Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

[Arienne Holland]

Hi, guys.

If you haven't read it yet, check out Ian Alexander's post about the possible merging of Content Marketing and Content Strategy. (It's Content Marketing and Content Strategy are merging. Is that a good thing?)

Here's an excerpt:

There is content marketing and there is content strategy. Or, to rollback a round of buzzwords, there is integrated marketing and there is UX Design. Either way, one is a tactic and one is a practice. I’m not shining a light on one to keep another one in the dark, but rather here to say that we all agree content is important. That includes IAs, ixDs, coders, graphic designers, and copywriters. It’s what we do about knowing content is important that counts. How we solve client’s problems is what matters.

I loved ConFab and am heading to Content Marketing World in September, so I'll be looking for overlaps and parallels and divergence between the two. In the meantime, do you think content strategy and content marketing are merging? How do you define content marketing?

[Noz Urbina]

Hold me back! Hold me back!

I have dedicated a not insignificant portion of my career - and some of my spare time - for the past year seeking out and counter-arguing the type of thinking in this post.

Content Strategy is not a new buzz-word term for UX Design, and not it is not a good thing if it merges with Content Marketing, as that completely misses the point.

I have some deadlines on top of me so I'll just do a quick quote here, and then say that I have many other reasons that this line of thinking is poison for the Content Strategy field:

"Although web marketing projects need content strategy, I don’t think that adequately defines the discipline. All dentists are doctors, but not all doctors are dentists.

Content Strategy is in its adolescence, and the discipline is asking: Who are we? Why are we?

Many thought-leaders feel Content Strategists are the ones who:

Go where the business problems are, identify the content issues, lay out the strategy for how to fix them; or fix them ourselves.

This implies a holistic approach, not simply a sales and marketing basis. And there’s good reason for that. Brand strategists and managers, UX designers, marketers, all say: every touch point affects the customer experience. Everything in the CX affects brand, and therefore revenues. Damn the silos! We thump our chests and declare that content needs to be consistent, relevant, on-brand and value-adding across the board. Ipso facto: You have to go holistic to make sure that there isn’t a hole somewhere in the UX."

http://www.onemanwrites.co.uk/2011/05/05/putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is-closing-the-loop-in-content-strategy/
 

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[Noz Urbina]

PS - I just realised it's easy to miss out the 'Guest Post' line.  I don't have that post on my own blog, so I have linked to Gordon McLean's who posted my guest post of thoughts on this issue.

[Paola Roccuzzo]

Hi Arianne,

as Noz I found this article a bit disturbing...
So, here is my take (not a lot of grey areas for me) :)

On Fri, Jun 10, 2011 at 1:35 AM, Arienne Holland
<arienne...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In the meantime, do you think content strategy and content marketing are
> merging?

No. Content strategy has a lot more to do with governance than
marketing (companies, still, reap many benefits from it
marketing-wise). Also, there is the old concept of editorial
marketing, which I still find relevant even in the digital market. In
case content is the product (see apps, feeds, etc.) we could easily
assume that we are dealing with product marketing. But leave content
alone, please...

If marketing people want to ride the trend wave, and claim this set of
practices as theirs, well, that's another story, but I personally will
not consider a content practitioner (manager, strategist, editor, you
name it) anybody who has no idea what a DB schema is.

My 2 eurocents,
Paola

[Noz Urbina]

Hi Paola,

I didn't understand that last line about the DB schema.  I know what a DB schema is, but what were you trying to say about not considering someone a practioner? 

Noz

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[Paola Roccuzzo]

Hi Noz,

What I meant is that we come in all flavors, and that we specialize in
all kinds of content-related activities, but that without a clear
understanding of the basic content management principles (hence the
schema metonym), I really don't think that any strategy can be laid
down.

Again, my two cents, based on my personal experience.

Paola

[Noz Urbina]

Gotcha.  I'm very much in agreement.

We went through this with 'content management system' 10 years ago.  The word was effectively eaten by web content management system, and to a lesser extent document management systems, until it became a useless umbrella term for anything into which you can log in and jam a file. 

We don't want CS to suffer a similar dilution into meaningless.

- Noz -
https://lessworkmoreflow.blogspot.com // @nozurbina
"I find quotations at the bottom of email signatures a somewhat trite..."

[MarciaJ58]

On Jun 10, 2:10 am, Noz Urbina <b.noz.urb...@gmail.com> wrote:

> ... Content Strategy is not a new buzz-word term for UX Design, and not it is

> not a good thing if it merges with Content Marketing, as that completely

> misses the point....

I'm with you, Noz. Content strategy is broader than marketing.
Strategy is just as applicable to user-guide content, for example, as
it is to marketing content. For an excellent discussion on this point,
see Erin Kissane's slim new book, "The Elements of Content Strategy."

- Marcia

[Rachel Lovinger]

Many good points being made here, but to be fair I'm certain that Ian's original post was NOT saying that it would be a good thing if Content Strategy and Content Marketing merge. I think it might be a little confusing if you only read the excerpt that Arienne quoted, because it's saying, essentially 'yes we all care about content and in some ways that's what should be most important' but if you read the rest of the post he's saying that there's a practice and there's a tactic and they are not mutually encompassing.

