What Content Strategy Isn’t
There’s lots of talk at the moment about content strategy. People are even calling it “CS”. For people who do it – like me – this is all a bit of a shock. We know the work we do is valuable to our clients; we just never knew it would become a movement.
But for all the aspects of content creation, production, management and deployment that DO qualify as content strategy, there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t.
Content strategy ubiquity
Do a search on Google, subscribe to a blog alert, or lick your pinkie and hold it to the wind and you’ll hear a lot of things described as content strategy:
SEO is great, but it’s not a content strategy. It’s part of one. Your SEO strategy is not your content strategy.
Deciding to outsource your writing to Media Giants or someone in Boronia or someone in Bangalore is not a content strategy. It’s part of one. Content production is not a content strategy.
Creating an online content style guide is not a content strategy. It’s part of one.
Conducting research on user needs is not a content strategy. But – yep – it is part of one.
Content strategy isn’t deciding to do better; it isn’t hiring a proper web writer; it isn’t realising that your web writers are the most valuable salespeople on staff; and it isn’t understanding why your online communication needs should take precedence over technologists and Flash-happy designers.
Content strategy is all of this, and more. It is your business, your comms plan, your brand values, your uniqueness, your site content, and much more.
Do you have someone who intuitively gets it? Do you need a content strategist?
