Margot Bloomstein Answers Key Questions About Content Strategy

This October, at Converge 2015 our focus is to bring in the best and brightest together to revolutionize higher education. In this series of blog posts, Content Marketing Intern, Mikayla Wilson asks our speakers key questions. Read on to find out more about our passionate speakers and the importance of their topics. 

Name: Margot Bloomstein

Organization: Appropriate, Inc.

Session: Jumpstarting Content Strategy with a Message Architecture

Date & Time: Thursday, October 22 | 10:30-11:30AM

Summary: Trying to manage scope, stakeholders, and shifting priorities? Need to determine a consistent voice among multiple authors? Content strategy can help. Amid constrained resources, competing priorities, and a contributory culture, content strategy can help you focus and do less—but do what really matters. We’ll discuss how to empower communicators and rally everyone around a common vocabulary for use in print, traditional web communication, and social media. You’ll leave with the savvy and experience to bring brand-driven content strategy techniques and thinking into your own work.

Takeaways:

• Learn how—and why—to establish a hierarchy of communication goals in a message architecture.
• Discuss the right questions to ask—and how to ask them—to minimize distracting, off-brand features, like the blog no one has time to update.
• Use a content audit to evaluate content against the message architecture.
• Gain additional tools to keep your projects on track, on time, and on budget.

MW: Tell us more about you and your work in higher education.

MB: I’ve been working as a content strategist for 15 years. Over that time, I’ve helped organizations communicate brand attributes, develop a consistent voice, improve editorial workflow—and those are challenges that are common regardless of industry. Higher education organizations face them too—sometimes in more distributed or federated environments, sometimes with, shall we say, more political challenges—but to no lesser or greater degree.

MW: Why is content strategy so important for higher education?

MB: On a daily basis, a majority of higher education institutions stare down a double-edged sword of volume and scarcity. You have SO many potential content contributors, from students and student interns to professors and department heads. And there’s so much going on across your institution—some of it may even come as news to the central marketing team! But at the same time, you face problems of content coordination.

How do you ensure everyone’s staying on message for the overall institution? How do you help content contributors bolster each other, rather than cannibalize individual efforts? And how do you ensure even contributors in busier, less enthusiastic departments are still participating and making their voices add to the choir? Content strategy helps answer those questions and ensure everyone is working to the same rhythm.

MW: Do you have any tips for getting a content strategy started at an institution?

MB: You know your institution best. In some academic cultures, you’ll find the most success by starting with a few departments, training them on new processes, and championing their work as a model for others. In other cases, a top-down approach works well: you might develop an institution-wide message architecture, style guide, and editorial calendar, and then help communicators in every college and department adopt those tools and modify them to fit their specific needs. In short, be pragmatic. See what works in your school and seek out more of the same.

MW: What are common mistakes that you find in higher education content strategy?

MB: Content proliferation is a problem—but maybe that’s more of a problem of content marketing than content strategy. In some schools, we see many different platforms, content management systems, social media channels, and editorial calendars competing for attention and priority. You can’t do it all. Instead, pick what works best for your users and audiences and invest more heavily there. And that’s not just about budget: invest your time, creativity, and other resources there too.

MW: Are there any resources that you would recommend to someone learning about content strategy?

MB: If you’re jumping into content strategy, you’re getting started at a great time. There are numerous blogs and events where people share best practices—and common problems. You’ll find liked-minded practitioners at your local content strategy meetup; check http://meetup.org to connect. Also explore resources likehttp://meetcontent.com/, a community for content strategists in higher education. Search Twitter for #contentstrategy for talks, quotes, and questions.

And start filling your library: Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach’s Content Strategy for the Web, Sara Wachter-Boettcher’s Content Everywhere, and Karen McGrane’sContent Strategy for Mobile are all indispensable resources. And of course, I’m partial to Content Strategy at Work, a collection of real-world examples, frameworks, and case studies from organizations in higher ed, retail, apparel, the non-profit sector, and more. I think you’ll like it.

MW: And of course, attend Converge 2015 to hear Margot and many other great speakers!