I'm working on an article right now, and part of the set-up is that a lot of the growing demand for CS comes from the need to apply editorial ways of thinking to organizations that are not traditional content creators, and so they have no processes and infrastructure to support the creation of content. This of course extends to many marketing departments who now find themselves in the position of having to be a major source of the content their organizations are producing. I think that's a big part of the reason that the two terms seem to be synonymous to many people (especially people in marketing). [This point about marketing is not within the scope of the article, but the underlying premise seemed applicable here].

 

-Rachel

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[Noz Urbina]

Hi Rachel,

Your article sounds interesting. 

I don't think the post is without merit or logic, but it clearly operates within a frame of reference that riles some of the CSs out there who don't feel that the field should be ring-fenced like that.

I read the whole post and I'm clear he is not saying it's a good thing.  He says: "...you will find many articles that use the terms interchangeably, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing; primarily for the client who now has to deal with ever-finer slices of practitioner specialities and more difficult integration/PM issues"  I think that's straightforward enough and even agree with the reasoning (although I find it only scratches the surface of the wrongness).

And yes, he's also making the distinction between practise and tactic. 

He does however make a strong implication (I'm happy to be shown I'm misinterpreting!!) that the terminology for this practice and tactic is just a new buzzwords for the same tactic and practice as was used a generation of buzzwords ago. 

 
"There is content marketing and there is content strategy. Or, to rollback a round of buzzwords, there is integrated marketing and there is UX Design."

If you're saying that 'content strategy' is simply the new way to say 'integrated marketing', then it makes a strong statement about where you encapsulate the scope of CS today.  Also, it is putting it on the tactic side of the divide, whereas I think most CSs feel they are practitioners of a practice, not applying a tactic.* 

Noz

*That said, I find the separation of tactic and strategy to be somewhat artificial, hair-splitting, folksonomic differentiation.  When you look them up in the dictionary they refer to each other as having overlapping meanings, so the popular belief that they're clearly separable seems a bit made up to me.  I find it's a distinction VPs and middle managers like to drag up to look cool in front of their CEOs when you're trying to make a point.  Anyone else been batted with "This presentation is too tactical!  I want to talk strategically!"?   I think it's buzzwordy way to replace 'detailed' vs. 'high level', which are not the same thing...

[Rachel Lovinger]

I think that bit about the buzzwords is meant to be a classic analogy, like the kind that American children are made to study ad nauseum before we take the SATs (and then most people probably never use them again). I use them a lot myself, in fact one of my most quoted comments about Content Strategy follows this same structure!

 

So, I interpreted that bit in the blog post as:

content strategy : content marketing :: UX Design : integrated marketing

 

Or, in plain English: "Content Marketing" is the buzzword that has arisen to capitalize on the Content Strategy practice, just as, sometime in the past, a buzzword called "Integrated Marketing" arose to capitalize on the UX Design practice.

 

Again, this is my own interpretation, and I have to admit that I'm not really familiar with Integrated Marketing, so I don't know how close the parallels are. I'm mostly drawing my conclusions from, well, a sentence structure that was drilled into me while studying for a standardized test in high school :)

-Rachel

[Noz Urbina]

Right.  I can sort of see where you're coming from, but the 'roll back a round of buzzwords' seems to me more simply translated to 'to use the previous versions of these buzzwords'. 

I think we're wandering into the land of conjecture instead of commentary and should ask the guy.  I tried commenting but my comment hasn't appeared. I suspect that might be a technical error.  I have emailed the sys admin to ask.  

Anyone else want to try their luck?

[Jeffrey Durland]

I think:

1) Rachel has to be respected for her stature among CSes

2) What we do is marketing, whether it's creating the marketing (less so), or making it easier to get to through better navigation and taxonomy (more so)

3) Marketing is what has arisen within our practice as a main focus (see 2) thus it is at our peril to belittle it

JD

[Destry Wion]

Noz Urbina wrote:

> Hold me back! Hold me back!

Noz,

I think Rachel's being diplomatic. And not that Ian needs anybody to
speak for him, but Ian isn't saying what you think he is, or if he is,
he's being facetious. If I'm wrong, I'll gladly eat crow. You keep
referring to him in a way that makes me think you don't know who he
is, which is part of the problem here, no doubt. Read a few more of
his articles to get a better picture of the character.

But, let me toss you a bone, since you're anxious to pick one. Go read
Eric Reiss' article "Content Strategy for Dummies" (http://
www.fatdux.com/blog/2010/11/14/content-strategy-for-dummies/), where
he really does suggest Content Strategy is a buzzword (or another name
for Information Architecture). Mind you, replying there is a technical
hit or miss affair.

In any case, you and Eric will be speaking at CS Forum 2011 in London.
Maybe we should hold a special main stage event with you guys
together!

Get your tickets, folks! It's going to be good!

http://2011.csforum.eu/register

(Yes, this is all in good fun.)

