Kristina Halvorson
Brain Traffic
Course Description
Join Kristina Halvorson -- owner of Brain Traffic and author of Content Strategy for the Web -- as she unpacks the tools and framework for executing a cohesive content strategy for your website and organization. You'll learn how to conduct audience research, take inventory of your content, create a messaging framework and create a core statement to guide priorities for your team! This course is ideal for people who are new to content strategy, including writers, designers, marketers, and technical communicators who are advocating for better content within their organizations.
This course and others like it are available as part of our Frontend Masters video subscription.
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Published: April 6, 2018
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Section Duration: 17 minutes
Starting the Content Strategy workshop, Kristina Halvorson introduces herself and her background with content strategy. After suggesting that crucial part of Content Strategy is actively listening to other people, she asks the students to interview each other about their primary pain points with content.
After the students interviewed themselves, Kristina inquires about what they discovered and how they asked their questions.
What is Content Strategy?
Section Duration: 58 minutes
After defining Content Strategy as a process that guides the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content, Kristina reviews the content lifecycle. The content lifecycle covers the strategy, designing, creating, maintaining, and assessment of content. Kristina takes questions from students.
Kristina reviews editorial and experience of content strategy in content design. Then Kristina examines content strategy in structure and process of systems design.
Kristina lists the artifacts and deliverables associated with content and system designs. Kristina takes questions from students.
Kristina reviews important terms about operating frameworks within organizations: Vision, Mission, Goal, Strategy, Objective, Tactic, and Target.
Kristina goals must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-framed. In this exercise, students list out the Vision, Mission, and (Current) Goals in their workplace.
After the exercise, Kristina listens to students' answers to the Goals Exercise.
After defining strategy as a distinct path chosen to move towards achieving a goal, Kristina reviews examples of strategies.
After reviewing differences between goals and objectives, Kristina defines tactics. Tactics are activities or tools used to achieve an objective.
Kristina discusses Content Strategy's place within Goals, Objectives, and Tactics. Kristina takes questions from students.
Content Considerations
Section Duration: 57 minutes
After introducing four steps to creating great content, Kristina discusses tasks for a Pre-Kickoff Meeting when launching a project: revisit project scope, begin documentation dump, and review stakeholder participants. Kristina takes questions from students.
Kristina reviews the steps involved in a Kickoff Meeting, which is a meeting with as many project team and stakeholders as possible at the start of a project.
Kristina discusses situation analysis, which is a core competence for creating any strategy. Situation analysis is the gathering, synthesis, and reporting of information that impacts content choices.
Kristina discusses Design Research. Performing research by talking to customers and conducting surveys allows for an understanding of customers and taking their true perspectives into account.
In this exercise, students answer questions about their users and the assumptions they make about them.
Kristina reviews students' answers — and even those students lacking answers — to the Design Research Exercise.
Kristina discusses a Content Ecosystem Map, which is a diagram that exposes how content is being published through an organization.
After discussing Content Inventory, which takes a look at current state of content, Kristina reviews the reasons for performing a Content Inventory.
Upcoming completion of the research phase, create a Findings Report and Situation Analysis. A findings report is a record of all the information you learned during discovery. A situation analysis summarizes your thinking about your findings, highlighting what’s important, and why. Kristina reviews SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis.
With research steps completed, Kristina reveals the format for Content Strategy analysis outline, which includes recommended next steps.
Kristina discusses setting content strategy, which includes creating a strategy statement and strategic objectives. Kristina takes questions from students.
Content Strategy Tools
Section Duration: 52 minutes
Kristina introduces how to evaluate and prioritize the projects on which to work.
Kristina discusses first impressions audiences to have when interacting with content, writing value statement about the value provided to the audience, and the proof that will allow an audience to believe in organization's values. Students are asked to create a messaging architecture.
Kristina reviews students messaging architecture examples.
Kristina discusses how a company communicates through voice and tone. A company's voice should not change much from section to section of site or platform, however the tone changes all the time depending on the context of the message.
Kristina states the essential tool for a content strategist is documenting content requirements, which lets stakeholders let go of the words and focus on completeness, accuracy, and overarching messages.
Kristina reviews an annotated wireframe, which is a tool that should be used for key landing pages that flesh out main content areas.
Kristina introduces review sheets that aid in determining content's effectiveness.
Kristina examines example metrics for targets, which are qualitative and quantitative data that measure whether or not an objective is achieved. Then Kristina gives an exercise where students review their jobs and roles in an organization and content or code objectives.
Kristina reviews students answers to their success metrics. Kristina takes questions from students and wraps up Content Strategy.
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