Jonathon Colman

Since I left SEO, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Content Strategy. What is it? What books and blogs should people read to learn about it? What conferences should folks attend and who are the experts in the field?

I thought I would assemble my favorite Content Strategy resources into a list that has everything all in one place for folks who, like me, are new to this field. This makes it easier to find for those who are interested, not to mention easier for me to share when I get questions.

But I also created this list as a way of thanking all the amazing, brilliant, and talented content strategists out there who inspired me with their work and insights. In a way, this list of content strategy resources is my love letter to the industry that welcomed me into its halls.

Content Strategy definition – Books – Journals – Blogs – Articles – Events – Forums – More lists

A Definition of Content Strategy

So what do I mean by Content Strategy anyway? Is it the same thing as Content Marketing? Let me set some expectations before we jump into the resources so that you know what to expect.

Diagram describing the critical components that Brain Traffic considers in every content strategy.
Graphic by Brain Traffic

Kristina Halvorson of Brain Traffic (whom you’ll see included in the lists below) states in A List Apart that “Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.”

I think that the word plan plays a keystone role in that definition. Planning is an essential skill for content strategists, who often do quite a bit of research within organizations to examine workflow, standards, governance, process design, publishing systems, and several other factors that go into the second part of Kristina’s definition: “…the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.”

I love her distinction between the words useful and usable. A content experience must be both in order to be truly successful.

Rachel Lovinger of Razorfish (also in the lists) adds to this definition in Boxes and Arrows when she states that content strategists use “words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful, interactive experiences.” Note that here she specifically references both language and data, which indicates that we’re talking about “big-C” Content, not just blocks of lorem ipsum text. It’s also clear that we’re talking about experiences and how content enables experiences that help users succeed at their goals (and businesses to succeed at their objectives).

In the same article, Rachel adds that “content strategy is to copywriting as information architecture is to design,” which further helps us dispel the myth that all content strategists care about is text. We care about content as experience, which is why we focus on content inventories and audits, workflow mapping, publishing systems and processes, delivery channels, and so on. Remember: useful and usable.

Of course, there are a lot of further definitions and nuances explained in the resources below, but the above summations are essentially what we mean when we talk about the big picture of Content Strategy as a discipline and community of practice. Because of the emergent understanding that content is more than just text, you’ll find that there are natural connections to related disciplines such as Information Architecture, User Experience, Interaction Design, Content Management, and yes, even Content Marketing.

So are Content Marketing and Content Strategy the same? No, but they are clearly related, so a better question to ask might be: are these two practices compatible with each other? Definitely! Can and should content marketers work with content strategists to help improve user experiences, publishing workflows, and delivery to channels? Yes, please!

Bringing these two disciplines closer together for the benefit of organizations and their users is one of my professional goals, which is yet another reason why I created this resource — I need your help to make that happen. Continue reading →