[Noz Urbina]

I didn't at all want to be in any way disrespectful, especially not to Rachel for whom I have significant respect (albeit mostly by proxy).  I'm sorry if it came off that way. 

I just read over my mail again to see where that comment might have come from.  If it was the 'anyone else want to try their luck' bit, that was an invitation to anyone who seconded the idea of asking the original poster to engage in the conversation (as my attempt had failed). It was not at all a dismissal of Rachel's opinion or contributions.

When you say, 'we', you are talking about Content strategists?  I know a lot of content strategists who would not limit the definition to that scope.  Point 2 seems to imply you agree that your field is (more so) "making it easier to get to through better navigation and taxonomy", which to me would be classic UX?  If that's what you feel CS is, then why have we bothered with the term when we could have said stuck with UX, but some of them might do some writing too'?

Do you feel that CS having a greater scope of responsibility than marketing somehow belittles the importance of marketing? 

Lisa Moore tweeted after the Congility conference last month 'Content Strategy has to evolve fast or die young'.  The discussion is wether the peril is from expanding the web outside marketing, or from failing to expand outside marketing.  Everyone's opinion on that are valuable.

[Noz Urbina]

Hi Destry,

Eric Reiss's article was a good read.  You didn't say what I was reading it for though.  It does seem to lay out a serviceable explanation of web-oriented CS for those focused on making websites. 

Ian's 5 elements of hip hop was just awesome.  I also read a few more posts by Ian as per your recommendation. In a few short posts he's convinced me he's a very smart guy with a lot of good ideas who I'm going to start paying more attention to.  That said, I still disagree with the context being set for CS and some of his points of its definition. 

My original enthusiasm (as you've quoted, which I hope was also clearly facetious itself?) sprouted from the original posted question:

"do you think content strategy and content marketing are merging?"

To which the answer was, in very short: "I sure hope not!"

I really don't want to get into somehow making this personal, or based on my opinion of any one person.  I actually wanted to engage Ian in the conversation rather than talk around his words without him... 

If we're going to have good discussions, it's important we're allowed to disagree with each other - even fundamentally - and be impassioned about our position, right? 

I agree with many of the points the Eric and Ian have made and disagree with several others - I often disagree with very nice and intelligent people.  I'll just going to leave it at that. 

If anyone wants me I'll be re-applying make-up in my trailer. 

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[Rachel Lovinger]

Haha! I love it. But Noz, I don't think you're being a diva.

 

A few responses to various things:

 

1. I really don't feel that anyone has been disrespectful on this thread. It's all good clean debate, which I agree is necessary - and frankly, I think Ian was probably trying to stir up some passionate discussion of the topic. I wasn't trying to protect Ian's character (I think he has done a great job of representing himself on the web), just trying to point out some counter-interpretations of what he had said. In anycase, I appreciate the votes of support from others on this thread, but I really didn't feel offended.

 

2. I don't think that Content Strategy is in peril - there may be a period where the majority of people who are adopting it are only aware of a small segment of the practice (namely, content marketing), but that's not going to make the other aspects any less necessary and they will continue to grow and mature in their own areas of usage.

 

3. I don't think the world of Makerting is going to feel threatend by a few content strategists being annoyed that they are trying to turn this practice into a buzzword. They are a surprisingly resiliant bunch and they will not only bounce back from our criticisms, but they will probably find a way to coopt our concerns and say, "yeah, totally! that doesn't apply to ME though."

- Rachel

[Noz Urbina]

Thanks, Rachel. : )

[Rahel Bailie]

Thanks for that, Rachel. I was loving the high-level, respectful debate that you and Noz were having, and got a bit put off at the attempt to quash it. Without debate, there is no growth, and I've seen respectful differences of opinion squashed in some other organizations because of too-thin skins. (No org names mentioned here, though.)

Interestingly enough, there's a parallel discussion on the IA forum, where someone pointed to this article http://blog.fogcreek.com/our-marketing-is-up-fog-creek-and-what-we-did-about-it/ and said it's not really marketing, it's IA, and that's how IAs could frame their work. I countered with how IAs traditionally stop short of content and quality (most agencies I've talked with have said "we don't do content", from which I take my stand), and suggested that it was actually content strategy. HOWEVER, I did add that each profession would look at the article through their own lense, and interpret it through their personal experience. 

It's not much different than anywhere else in a corporation. In a project I'm working on right now, I have an issue. The integrators see it as a CMS workflow issue. HR sees it as an HR issue. Management sees it as a government issue. I see it as a web operations issue. (I could also interpret it as a content strategy issue because it affects the content strategy, but in this case, I don't think it is.)

Anyhow, that's a long way of appreciating the level of discussion here. I do hope you carry on.

Rahel

[Rahel Bailie]

BTW, Noz, I agree with you about how other smart (and sometimes profession-entrenched) people either co-op or distance themselves from content strategy. It may be convenient to do so at a given time, and people do change their stances on occasion, as circumstances change. Not a good or bad thing; it just is. I wouldn't consider Eric Reiss or Gerry McGovern content strategists (I know, I know, heretical words in some quarters, but I'm entitled to my opinion) though I have read there books and respect their messages. And though Bob Boiko doesn't call himself a content strategist, I think he'd be  the logical professor emeritus of the profession.

