEANS
At the center is the core content strategy, the central idea for using content to achieve an organization's business goals. To achieve that strategy most effectively, we look at four closely related components (the four areas of the quad):

Content-focused components
1) Substance—What kind of content do we need (topics, types, sources, etc.), and what messages does content need to communicate to our audience?
2) Structure—How is content prioritized, organized, formatted, and displayed? (Structure can include communication planning, IA, metadata, data modeling, linking strategies, etc.) 

People-focused components
3) Workflow—What processes, tools, and human resources are required for content initiatives to launch successfully and maintain ongoing quality?
4) Governance—How are key decisions about content and content strategy made? How are changes initiated and communicated?

SO FAR, IT'S GETTING HIGH MARKS
Our quad will probably never be discussed by Dick Button and Scott Hamilton, but over the past year it has received consistently high marks from clients and seminar attendees. The quad helps people quickly understand the complexity of content strategy and puts their content challenges into perspective.

Bonus quad-related craft project
Want to look like a content strategy Olympian? Here’s how:

1. Print this page
2. Cut out the quad
3. Poke a hole in the middle
4. Put it on a string around your neck

Presto, you’re just like Evgeni.

Oh yeah. Gang of Four recently released an album called “Content.”  We *assume* content strategy inspired the influential 1970s post-punk band to record its first new material in a zillion years. (Way to stay hip, guys! )

It’s obvious how each track is related to content strategy, just by reading the song titles. Below, we’ve listed the actual track titles, followed by what the Brain Traffic team expects from each song. Feel free to add your ideas to our list.

1. She Said—An ode to a fantastic stakeholder interview.
2. You Don’t Have To Be Mad—A blistering punk-inspired rant directed at people who leave unnecessarily nasty comments in user-generated content features.   
3. Who Am I?—A little ditty describing a project with 26 distinct user profiles.
4. I Can’t Forget Your Lonely Face—A haunting ballad that laments, “Why is that creepy photo of the CEO all over the place? I can’t forget his lonely face.”
5. You’ll Never Pay For The Farm—A song about a content strategist who loves tractor content a little too much (based on a true story).
6. I Party All The Time—A reggae-inspired crowd-pleaser about social media (a.k.a. “the fun stuff”).
7. A Fruitfly In The Beehive—A dance number illustrating how even one piece of overlooked, outdated content on an otherwise good website can ruin a user’s experience forevah.
8. It Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good—A remorse-filled dirge describing a project where they forgot content strategy … until it was too late.
9. Do As I Say—Powerful anthem with the chorus, “These governance tools and guidelines give me permission to boss you. Uh-huh, uh-huh, they so do.”
10. I Can See From Far Away—A love song dedicated to good IA: “From every page on your site, I can tell where the content I want is gonna be. Tawes.”
11. CSA (Exclusive Bonus Track)—Content Strategy Awesomeness.  ‘Nuf said.

Now, we’ll have to listen to the album to see if we’re right.  Bet we’re close. 
 

Descartes: Drunken Fart

With all of the focus on content strategy recently, discussions about the definition of the word “content” have erupted into a philosophical debate that would make Kant, Descartes, and Heidegger proud. Some people say “everything is content.” Others say “there’s no such thing as content.” And then there are the hundreds of well-argued definitions in between.  

It was all fun and games, until reality hit

While philosophical debates can be super fun (René Descartes was a drunken fart, Immanuel Kant was a real pissant, etc.), they can make day-to-day project work confusing. If content is everything, where does content strategy begin and end? And, if content is nothing, why does it seem to be so important to businesses?

We admit it. We Brain Traffickers lean philosophically toward the “content is everything” camp.  But, we realized early on that content strategy projects require a simple, flexible, and limiting definition of content that everyone on a project team can align on.

At first, finding the right way to corral content was a struggle. Things finally clicked when we started differentiating between content and content-related elements we call “content facilitators.”  (Apologies to people who are called content facilitators. We’re stealing your job title until we think of something else.)

So, what is “content”?

Content isn’t always a confusing word. When you talk about offline channels, such as books or presentations, content is a pretty easy concept to define.

