CS, I love you

Posted on 14. Apr, 2010 by Melanie in content strategy

If you don’t know, I work full-time as a technical writer. Does it sound exciting? ‘Cuz it is. (Well, to me.)

In my job, I write lots of stuff, including user guides, documentation for some techy software interfaces, and sometimes copy for websites.

Recently, though, I realized that writing isn’t the only thing I do.

Before we ever write stuff at my company, we have to decide what our customers need us to write. Then, we have to write it, and find a way to distribute it to the people who want it. For us, that means some type of website, with a CMS (which we have to choose, then learn to use) that lets us input and maintain the documents. Then we have to arrange the documents in a way that makes sense and helps people find what they need. And when they’re outdated, we have to move (or remove) them.

So, yeah, like I said. Writing isn’t the only thing I do after all.

I’m surprised it took me so long to figure that out.

Enter content strategy

Around the time I realized this, I started noticing a lot of people online talking about something called content strategy.

It sounded … cool. Experts were giving talks at super-fancy conferences like South by Southwest, and other geeks were treating them like rock stars. These “content strategists” seemed smart and assertive. They knew their stuff. I watched ‘em on YouTube and read their blogs.

Something clicked in my brain. This sane, smart, strategic approach to content was what I’d been missing out on.

In a nutshell:

• You figure out what content you need.
• You plan it.
• You write it.
• You figure out whether it’s working.
• You maintain and, eventually, remove it.

And there were tried-and-true methods for doing each of these things. This was content strategy.

I had a new obsession.

The constant reality check

Of course, there’s more to it than my simple bulleted list. Each part of the process can be broken down into what seems like hundreds of bits. I still have a lot to learn.

On top of that, the steps themselves are not that simple. At work, we have hundreds, if not thousands of pages of content to manage. Other people in the company have a say in what we publish, and how. It can get messy, and I can’t control all the moving parts.

But before I just write something because someone thinks we might need it, I can stop and think. I can plan. I can ask questions. I can strategize. And that will make the content at least a little bit awesomer.

That’s why I love CS.

Tags: content strategy