And how, off to work for me. (Any flaming won't get seen till way later tonight.) ;)

Rahel

[Eat Media]

Noz,

I should have chimed in earlier but I've been slammed. Thanks to
Rachel for her interpretation which was spot on.

The point I was trying to make here was that:

- Most practices were once buzzwords. Not a judgement, just a fact.
- Too often the chatter is about what we call ourselves vs what it
accomplishes or how/why it accomplishes.
- While important, to some degree we are talking in a vacuum. (Clients
don't care.)
- The solution delivered by a CS is not the same as what a CM
delivers.

I would argue that my post is not conjecture but very clearly a
reaction to the environment. While there are some great voices and
grand minds who talk about CS there are also a smorgasbord of articles
that use a stock definition of CS and then go on to explain (content)
marketing 'techniques' — which in my mind (and agency) are a very
small slice of what a CS does. My post was an A is not B article but
is perceived as such and is that good for the client.

Loving the conversation on this post.

> On 11 June 2011 08:39, Rachel Lovinger <rachel.lovin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Many good points being made here, but to be fair I'm certain that Ian's
> > original post was NOT saying that it would be a good thing if Content
> > Strategy and Content Marketing merge. I think it might be a little confusing
> > if you only read the excerpt that Arienne quoted, because it's saying,
> > essentially 'yes we all care about content and in some ways that's what
> > should be most important' but if you read the rest of the post he's saying
> > that there's a practice and there's a tactic and they are not mutually
> > encompassing.
> > I'm working on an article right now, and part of the set-up is that a lot
> > of the growing demand for CS comes from the need to apply editorial ways of
> > thinking to organizations that are not traditional content creators, and so
> > they have no processes and infrastructure to support the creation of
> > content. This of course extends to many marketing departments who now find
> > themselves in the position of having to be a major source of the content
> > their organizations are producing. I think that's a big part of the reason
> > that the two terms seem to be synonymous to many people (especially people
> > in marketing). [This point about marketing is not within the scope of the
> > article, but the underlying premise seemed applicable here].
>
> > -Rachel

> - Noz -https://lessworkmoreflow.blogspot.com// @nozurbina

[Noz Urbina]

Thanks all.  I suffer from cronic foot in mouth disease on online forums as I am curt, full of opinions and exhuberant, which if you don't know me doesn't come off well in raw text. 

I didn't know you were on the forum, Ian.  : )  As you saw I tried to post a comment to raise my (mis?)interpretation of your post but the technical fairy gremlins whisked it away.

I'm about to run out the door, but I wanted to say that:

a) I love a lot your work from what little I've seen

b) in the brief form in your list below I don't disagree with anything you're saying at all

c) I don't need every post about content strategy to be about all-things-cs- everywhere.  Mine certainly aren't... that said, with the permission of the jury, I was taking issue with certain points and choices of words.  I don't need to belabour - especially with my aforementioned foot-mouth ailment - but I thought some points came off as dismissive to CS, which you've clarified was not your intent.   There's other stuff, but hopefully we'll get a chance to chat about that in future.  Please feel free to tear gaping holes in my blog should you ever care to, I'd be interested in the feedback.

d) If you are being a bit dismissive about CS, then that's totally cool too.  I find the field is fraught with buzzy energy these days, and it sometimes will naturally need a little reality check to bring us back to earth. 

And now... to the bar....

Noz - https://lessworkmoreflow.blogspot.com // @nozurbina

[Cliff Tyllick]

Rachel, I think you're right on target with content strategy : content marketing :: UX Design : integrated marketing (at least in terms of how it's intended in the article). Thanks for explaining it, because I didn't quite get it myself until you did.

And the word you're looking for to describe that concatenation is "syllogism."

I could always get the one with "raconteur" in it right, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it meant.

And they're read, "a is to b as c is to d," so this one would be read, "content strategy is to content marketing as UX Design is to integrated marketing."

Thanks for that trip back down Wasted Lifetime Lane! :D

Cliff

---

From: Rachel Lovinger <rachel....@gmail.com>
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, June 13, 2011 1:03:19 AM
Subject: Re: Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

--

[Eat Media]

Noz,

No stress at all. Sharp blades require hard stones - I welcome,
understand and appreciate the opportunity to clarify. I'm not being
dismissive but certainly believe it is time to move on from the
cheerleading phase and on to harder tasks - which I think the CM / CS
discussion taps into.

