Content Strategy Comes to DC

Posted by: Natalya Minkovsky, Director of Strategy May 24, 2010 1 Comments

Overheard at DC’s inaugural content strategy meetup:

“It turns out I’m a content strategist.”

“I’ve been doing content strategy for years, but now there’s a name for it.”

At this point, you might be wondering: What is content strategy, exactly? “Content strategy is the practice of planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.” (Kristina Halvorson, Content Strategy for the Web)

As the practice of content strategy gains traction and recognition worldwide, here in DC, we’ve started a group to share ideas, exchange information, and establish best practices.

Since our first meetup at the end of February, the group has grown to more than 80 members, a very “DC” mix of consultants, government workers, and nonprofit employees. We have writers, web content managers, strategists, project managers, and others. What do we all have in common? As our meetup page says, “We care about creating, delivering, and maintaining great content. You do too? We should talk.”

At our third meetup, held here at the Rock Creek office last week, the guest speaker was Ginny Redish, author of Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content That Works. Ginny is an expert in usability and plain language and serves on the board of the Center for Plain Language.

Ginny gave a presentation on making message, tone, and style part of your content strategy. Some of the key points of her presentation were:

• Content is an organization’s major asset. Are you treating your content as an asset or as a pain point?
• Successful web content serves both your organization’s business goals and your site visitors’ goals—and their reality.
• Together, your branding strategy and your content strategy determine the tone and personality of your online content.
• Every use of your website is a conversation started by the site visitor. Don’t hog the conversation.

Want to know more? Stay tuned to this blog for more about content strategy, including why your organization needs it, how to incorporate content strategy into your processes, and how government agencies are using content strategy to deliver better online content.

Natalya Minkovsky

Director of Strategy

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