How to picture a content strategy

There’s the old saying that we should never judge a book by its cover but we all know we do. It’s the cover that makes us pick it up and read what it’s about. Like that book, a website is the very first thing we see of a company or a brand and if it’s intriguing enough we will choose to read the content within it. Now think about how we search for sites online versus how much time you might spend looking for a book at a book store. Our online searches happen a lot quicker because of the nature of the online world and the amount of information available at our fingertips. A website has less time to attract our attention than a book at a book store and because of this the presentation of content sometimes outweighs the content itself. As a result, how you decide what content to include on your site and how you prioritize, organize, format and display that content determines how successful you will be in attracting customers, clients and followers.

The following are some images and diagrams summarizing the elements of a content strategy:

This is a content flow diagram for enabling online customer support. I think this diagram provides a comprehensive look at the different options that would be available for a customer looking for support and where each choice would take them. The strategy includes different mediums like social media and video tutorials and factors feedback and measurement components. I think it’s a basic chart of how the back end of the site would be, what content it would include and what team fits where. Although this chart is an internal resource and not to be distributed externally, it could use some more color and images to describe its elements, especially if it is to be used to get executive or employee buy in.

Infographics have become a popular and intriguing means to display content or data in a more digestible way. They are visually appealing and easily shareable. The infographic of infographics below explains all the aspects needed in a content strategy from design to content. The points included like a title, theme, charts, font, key info, color are all important elements to consider when creating a content strategy that at times might get overlooked or considered low priority. Being visually consistent, organized and appealing is what grabs someone’s attention long enough for them to read the actual content.

The following infographic aims to explain where an inbound marketing strategy and a content strategy meet. I think the content is there and it’s a more visually appealing flow chart than the standard charts that are often seen. I think more images could have been included to replace some of the text and it is not clear to me why the images of the users are placed where they are. Their significance gets lost because they look randomly placed. This is an example where the content is better than the presentation.