Ian

On Jun 13, 1:19 pm, Noz Urbina <b.noz.urb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks all.  I suffer from cronic foot in mouth disease on online forums as
> I am curt, full of opinions and exhuberant, which if you don't know me
> doesn't come off well in raw text.
>
> I didn't know you were on the forum, Ian.  : )  As you saw I tried to post a
> comment to raise my (mis?)interpretation of your post but the technical
> fairy gremlins whisked it away.
>
> I'm about to run out the door, but I wanted to say that:
>
> a) I love a lot your work from what little I've seen
>
> b) in the brief form in your list below I don't disagree with anything
> you're saying at all
>
> c) I don't need every post about content strategy to be about all-things-cs-
> everywhere.  Mine certainly aren't... that said, with the permission of the
> jury, I was taking issue with certain points and choices of words.  I don't
> need to belabour - especially with my aforementioned foot-mouth ailment -
> but I thought some points came off as dismissive to CS, which you've
> clarified was not your intent.   There's other stuff, but hopefully we'll
> get a chance to chat about that in future.  Please feel free to tear gaping
> holes in my blog should you ever care to, I'd be interested in the feedback.
>
> d) If you are being a bit dismissive about CS, then that's totally cool
> too.  I find the field is fraught with buzzy energy these days, and it
> sometimes will naturally need a little reality check to bring us back to
> earth.
>
> And now... to the bar....
>

[Noz Urbina]

@Ian - "Sharp blades require hard stones"

Yee.  I like to say you can't win the fight against mediocrity by pulling you punches.

"it is time to move on from the cheerleading phase and on to harder tasks"

Here here.

Noz - https://lessworkmoreflow.blogspot.com // @nozurbina

[Dechay Watts]

In light of this conversation, thought it was interesting that today's
post from the content marketing institute is an overview of a content
strategy process.

http://www.contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/06/the-content-strategy-proce
ss/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=49e68612de-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_source=
CMI+Posts+to+Email

[Clare O'Brien]

Excellent discussion... it’s kept me very interested all day but I’ve had little time to chime in and say so.

 

We are in the process of fundamentally changing the way things have been done for (in some cases like print, say) for hundreds of years. It’s no surprise that we are a group of people with wide and varied backgrounds and POVs. And I know quite a few of the people in this discussion and there are no common backgrounds between any of them – yet here we all brought together by content.

 

In some respects the work is already moving into the post cheerleading phase because many of us are suddenly finding ourselves trying to figure out not just how text content lifecycles have to be managed for audiences consuming things in a different way, but how ALL content needs to be treated across the entire digital piece into the future.

 

This is why it is SO NOT just about message and marketing but how all the stuff our customers, partners and everyone else needs and expects to get access to -  things like dynamic pricing, account status and how to fix things (for instance).

 

And it’s not just about websites either  – but how we make content work on any other platform (including print and smartphones) that people are using to tap into our organisations. Next year there’ll be more and the year after that some more... Those platforms will come and go, but the information, the content, will still need to be available and there aren’t too many organisations that can keep reinventing how they’re going to be able to manage that before losing the will to live (or make profits).

 

And increasingly we content strategist types are finding ourselves at the forefront of helping solve the ‘how’ for organisations that want / need to get their digital content beans in a row. The answers seem to lie in how we manage the content separately from its various platforms and helping plan how that will be managed at organisational level... (because it will change how things are conceived, authored and life-cycle managed separately from their pages, screens etc).

 

This is serious stuff that goes way deeper / higher than style guides and message architecture – though both are absolutely critical to making the content ‘work’ from a comms perspective. It runs through the heart of organisations and absolutely means change...

 

Content marketing is something that you can make work brilliantly, efficiently and effectively - like transactional flows – if the structures are there. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how great the idea is. If the digital structures don’t exist to make it work where, when and how its intended audience wants it – it will fail.

 

Lise Janody (@lisejanody) opened up some of this conversation with her blog on horizontal & vertical content strategy last week. It’s well worth reading http://bit.ly/ieF4I2. ..and let’s keep talking,

 

Clare

[Destry Wion]

Hi Noz,

Just to clear my share of the air. I only pointed out Eric's article
because it seemed you didn't agree with the idea of "Content Strategy"
being a buzzword, which, of course, I don't agree with either, so I
was just giving you an article where it actually was being discussed
that way. And like you, I agree and disagree with points made in
Eric's article (though they may be different points), but that's the
focus here.

As I said before, Ian didn't need me to say anything on his part.
Rachel either. It just seemed there was obvious confusion about Ian's
meaning and sometimes high-level (sorry Rahel) just isn't my pace. I'm
a foot-in-mouth guy too. :) That doesn't mean I'm about quashing
conversation, on the contrary. The whole point of CS Forum, as a big
example, is about conversation on this subject, and whether or not
someone is or isn't a content strategist is irrelevant. The Forum is
about bring people together to talk about it who have something
relevant to contribute across interests and disciplines, and if there
isn't always agreement, great! I say.

You know, this thread is about CS vs. CM kind of thing, whereas it
could just as easily be a CS vs TC kind of thing too, which would be
equally fair and silly and interesting. Right?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting you in London, Noz, and happy
you're in the program this year, as I'm happy McGovern and Reiss are
too, and many other people representing CS, UX, TC, marketing,
journalism, and...I'm probably missing one or two. Oh,
yeah...television!

[Destry Wion]

> Eric's article (though they may be different points), but that's the
> focus here.

Sorry, that should have read "not the focus here."

