Content Strategy Seattle Meetup - Content Strategy in the Bush: The Big 5 of CS

1. Content Strategy in the Bush
The Big 5 of Content
Misty Weaver
Content Strategy Seattle

2. Who?
Misty “Melissa” Weaver
Twitter @meaningmeasure
LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/in/mistymelissaweaver
My work is all about Communication Strategy
for Nonprofit Organizations & Startups:
Community Management, Social Media Marketing, Content Creation,
Curation and Publishing, Website Management, Event Planning

3. CS in South Africa Manager added text
Community I’ve
summaries to
the following
slide for folks
who weren’t
able to join us
at the CS
Seattle
meetup.

4. Reframing Metaphors
Content Strategy in Bush
Shakespeare in the Bush by Laura Bohannan
https://law.ubalt.edu/downloads/law_downloads/IRC_Shakespeare_in_the_Bush.pdf
Context has the power to change meaning. After CS Forum Cape
Town, I traveled through South Africa for 4 weeks. Constantly
introducing myself and explaining what I do, Information
Architecture, and what that means in a way that is relevant to
the person in front me.
Teaching, working, travelling, hosting events: I spend a lot of
time reframing IA and Content Strategy, constantly trying on new
metaphors. I’ve been thinking a lot about urban planning and
living organisms as more appropriate metaphors for CS.

5. The House Metaphor

6. Your website is like a house
A commonly used metaphor to explain IA and
Content Strategy, I prefer to think that digital
presence is more like building a city then a house.
Unlike a house that has static walls and very few
points of entry, when we create information space
online it has multitudes of entrances & exits,
intended or not. Online experiences come with
complicated patterns of traffic, public and private
space, owned and shared resources; A house
doesn’t seem big enough to encompass them.

7. A website can seem
more like a glass
house…
Petri Krohn

8. Ecosystem
Even more than a city, an ecosystem
demonstrates so much that we want
to capture in explaining Content
Strategy:
• Complex life cycles and
interactions
• Internal and external factors to
the organization
• A huge variety of kinds of content,
users, traffic and patterns
The following slides show how I
reframed Content Strategy in terms
of the Big 5 game at Kruger National
Park.

9. Big 5
Originally, Big 5 referred to the animals Game Hunters
came to Africa to kill. Our first reframe is in this title,
which now refers to the 5 animals people like to see
when they visit Kruger Park.

10. How are customers like elephants?

11. They choose their own paths…

12. And sometimes they use yours…

13. 1.
When I think of personas, I think of humans. But the
elephants at Kruger made me realize, I could expand my
thinking to an even more “other” idea of users.
Too often, we build websites or digital experiences based
on the org chart not on how users actually experience an
organization. Most users, like elephants, choose their
own paths as they try to accomplish tasks.
We have to plan digital experiences for how people
actually navigate not just the way the organization wants
them to move. It’s not just that you have to know your
audience, you have to know your elephants.

14. How are customers like predators?

15. They can be elusive…

16. 2.
Users have different patterns of behavior, we can
only predict their behavior if we actually study it.
Are your online customers more like leopards -
solitary, nocturnal, ‘stalking’ your pages and
reviews before making decisions?
Maybe, like leopards, they aren’t into sharing. Just
because people can share, doesn’t mean they will.
Your content has to be relevant, excellent, reach
them at the right time AND be easy to share.

17. How are Robots like Predators?

18. What do you see in your mind when you think of
the word robot?

19. In South Africa
• Robots are Stoplights
• I think of robots as search engine spiders
• And search engines are one of the most
important audiences of online content

20. They only succeed 30% of the time…

21. 3.
Search engines are users, too. But they’re like lions,
not leopards. They don’t necessarily bring back the
most relevant, credible, useful result in their page
listings. And people themselves may only look at
page one or the first three entries. That’s not good
for getting the right content to the right person at
the right moment.
Search engines need content strategists to help
them become more efficient.

23. When is a buffalo not like a buffalo?

24. One of these animals is not like the others…

25. The American Buffalo isn’t a Buffalo
It’s a Bison.
Context changes meaning,
right? As Content Strategists,
our work revolves around
differentiation. We differentiate
our clients from competitors,
accurate content from
inaccurate, strong organization
from weak…

26. 4.
We can help differentiate our clients by
delivering content that fills gaps in their users
knowledge and by helping provide information
that is credible, consistent and clear.
I might call content ‘Buffalo’ to indicate that’s
out of date, mislabeled or misplaced. (That’s
between us CS folks!)

27. How is good content like a rhinoceros?

28. It’s rare

29. It’s okay to cry
I could see dedicating my life to saving the Rhino.
The near extinction of this animal is a completely
man made problem. My personal rhino is bad
content, too much of it and resulting information
overload.
So many ‘experts’ encourage people to write lots of
copy, blog posts, and new product pages. I’d like to
think we could, as content strategists, step in and
instead help a small but mighty practice renew
itself. Help nurture the good but rare content…

30. 5.
We are the advocates for great quality content
that improves people’s lives online. Only by
supporting good content practices can we foster
a community where good content becomes the
norm. It may sometimes feel like a Sisyphean
task, but it’s worth the effort. Keep on reframing
and explaining Content Strategy in the ways that
most help you, but please, keep on plugging
Content Strategy. The Internet needs you.

31. http://www.savetherhino.org/

32. Thank you!
@meaningmeasure
This was how dorky I looked on Safari