Misty Weaver Content Strategy in the Bush - CS Seattle

Content Strategy in the Bush

The Big 5 of Content Misty Weaver

Content Strategy Seattle

Who?

Misty “Melissa” WeaverTwitter @meaningmeasureLinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/mistymelissaweaver

My work is all about Communication Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations & Startups:Community Management, Social Media Marketing, Content Creation, Curation and Publishing, Website Management, Event Planning

Community ManagerCS in South Africa I’ve added text summaries to the following slide for folks who weren’t able to join us at the CS Seattle meetup.

Reframing Metaphors

Content Strategy in Bush Shakespeare in the Bush by Laura Bohannanhttps://law.ubalt.edu/downloads/law_downloads/IRC_Shakespeare_in_the_Bush.pdf

Context has the power to change meaning. After CS Forum Cape Town, I traveled through South Africa for 4 weeks. Constantly introducing myself and explaining what I do, Information Architecture, and what that means in a way that is relevant to the person in front me. Teaching, working, travelling, hosting events: I spend a lot of time reframing IA and Content Strategy, constantly trying on new metaphors. I’ve been thinking a lot about urban planning and living organisms as more appropriate metaphors for CS.

The House Metaphor

Your website is like a house

A commonly used metaphor to explain IA and Content Strategy, I prefer to think that digital presence is more like building a city then a house. Unlike a house that has static walls and very few points of entry, when we create information space online it has multitudes of entrances & exits, intended or not. Online experiences come with complicated patterns of traffic, public and private space, owned and shared resources; A house doesn’t seem big enough to encompass them.

Petri Krohn

A website can seem more like a glass house…

EcosystemEven more than a city, an ecosystem demonstrates so much that we want to capture in explaining Content Strategy:• Complex life cycles and

interactions • Internal and external factors to

the organization • A huge variety of kinds of content,

users, traffic and patterns

The following slides show how I reframed Content Strategy in terms of the Big 5 game at Kruger National Park.

Big 5

Originally, Big 5 referred to the animals Game Hunters came to Africa to kill. Our first reframe is in this title, which now refers to the 5 animals people like to see when they visit Kruger Park.

How are customers like elephants?

They choose their own paths…

And sometimes they use yours…

1.

When I think of personas, I think of humans. But the elephants at Kruger made me realize, I could expand my thinking to an even more “other” idea of users. Too often, we build websites or digital experiences based on the org chart not on how users actually experience an organization. Most users, like elephants, choose their own paths as they try to accomplish tasks. We have to plan digital experiences for how people actually navigate not just the way the organization wants them to move. It’s not just that you have to know your audience, you have to know your elephants.

How are customers like predators?

They can be elusive…

2.

Users have different patterns of behavior, we can only predict their behavior if we actually study it. Are your online customers more like leopards - solitary, nocturnal, ‘stalking’ your pages and reviews before making decisions? Maybe, like leopards, they aren’t into sharing. Just because people can share, doesn’t mean they will. Your content has to be relevant, excellent, reach them at the right time AND be easy to share.

How are Robots like Predators?

What do you see in your mind when you think of the word robot?

In South Africa

• Robots are Stoplights• I think of robots as search engine spiders• And search engines are one of the most

important audiences of online content

They only succeed 30% of the time…

3.

Search engines are users, too. But they’re like lions, not leopards. They don’t necessarily bring back the most relevant, credible, useful result in their page listings. And people themselves may only look at page one or the first three entries. That’s not good for getting the right content to the right person at the right moment.

Search engines need content strategists to help them become more efficient.

When is a buffalo not like a buffalo?

One of these animals is not like the others…

The American Buffalo isn’t a Buffalo

It’s a Bison.

Context changes meaning, right? As Content Strategists, our work revolves around differentiation. We differentiate our clients from competitors, accurate content from inaccurate, strong organization from weak…

4.

We can help differentiate our clients by delivering content that fills gaps in their users knowledge and by helping provide information that is credible, consistent and clear.

I might call content ‘Buffalo’ to indicate that’s out of date, mislabeled or misplaced. (That’s between us CS folks!)

How is good content like a rhinoceros?

It’s rare

It’s okay to cry

I could see dedicating my life to saving the Rhino. The near extinction of this animal is a completely man made problem. My personal rhino is bad content, too much of it and resulting information overload. So many ‘experts’ encourage people to write lots of copy, blog posts, and new product pages. I’d like to think we could, as content strategists, step in and instead help a small but mighty practice renew itself. Help nurture the good but rare content…

5.

We are the advocates for great quality content that improves people’s lives online. Only by supporting good content practices can we foster a community where good content becomes the norm. It may sometimes feel like a Sisyphean task, but it’s worth the effort. Keep on reframing and explaining Content Strategy in the ways that most help you, but please, keep on plugging Content Strategy. The Internet needs you.

http://www.savetherhino.org/

Thank you!

@meaningmeasure

This was how dorky I looked on Safari