Why a Content Strategy Is Not Just For Marketers
Recently, I attended the Institute for Performance and Learning National Conference, what a great learning and networking experience. There were a lot of great sessions, but one topic that came up throughout multiple sessions was content strategy.
Marketers have (hopefully) a content (marketing) strategy in place already but when L&D professional were asked if they ever conducted a content strategy, well, one hand went up and it was my own! That got me thinking why L&D professional aren’t focusing on this crucial element. How can we deliver content, and especially create adaptive learning, if we don’t even know what content we have? You can’t drive performance without understanding what and how content is being accessed to drive an individual’s performance. So let’s take a look what content strategy actually means and how you can get started with it!
What is a Content Strategy?
Simply put, content strategy is the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content. Meaning a content strategy lets you manage your content as a business asset. A content strategy goes beyond the words you write, it also does include images and multimedia that is used. The goal of content strategy is to create meaningful, cohesive, engaging, and sustainable content.
Why Do You Need a Content Strategy?
It helps you identify the right content at the right time for the right audience, and helps you identify what content already exists, what should be created and, more importantly, why it should be created. The modern learner, and I would like to add especially your clients, want information right at their fingertips when the need arises, and they want to apply it in that moment as well. A through content strategy will help you identify exactly that and as you put measurements in place, you will be able to see which content is in high demand, and which content has barely been touched.
How Can You Get Started With Content Strategy?
There are a lot of resources out there on how to create a content strategy. If you research this topic further, be sure to look for content strategy, not for content marketing strategy as this is slightly different! Melissa Rach has created a Content Strategy Quad describing the people and content-oriented components you should keep in mind when creating content.
At the centre is the core content strategy, the central idea for using content to achieve your organization’s business goals. To achieve that strategy most effectively, Rach looks at four closely related components:
Content-focused components
- Substance: What kind of content do we need (topics, types, sources, etc.), and what messages does content need to communicate to our audience?
- Structure: How is content prioritized, organized, formatted, and displayed? (Structure can include communication planning, IA, metadata, data modelling, linking strategies, etc.)
People-focused components
- Workflow: What processes, tools, and human resources are required for content initiatives to launch successfully and maintain ongoing quality?
- Governance: How are key decisions about content and content strategy made? How are changes initiated and communicated?
These quadrants are a great way to start thinking about your content strategy.
What’s Next?
Content Strategy is a fascinating topic for me personally as I have worked with marketers in the past, and am currently part of a marketing team again, focusing on Client Education. In my next post, I want to take the above thoughts a little further and talk about the L&D Content Lifecycle and help you develop steps for your own content strategy.
What are your thoughts on content strategy? Have you ever developed one as a L&D professional? Let me know in the comments below!
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