Consider this: What is the content of an average biology textbook? If you’re like most people, you’d probably say something like, “It’s about biology: cells, animals, plants, and stuff.” And, if you happen to have a biology textbook, you could grab it and look at the (ahem) “table of contents” to get more specific details.

Although other communication channels are often more complex, the basic concept remains the same. The content is the meat—it’s what the user came to read, learn, see, or experience. From the business perspective, the content is the critical information the book, site, etc., was created to contain or communicate. (Think contents, not content.)

And, what are “content facilitators”?

Every communication channel has content facilitators—informational elements that exist to help people find, use, and understand the content. The real confusion about content started with the advent of the web, where the line between content and content facilitators started to blur.

Our biology book has several facilitators, such as a table of contents, an index, a bio of the author, and an unnecessarily large picture of a dewy grasshopper on the front cover. All of these things are helpful (even the grasshopper provides context), but they’re not the reason most people buy the book.  In fact, they’re really optional.        

Online, however, facilitators—such as navigation, metadata, taxonomy, brand imagery, help text, etc.—are mission critical. The content is unusable and unrecognizable without them.

Let’s face it. With a few exceptions (you know who you are), people don’t go online to see metadata. But they’d be awfully screwed without it. Metadata generally doesn’t fit our definition of content, but it sure as heck needs to be considered during the content strategy process.

Philosophically speaking …

Establishing working definitions for content and content facilitators has made a big difference in our content strategy practice. Although both are extremely important in any content strategy, distinguishing between the two makes it easier for us to communicate project goals, set priorities, and work with partners.   

As an added bonus, clients like it. They have an easier time communicating internally, and because our definition of content isn’t limited by format (text, pictures, data, etc.), topic, or channel, Brain Traffic is better able to adapt our work to every client’s specific situation.

But, we still love an etymology debate (we’re wordnerds, after all). Give us a few drinks and we’re happy to wax philosophical about it. Just like Heidegger, that boozy beggar who could think you under the table.

Which leads to the real question:  Where do you get practice doing content strategy if it’s not part of your current job? In my opinion: Everywhere. 

Start seeing content strategy in everyday life
By far, the best way to practice content strategy is to start recognizing when other people are doing it (or obviously not doing it).

Research, such as last weeks’ Ofcom Communication Market report, confirms the obvious: We all knowingly consume a boatload of content. So, you can start there. Next time you open a web site, download an app, or see a billboard—ask yourself questions like: What message are they trying to communicate? How does this piece of content fit into their greater communications plan? How do they hope I’ll react?

But don’t stop with stuff that is explicitly media-related. When you go to the grocery store, start thinking about why they labeled the aisles the way they did or content design behind nutrition labels. Decide whether the admittance form at your doctors’ office makes you feel  welcomed, annoyed, or scared and why.
 
Draw parallels to Brian May (or your other interests)
Another way to practice is to draw parallels between content strategy and something you already know a lot about. Lots of people draw on their knowledge of related fields like IA or business strategy. But great stuff can come from unexpected places, too.

For example, a few weeks ago, my close friend sent me a link to an NPR interview with Brian May (astrophysicist, university chancellor, author … Queen’s lead guitarist). She sent it because we share a soft spot for Queen and a billion Highlander-related jokes (“There can be only one!”).

I already knew quite a bit about Brian May, but when I listened to the 40-minute long interview, I got a lesson in content strategy (despite the poor interviewer).

Here are some examples:

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Once you start, you can’t stop
Once you start seeing content strategy everywhere, thinking strategically about content becomes a habit—and you’re practicing during all of your waking hours (whether you want to or not). With that habit established, it becomes a lot easier to find answers to your own critical content strategy questions.
 
So, now, if you’ll excuse me, I'm going to go look for some content strategy parallels in May’s Ph.D. thesis: “A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud.” (Or, maybe I’ll just play air guitar on “Stone Cold Crazy” instead.)

“Looking Brian May” image courtesy of  flickr user Icemanfr75 (cc: by-nc-nd)