Tag: content development

Notes From CONFAB, The Content Strategy Conference

CONFAB was a first of its kind conference held in Minneapolis this week. Planners brought together leaders in the field of content strategy to discuss best practices, dispel myths, and bring thoughtful solutions to business needs for quality content. Here are my highlight notes from the first morning of the two day conference.

What is Content Strategy and Why is it Important?
Definitions, Needs, & Roles

Content is defined as everything that can be uploaded to an online site.

Content needs to be planned prior to launch dates, during, and beyond. Inconsistent content through channels is a problem. Multi-platform content development is critical. Get rid of the silos. Content needs to be nimble. Content is a business asset.

Establish a visual rhythm that is recognizable across channels.

A content strategist articulates, investigates, integrates, appreciates, and ideates. They set procedures for content creation, delivery, and governance. They ask: “How can we make content grow by applying  urgency and purpose?”

SEO cannot solve the content problem. Even Google has abandoned the word “search” in favor of “knowledge”.

Content Curation

Content curators are finders who filter information. Information created up to the year 2003 totaled 5 exabytes. That amount is now being created every two days. “I can’t keep up” was expressed by 46% of survey respondents. Sleeping less was a solution for 34% of information consumers.

Humans are replacing algorithms. Ideas are replacing data. “What are people thinking?” is the question to ask; not “How do I manipulate search engines?”

Choose your endorsements, “Likes,” retweets, links, and posts carefully. That is curating the web.

Listening is more powerful than speaking. Gather, organize, and filter good stuff. Monitor for positive re-enforcement and use it as social proof.

In a noisy world, customers embrace clarity.

Questions That Support Quality Content

Where does our data live and why?

What can people do with our content?

What can they do with what they create from our content?

What is our framework for building content?

What’s working? What is not working?

What kind of place does the content create?

How is the content connected?

What forces does content resolve?

How do you keep control of your own content?

Interactions

Reactive and fragmented response is poor content delivery.

Deliver the right information at the right time to the right audience.

Recommend. Share. Be social.

Serve up content.

Business Needs

Move content from a cost center to a profit center by meeting business objectives.

Marketing focuses on new leads, not base. What does your base need and want? How satisfied are they? Existing customers may be more valuable than new customers.

Teach everyone what good content looks like.

* Thank you Kristina Halvorson, Steve Rosenbaum, Erin Kissane and Valeria Maltoni for sharing your thoughts at CONFAB.

Save Time and Make Blogging Easier

time stressed writer
What can I write about?

Most companies understand the benefits of a B-2-B blog. But when it comes to writing blog posts week after week, they falter. While a lack of ideas, enthusiasm, and ability may be the problem, more often, it is a lack of time that sabotages their efforts. Writing is time consuming. Here are some ways to streamline the blogging process.

Decide on a topic. This often involves research. After you have read what is written on a topic, you need time to figure out how you can create your unique viewpoint.  Finally, there is the actual writing and editing time, which can vary considerably, depending on the degree to which your efforts are interrupted by other responsibilities. If time constraints are keeping you from producing a better blog, consider how hiring a professional writer can help you.

1) A professional writer can help you organize your B-2-B blog content using an editorial calendar.

Take a cue from B-2-B editors who find they deliver better content when they follow an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar includes a brief description of what you will publish and when.  Instead of letting things fall to chance, you might decide to feature a case study on Wednesdays and a Q&A with a company expert on Fridays. You may have six key topic areas to plan around. Stop scrambling to find a topic the day the blog post is due.

2) A professional writer can research a blog topic for you.

Much of a professional writer’s job involves finding credible sources of information—weeding through a multitude of sources and conversations on the Internet.  While your company experts are likely to be the No. 1 source of information for your blog, following other experts in the field, competitors, keywords, relevant research and news can be extremely valuable.  Consider hiring a professional writer to research a topic or customize and organize market intelligence for you.  With everything at your fingertips the writing process becomes more efficient.

3) A professional writer can edit your blog posts.

If you or your team have great ideas but don’t have the time to give your writing professional polish, you can hire a writer to review and edit your work.  With an editor’s thorough review process you will avoid embarrassing misspellings and grammatical errors. A good editor will help you communicate clearly and concisely, without losing your “voice.”  A writer knowledgeable in search engine optimization can also edit your blog copy to integrate important keywords that will drive traffic to your site.

4) A professional writer can develop and write blog posts for you.

People often wonder how someone can write about an industry or topic they are not familiar with.  However, professional writers successfully do this every day by thoroughly researching topics and formulating the right questions to ask company experts and industry insiders. In contrast, those who are so close to a topic often overlook the obvious questions that potential customers might have.

If time is keeping you from fully realizing the benefits of a blog, consider hiring a content writer to handle a portion or all of your writing-related tasks.  Content for Biz offers all of these writing, editing and content development services. Check out the “Work with Us” tab to learn more or give us a call.