Content Strategy: Strategy

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Lessons from the New York Times innovation report

A few days ago, the full NY Times innovation report was leaked to the press. The NY Times did a rigorous self-examination, and came to some incredibly important observations on the why and how of true transformation to the digital era.

Reading this document sparked a WOW moment in me. I think it is an absolute must read for anyone dealing with content strategy. Not so much for profound new thoughts, but more for the insight in where NY Times digital performance was good and where it is was poor, affirming that changing a content strategy is hard.
The Nieman Journalism Lab wrote an excellent report on it.

I would like to share a few of the observations and proposals, which I run into in my daily practice:

Create a strategy team

The newsroom is too focused on the daily task to produce the daily newspaper, which leaves insufficient time and focus to assess and implement strategic changes.

I think we all can relate to this problem. It is OK to have a team focused on the daily chores, but somewhere change has to happen. Creating a strategy team is a good idea – as long as it is well-anchored within the standing organisation and has the power to implement change.

Put the Reader first & Grow an audience

The NY Times offers content through all the obvious channels. But by better headlines, better search and better social media skills, NY Times was outperformed, even on their own content. Simple changes such as posting at a time your audience is actually reading, repurposing, repeating, repackaging and personalizing.

The battle for an audience isn’t fought anymore on selling a paper or a website by its front-page: every article has to fight its own battle on the saturated content market.

The report also suggests branching off and seeking audiences in different forms. Hosting events and talking to real customers should be on anybody’s agenda.

Structure to repurpose

The report tells a compelling story on why content needs to be enriched through tagging and structured data.

This reaffirms the choices we made in Newz project: structuring content by location, time (and events), story type and topics (persons and organisations). The NY Times adds to this: timeliness, story threads, story tone and the use of imagery.

I feel that any content-organisation should consider structuring content on some of these base functions.

Overcome the huge cultural change to become ‘Digital First’

The report points out that changing a newsroom from a century-old habit of paper & front-page to ‘Digital First’ is a huge challenge. The cultural change will take new technology savvy people and new managers encouraging cultural change.

The Times created many beautiful digital showcases like “Snow Fall”. But the NY Times built “Snow Fall” and not a “Snow Fall building tool”.

Anyone working difficult markets should be willing to experiment more in presentation formats, accept imperfection, accept failure, measure so you know what succeeds and have the tools ready to expand on success.

Read this!

If you are in any way active in content strategy or news: Please read this report. See that you are not alone in your struggle and gorge on the valuable insights.

Thanks to a Dutch analysis from the Bladendokter that pointed me to the report.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

What is the cure for the content shock?

In January, Mark Schaefer published an article that received lots of attention: "Content Shock: Why content marketing is not a sustainable strategy". When most companies are just getting used to the concept that telling convincing and compelling stories is a great way to market products, Schaefer already predicts its demise.

Is the content shock real?

Are we inundated with content? Sure! Just look at the amounts of online content produced / uploaded each day. More and more different channels are trying to reach us, through more and more types of content.
But this is not a new phenomenon. Consumers are battling the information overload since the rise of mass media. This is why the born digital generation is getting better and better at curation.

Is the end of content marketing in sight?

Schaefer certainly has a point that a mass adoption of content marketing will dilute the effects of writing content. It will be harder for companies to reach consumers with just any blurb of content, where eventually the costs of this way of marketing will have to be weighed against the expected income (just like any other type of marketing). On the consumer side it will be harder and harder to digest all this content and filter out useful content from the increasing background noise.
But will this end most of content marketing? Schaefer himself looks at the economics and predicts that the costs of being relevant to your consumers will rise to levels which are unacceptable to most companies.

He certainly makes a good point. With the barrage of information, entering markets will get harder. And interesting marketing channels like video, audio and infographs are expensive compared to text.
The effort will be to create great content; relevant content. And where great content is no guarantee for success, creating mediocre content will increasingly be moot. And yes: great content comes at a price, but distributing your ad on TV or print was expensive as well. So pay less for the channel and more for the content. Convince yourself that your message is relevant to your customers before investing in creating it.

As Robert Rose said “Great content wins. End of story.” Ask any commercial publisher!

It is hard on the consumers as well

With the barrage of content, it is hard on the customer as well. But everyone will still search their personal net before their Zero Moment of Truth. What is the best digital camera? To which school should I send my kids?
So the only way for the consumer to react to the content shock and keep finding the true gems that are out there somewhere is by curation. Customers are increasingly improving their personal filters to battle lame advertisements.
Curation tools – like spam- and virus filters – are probably always lagging on the object they want conquer. So what can you use to curate your information streams?

Niche sites that focus on quality over quantity. I myself am a fan of a few sites on Content Strategy. Their Hit over Miss Ratio is that good, that I read anything that is posted there.
Human curated groups. For instance LinkedIn Groups offers some great possibilities.
Feedly tells me what’s posted on the important sites, but also what the impact of this new is
There are some Authorative sites, which I will have to trust, just because they are the biggest
Follow influencers on Twitter, use other tools like Flipboard etc.

So there is the answer to you Content Marketeers: Throw your best content at us! Relevant ones will always stick, but don’t expect to be a monopolist.