Everyone has a content strategy. Almost nobody means the same thing.
Executives talk about it. Marketing talks about it. Biz devs talk about it. The loudest person in the room gets credit for having a strong content strategy because they used the term “content strategy.”
Here's where you've heard it... and what they meant.
“What's our content strategy for this blog post?”
How are we promoting this on social?
“Where do we keep our content strategy so I can know what's coming up?”
I'd like a link to our content calendar.
“What's the content strategy for rolling this out?”
Is there GTM documentation and a clear content schedule?
“We need a content strategy for LinkedIn.”
We need somebody posting on LinkedIn.
“Can you own the content strategy piece?”
Can you write the copy?
Every one of these is a reasonable request. None of them is a content strategy.
Believe it or not, content strategy has a meaning.
The ongoing practice of planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable, and effective content about a particular topic or set of topics.
The plan that covers the purpose, the ownership, the structure, the publication of content that meets users' needs and accomplishes business goals.
In other words, the what, who, where and (crucially) the why.
Adapted from Anna Kaley, Nielsen Norman Group.
There is a formal craft.
Content strategy doesn't need to be the practice of making decisions on the fly. There are tools, frameworks and workflows that help you make strategic decisions around content, and even help you make decisions about making decisions.
They're only a google away, but they're scattered across the internet.
Enter the Content Strategy Library
That's why I created the Content Strategy Library, mission control for people making decisions about content. It's a free compilation of formal tools and frameworks that content strategists (and the rest of us) use to figure out how to connect content, purpose, and people.
Browse the tools
The tool library hosts a broad selection of tools to help point you in the right direction. Starting at the start? Try Content Pillars/Themes. Researching what's out there? Content Audit and Competitive Gap Analysis may help you get started.
Content Pillars / Themes
The handful of subjects you intend to be known for, agreed before anything gets written.
View on Content Strategy LibraryContent Audit
An inventory of what already exists, and an honest judgment about what each piece is still doing.
View on Content Strategy LibraryCompetitive Gap Analysis
What the field already covers well, and the questions nobody has answered yet.
View on Content Strategy Library
Don't know where to start?
The Tool Recommender is a quick multiple choice to help you get the tools you need. You can learn more at the source, or rapidly pull together a slide deck to present your content strategy to your stakeholders.
Comprehensive. Organized. Free to use.
This is purely informational, connecting you with the tools you need and the experts who invented them.
Content strategy is real.
The term means something, and this project is to supply everyone with the tools they need to speak the same language.