Content strategy has become buzzwordified, with many disciplines trying to take custody of its definition. It’s bigger than marketing, or information architecture, or even editorial, but all these fields are important to a successful outcome.
Source: www.helenmosher.com
This is written by my friend, Helen Mosher, whom I’ve known for about 25 years. Helen is the one who introduced me to certain alternative bands, knitting, and blogging. We even shared a knitting blog for a time. Anyway, Helen is in the process of figuring out the next steps in her career, and discovered content strategy in the past year or so. She wrote this article as an analogy based on her writing and publishing background.
Do you agree with her assessment? I can say that I do consider myself a content strategist, and my job title happens to be "Web Publisher". But I also hold many of the other roles that she describes in this article. This is why I most often refer to myself as a "technical communicator", as it is much more of an umbrella term to cover all those different "hats" I wear. Technical communicators have to encompass all these roles. Some might concentrate on one aspect more than others, but I know I have to deal will ALL those aspects on a daily basis. So content strategy is a lot more that it looks, in my view, and it is an all-encompassing role. It’s never boring, that’s for sure.
Add your comments below, and let me know what you think. Also, contact Helen if you are interested in hiring her. I know she’s looking for additional work right now.
–techcommgeekmom
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TechCommGeekMom 
I want to clarify: I’m not new to the discipline. I am a content strategist, and that’s been part of my job description for at least 5 years and a good chunk of what I’ve been working toward since 1999. I’ve only just started blogging more because I don’t have a full-time job at the moment.
I will say that your content strategy is like weight loss blog post is part of what inspired me to write this post. I see people getting caught up in the idea of an audit and great architecture without focusing at all on editorial value. The marketers are caught up in conversions and lead generation again without focusing on editorial value.That missing middle piece is my specialty, but it’s the overall synthesis of these three “pieces,” if you will, that should be driven by an overall content strategy.
For more information on this missing middle piece, check out http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/09/every-content-marketer-needs-an-editor/.
Good point. This middle piece is talked about a lot at conferences I’ve attended, and it’s a big part of my consulting practices, so I’ve taken that part for granted. That’s an integral part of what content strategy is about–the editorial content, whether it’s for marketing or not. All content has value, not just in analytical terms, but also in terms of impact. That’s something not to be lost.
Here’s the thing: All content does not have value. I recently commented on LinkedIn that I wish I had the ability to downvote low-quality Pulse content and got quite a bit of engagement on said comment. So many organizations are vomiting up clickbait drivel and puffery just to get traffic. That’s fine if you’re Buzzfeed, I guess, and very occasionally organizations will hit on the perfect real-time marketing moment that goes insanely viral for all the right reasons and actually delivers a monetary return and a significant “wow” for the brand. But in a world where chaff exceeds wheat in mind-boggling quantity, we can’t say “all content has value.” But if I were to charge for the time I’ve wasted reading items that were ill-informed, incoherent, or downright plagiarized, I’d probably not need that full-time job I’m seeking.
I really agree with that point Helen. A great deal of content doesn’t have value, and just gets in the way of finding what you were looking for, which makes me insane when I am operating as a consumer, and just… sad when operating as a business person.
I really liked Helen’s article. Thanks for sharing it.
If I weren’t already a fan of Helen’s, her coining of the phrase “clickbait drivel and puffery” (in the comments section here) would’ve made me one. I think I just found the name for my next blog!
Thanks, Larry! While I’m jobhunting, I’ll be talking a lot more about this kind of stuff. I’m hoping I can find the kind of job that will allow me to continue talking about it, as well–been kind of behind the “she belongs to us” firewall that made it harder to share knowledge, but I’m fairly well known for my expertise to a certain segment of the emerging media (for lack of a better term) blogosphere.