You may have spotted that we’ve been writing rather a lot lately about content strategy. That’s because it’s a natural progression for web-savvy technical communicators, as well as a growth area for employment. So, although the information is accumulating quickly, we’ve compiled a Content Strategy Starter Kit to get you quickly up to speed.
What is Content Strategy?
Content strategy is a tough thing to define, even among leading exponents. It’s so new, it’s still morphing as a definition. But what it does is put content back on the agenda and tries to improve its performance throughout its lifecycle.
10 Players
The first gathering of around 20 ‘content strategists’ was held on 19 March 2009 ahead of the IA Summit in Memphis. In April 2010, around 200 people from 18 countries attended the first dedicated conference, Content Strategy Forum 2010, in Paris. Many of the original group attended but there is also a growing core of main players.
- Kristina Halvorson – @halvorson
- Rahel Bailie – @rahelab
- Karen McGrane – @karenmcgrane
- Jeff MacIntyre – @jeffmacintyre
- Kenneth Yau – @logorrhoea
- Elisabeth McGuane – @emcguane
- Clare O’Brien – @clareob
- Joe Pulizzi – @juntajoe
- Melissa Rach – @melissarach
- Rachel Lovinger – @rlovinger
10 Books
We’ve linked to Amazon.co.uk for consistency but if you’re shopping from another Euro zone, well, you know what to do…
- Content Strategy for the Web – Kristina Halvorson
- The Web Content Strategist’s Bible – Richard Sheffield
- Content Management Bible – Bob Boiko
- Don’t Make Me Think – Bob Krug
- Letting Go of the Words – Ginny Redish
- Communicating Design – Dan Brown
- Get Content Get Customers – Joe Pulizzi and Newt Barrett
- Audience, Relevance, and Search – James Matthewson, Frank Donatone, Cythia Fishel
- Information Architecture for the World Wide Web – Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
- Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy – Ann Rockley
10 Blogs
Here are a few that we think are worth getting the RSS feeds for. For more, check out Content Strategy: A Reading Guide.
- Scatter/Gather – Razorfish’s blog about content Strategy
- Notes on Content – Jeff MacIntrye’s linkblog
- Intentional Design – Rahel Bailie’s blog
- IQcontent – Elisabeth McGuane, Randall Sanare and others
- Braintraffic – Kristina Halvorson, Clinton Forry and others
- Richtext – Richard Thompson’s blog
- SmyWord – Gabriel Smy’s blog
- Words are Delicious – Keri Maijala and Rian Van Der Merwe
- Incisive.nu – Karen Kissane’s blog
- Winning Content – Leen Jones’ blog
10 Social Media Hangouts
Need to talk about your content strategy issues?
- Google Knol – an extended entry on content strategy
- Facebook New York group – good community discussion
- Meetups – find a local content strategy meetup
- LinkedIn group – includes job postings and other information
- Google group – discussion forum with 600+ members
- Content Strategy Europe – Euro Google group with 80+ members
- Twitter – recent content strategy links and tweets
- Facebook community page – a new shared resource
- Slideshare – content strategy slide presentations
- Vimeo – content strategy video presentations
And a MindMap!
An amazing infographic by Richard Sheffield.
Still want more?
Then check out our 1001 Content Strategy links. Enjoy!
List compiled by CJ Walker, Firehead CEO, and Fiona Cullinan, Firehead blogger, June 2010.