[Arienne Holland]

Brief thoughts, since I started all this:

• Love the discussion! I don't have much to add, because other intelligent, thoughtful people have said it already.

• No one has answered the question "How do you define content marketing?"

• Ian, you said that "there are also a smorgasbord of articles that use a stock definition of CS and then go on to explain (content) marketing 'techniques' — which in my mind (and agency) are a very small slice of what a CS does." Others who have commented classify CS as a cross-organization function. Marketing is a cross-organization function, too — there are the four P's and four C's as basic principles, for example. Is one discipline "higher level" than another, or do they complement each other, often overlapping? Where they overlap, is there anything content strategists can learn from marketers? And vice versa?

To be clear, I'm speaking of CS and marketing here, not CS and random definitions of content marketing. And these follow up questions are open to anyone (*cough* Noz *cough*).

[Eat Media]

Arienne,

At a high level here are my talking points.


Regarding the cross-organization function:

The broader and deeper your skill set the better questions you can ask
and in turn the better solution you can provide. This stands true for
both CS and all forms of marketing. There was one comment in this
thread that talked about DB schemas (this made me smile) but the
majority of CS talk centers around the editorial side of CS which is
just one slice - and happens to be the slice that content marketing
has co-opted.

Regarding the definition of content marketing:

I touch on that in the blog where I start to talk about "building
trust" and how I'm beginning to feel like the statement implies
leverage. (The "building trust" element goes beyond CM. Even I have
been guilty of using the phrase and I am rethinking my positioning
regarding its use.)

Regarding the CS learning from marketing and vice versa:

I think where we could both learn as well as communicate better
centers around change management (http://eatmedia.net/blog/2009/11/04/
content-strategy-is-my-micro-scope/). Our expectations of one another
are being redefined and the old methods of cross-functional team
management are showing wear.

Is one discipline "higher level" than another or do the compliment:

The "higher level" is the better user experience that serves business
objectives. When they are both done right they compliment one another
when they are done poorly then one or the other takes the lead and it
becomes readily apparent.

On Jun 13, 10:41 pm, Arienne Holland <arienneholl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Brief thoughts, since I started all this:
>
> • Love the discussion! I don't have much to add, because other intelligent,
> thoughtful people have said it already.
>
> • No one has answered the question "How do you define content marketing?"
>
> • Ian, you said that "there are also a smorgasbord of articles that use a
> stock definition of CS and then go on to explain (content) marketing
> 'techniques' — which in my mind (and agency) are a very small slice of what
> a CS does." Others who have commented classify CS as a cross-organization
> function. Marketing is a cross-organization function, too — there are the four

> P's and four C's <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix#Four_P.27s> as

[Cliff Tyllick]

And, while we're coming clean, I was wrong (thanks, Noz!), the a:b :: c:d stuff isn't a syllogism, in spite of how clearly I can still hear Mrs. Ford telling us to study our syllogisms over the weekend. (Let's just say that 10th grade was last millennium.)

But the best we can come up with is that it's those word patterns we had to memorize for the SAT, or, as Noz put it, "those SAT things."

Oh, well.

You may now return to the regularly scheduled discussion.

Cliff

---

From: Arienne Holland <arienne...@gmail.com>
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Mon, June 13, 2011 9:41:33 PM

Subject: Re: Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

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[Rachel Lovinger]

On the topic of the relationship of marketing and content strategy, maybe the reason they're so closely tied in a lot of organizations is because, for the ones that have no history of content creation, the marketing department is the closest thing they have. I have been surprised to find people who basically have a background in writing press releases calling themselves content strategists. But sometimes that's the person in the organization who has anything to do with content creationat all. So, for better or worse, those are the people who get saddled with the responsibility of making some kind of "content strategy" work.

 

On the topic of syllogisms, that's first order logic: if A is to B and B is to C, then A is to C. The classic one is "Socrates is a man, all men are mortal, therefore Socrates is mortal." This kind of logic is particularly relevant to the expression of knowledge in the semantic web, which is another one of my areas of interest. :)

-Rachel

[David Charron]

Sleep? Write? Sleep? Write.

While there is no doubt in my mind that CS is a much needed discipline, though not yet perfectly defined (no consensus anyway) or not yet well put to use, content marketing isn't a discipline. It's just weirdly shaped umbrella, a pleasant collective noun encompassing a vast array of content based marketing tools that have little if anything in common. It feels, well, useless. It's a bit like branding the concept of container by naming it bags. What are we talking about here? SEO? Product placement? Branded entertainment?

Content creation for marketing purposes has been around forever. White papers are what you'd refer to as CM these days. But white papers are most often used as premiums or hooks in direct marketing actions. A podcast on RA would also be CM following the same logic. But it's there to generate repeats and/or for sales promotion intent... 

There are, in my view, to many beautiful useless synonyms and pompous generics in our industry (marketing slash communications). No? But if the world really needs a definition for CM, why not that of Wikipedia? Works for me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_marketing

As for the level question, I don't mean to bruise any ego, but isn't it a no brainer? Isn't CS, however important it is, no more no less than a high end set of tools in the hands of marketers?

