Content Strategy
Image via Jay Leonard B2C.com
Over the years, content strategy has become an ever-important aspect for companies to manage. It aims to tie together every part of a brand’s messaging, posts, and outward communication under a single strategy that defines what the purpose is.
But content strategy hasn’t been the same for its entire existence, the evolution of the internet and the ways we ingest content have greatly shifted the ways companies strategize.
Back in 2007, we didn’t consume content the same way we do now.
We didn’t have access to the tablets and smartphones we take advantage of today.
We only had a little taste, with the iPhone being released in June of 2007, the main way we consumed content was through either TV or new computers, with almost 75% of US households having a computer in 2008 (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
What hasn’t changed much is the strategy.
In today’s day, Meghan Casey, author of The Content Strategy Toolkit: Methods, Guidelines, and Templates for Getting Content Right, describes Content strategy as a method to “…help organizations provide the right content, to the right people, at the right times, for the right reasons” (Casey).
This isn’t far off from what Rachel Lovinger described as Content Strategy in her article Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data, back in 2007, saying:
“To make content that’s relevant to people, we choose the words and sentence structures that will best contribute to achieving our communication goals. The voice should be based on a deep understanding of the intentions of the content creators, as well as the needs of the content consumers.”
Overall, the main concepts of content strategy have remained constant, aiming to bring together both the needs of the consumer and the business as much as possible.
Where it deviates is through the practice of it, as with changing mediums, content strategies need to adapt to better fit with where their audience is, and the needs of the business.
Meghan Casey goes deep into the process content strategists need to employ to get widespread use within an organization.
Casey dives in, saying how important budgeting is and convincing leaders to buy into the idea of a comprehensive content strategy that the business can rely upon for its messaging. Without getting proper resources, there is no way to have a comprehensive and unified message across all the brand’s platforms.
This is important because, for a content strategy to work, everyone needs to be on board, with an entire team necessary to carry out the strategy on every platform the company is active on.
From there, a strategist can determine how to best message to the audience in a way that benefits them and the business.
Though the core aspects of content strategy haven’t changed in over a decade, it still is one of the most important roles within a brand in order to unify all communication into one clear strategy.
Bailie, R. A. (2021, February 5). An uneven history of content strategy. Medium. https://rahelab.medium.com/an-uneven-history-of-content-strategy-d514cfd7eee5
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2010, May). Current spending topics more than 75 percent of American households own ... Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/archive/more-than-75-percent-of-american-households-own-computers.pdf
Casey, M. (2023). In Content strategy toolkit: Methods, guidelines, and templates for getting content right. essay, Pearson Education.
Halvorson, K. (2008, December 17). The discipline of content strategy. A List Apart. https://alistapart.com/article/thedisciplineofcontentstrategy/
Leonard, J. (2023, February 16). Creative content marketing: 4 types of digital content. Business 2 Community. https://www.business2community.com/content-marketing-tips/creative-content-marketing-4-types-digital-content-01851793
Lovinger, R. (2019, June 20). Content strategy: The Philosophy of Data. Boxes and Arrows. http://boxesandarrows.com/content-strategy-the-philosophy-of-data/