Long day. Maybe I should read this again in the morning before clicking send. Oups! Too late.

[Rachel Lovinger]

So, with all due respect, I have to take issue with this statement/question: "Isn't CS, however important it is, no more no less than a high end set of tools in the hands of marketers?" This is the perception problem I was trying to point out with my previous response.

 

Just because marketers are the most vocal, most visible people who are currently taking up (a small subest) of the tools of CS doesn't mean that CS is a marketing tool. This is like saying that spoons make people fat because a lot of people use them to eat too much ice cream! (That would be a false syllogism, for those following the high-school-logic-lessons sidebar to this discussion.)

 

There is A LOT of content that isn't marketing content. Now that content is considered a "business asset" some things are being redefined as marketing content that weren't before, but it's in the same way that individuals think they need to manage their "personal brand." The fact remains that there's help/support content, there's journalism, there's user generated content, there's entertainment, there's educational content, there's content that captures the internal knowledge of an organization and will never be published on the web or anywhere else for public consumption. Even if some people would like to make the case that "all publicly available content helpe build brand awareness" that doesn't actually make it marketing content.

 

-Rachel

[Matt Moore]

Hey,

I'm not sure if I'm a Content Strategist (it's not that common a term here in Australia but, hey, give it 3 months) but I do a lot strategy work for clients around their content/information. Now this is mostly not in the marketing space and this discussion reminds me of what's kinda happened to social software out here (or social media as the marketing folk call it). Basically it's been colonised by the marketing function so when I show up at social media events, marketing people turn around to me and say: "What are you doing here? Social media is simply a sub-set of marketing, nothing to do with the likes of you. Now let's talk about rates for ads on Facebook..."

Now I am a broadminded, live-and-let-live kinda guy. However the marketing community (which includes some of my closest friends and relatives I hasten to add) tend to have i. access to money and ii. an innate sense of their own importance. The latter occurs to an extent among most professional groups but seems particularly pronounced in marketing & advertising at the moment. Frankly I blame Mad Men (and a show called The Gruen Transfer here in Australia). Hence they take a somewhat imperialistic approach to emerging practice domains, especially if the domain seems to be a bit sexy.

I think sometimes the marketing community needs reminding (perhaps with tazers) that not every practice domain is a sub-set of marketing and that people who are not marketers may have something to bring to the table. This may only be a Sydney thing but my impression is that it is global.

Regards,
--
Matt Moore
M. +61 (0) 423 784 504
ma...@innotecture.com.au
http://innotecture.com.au/

[Rich Thompson]

Hello,

As someone who comes to CS from a marketing/advertising background, I
for one firmly believe that content marketing is a subset of content
strategy (and I've written about it a bit). It's just one of the many
things that content can be used for. What I find really interesting is
the tension that seems to exist between content strategy and content
marketing/advertising. It flares up regularly, which is proof to me
that there's something deeper going on here. Problem is, I'm not sure
what that "something" is. I have some theories, but they're pretty
nebulous for the moment.

Regards,

Rich Thompson
---
e: r...@richtext.com
t: @richtextfr

> m...@innotecture.com.auhttp://innotecture.com.au/

[Clare O'Brien]

Rachel is right. All content is NOT communication and is not the product of the marketing department. CS addresses all organisational content, not just the marketing parts or the comms bits. It’s just that in the past customers have mostly not been exposed to all the parts that marketers don’t manage.

 

Clare

 

 

From: content...@googlegroups.com [mailto:content...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rachel Lovinger
Sent: 14 June 2011 06:43
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

 

So, with all due respect, I have to take issue with this statement/question: "Isn't CS, however important it is, no more no less than a high end set of tools in the hands of marketers?" This is the perception problem I was trying to point out with my previous response.

[Clare O'Brien]

Good point, Rich. I should mention that I too have a background in marketing
and communications. This shouldn't be about land-grab, but about getting to
know and understand the depth and extent of CS. I'm not sure that it's as
simple as content marketing being a subset of CS, in the same way that an
HR-owned online recruitment function isn't a subset of CS, but both would be
optimised with a pucker CS structure in place... Clare

-----Original Message-----
From: content...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:content...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rich Thompson
Sent: 14 June 2011 08:04
To: Content Strategy
Subject: Re: Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

Hello,

Regards,

--

[Noz Urbina]

I went to sleep and woke up to find I've got lots to respond to this morning!  If I miss anyone direct questions I'm sorry.  I'm happy to see this thread has flowered into a great and open talk.

I think Matt's comparison to what's happened to Social Media is very valid. 

It went from "social media is the people's platform to communicate, collaborate and share" to "social media is how they sneak into your house and when you're not looking, and stuff coupons up your nose... and groom your children as consumers from age 3... and profile you into being just the sum of a few a statistical data points in a thousand DBs you're unaware of... and eat babies... and club seals".

I've also written about social media for 'other' professional communicators.  Besides having to fight the original 'Social media is about kids showing off skateboarding tricks to each other' bias, I then had to fight off the 'social media belongs to the marketing department, not my department' feeling.

@Arienne - you beat me to it. You're quite right that we've forgotten your question in the flurry of other points.   I for one, am not qualified to define 'content marketing' for you.  Of course, I feel I know what it means and that I know enough to know it's not synonymous with CS, but I'm not the authoritative source of a reference definition.  I read the Wikipedia definition and it is exactly what I expected to find, and exactly what many people think CS is, which is where the confusion and this whole discussions stems from.

@Destry - interestingly enough, I don't have that much trouble with CS being a buzzword.  I wouldn't have articulated why as clearly as Ian did with 'Hey, that's just how fields start', but I do think it's a buzzword.  I was there for the structured content, DITA, and CMS buzzwords, and those are all staples of my daily work today.  What I had real trouble with was that they were a round of buzzwords replacing, but by implication not adding value to a previous set of existing words.  Which is the choice of wording that I had said I wasn't going to hassle Ian on further, but here I am... 

I have a problem with anyone saying that there was a perfectly serviceable term that was in common use for CS previously.  The field existed, but without clear name.  Information Architect was the closest for me, but that has become very different (again, co-opted almost entirely by the web community).  So CS is the first word we've had (in my mind) for what it is that CS is about.

<sidebar> @Rachel
Re the syllogism sidebar - I emailed Cliff privately to say that I don't think that "those SAT things" are syllogisms, but he replied back to the to public thread.  I'm getting from your post how they could be in that it's not a far leap from 'if A is B, and B is C, then A is C' to 'A is to B as B is to ___?'.  However, first order logic replaced syllogisms as a mechanism for reasoning, they're not the same thing.  Half the way I know that is that, is the fact I can understand the full explanation of syllogisms but when I tried to wrap my head around first order logic I started losing feeling in one side of my face and began drooling profusely.  Apparently I can't even hack the first order of logic...! : )

The phrase 'those SAT things' from the fact I'd like to read some reference on this to really see the boundaries of syllogisms and wether  'A is to B... etc' logic structure is first order or a syllogism, or what.  But I have no way of Googling or looking it up besides entering 'those SAT things', which doesn't turn up great hits.  If you can, please hook a brother up.
</sidebar/>

[Rich Thompson]

I agree that calling CM a subset of CS is an oversimplification. What
I was trying to get at is that marketing, like HR, are business/
organizational functions that should, in a perfect world, be driven by
an overarching company strategy. Therefore, the content of a business
function is in some way a sub-set of the greater corporate strategy.
On a side note, I've observed that the lack of a coherent CS (or the
unwillingness to implement one) is often the sign of a dysfunctional
corporate strategy higher up.

The goal of CS, IMHO, is to translate this strategy into and for
content -- to align (I hate that word) content with corporate
strategy, tactics and objectives. The closer the alignment, the more
value content returns to the company and, of course, to customers. And
this doesn't mean content is submissive parroting of the corporate
line. It's about content creating value. What I'd really like to see
is more strategic thinking that involves content, rather than more
strategies for managing content (which I know is a challenge unto
itself, but I'll leave it for another thread).

Rich Thompson
---
e: r...@richtext.com
t: @richtextfr

On Jun 14, 10:16 am, "Clare O'Brien" <cl...@webwordsworking.co.uk>
wrote:

[Noz Urbina]

@Rich - I think that a lot of the tension is that marketing and advertising usually have remits which are very top-line oriented.  Add revenue, improve brand equity.  I'm not belittling marketing here, but it has been my experience, and I don't think many will disagree, that the perspective of the marketer, and ESPECIALLY, the agency marketer, is:

"We bring the leads and prospects into the shop and often even convince them to buy.  The other functions of the business are responsible for A) wether they are happy after they bought and B) wether that whole transaction was a profitable endeavour"

It's very project and iniative-oriented.  Again, it's even more pronounced with external agencies.  I've had self-titled CSers tell me: "We come in, we do a web project, we get sign-off, everyone's happy".  So the flare-ups happen when a CS says that a business plan needs to close loops across the customer lifecycle and departmental silos. 

It's overhead.  It's boring.  It's slow.  It's complicated.  It's patently unsexy.  It's more expensive.

Heck, I often find it boring, slow, complicated, and unsexy!  Marketing is a lot more fun than than intranets, support knowledge bases, technical documents, proposal management, bla di bla bla.  But if you don't grease all the wheels in the machine, you can't get it ticking over as efficiently. 

I sympathise a lot with the reasoning behind the dividers, but they still needs to come down.

Other tiny aside:  I'm literally getting a stress stomach ache seeing that Content Marketing is now being abbreviated to CM.  I've spent over a decade where thankfully CM *only ever* meant 'Content Management'.   Having to second-guess every mention, especially on twitter, is a nightmarish thought....

[Clare O'Brien]

And I agree with you Rich that CS is the subset of the business / corporate
strategy as it makes all those various functions available to whoever needs
and expects them whenever and however they need or expect them. And that
requires a bit (a lot?) of re-education internally to get all those business
function owners to recognise the value of their content.

The practical engineering required to make all that valuable content
accessible IS a separate subject, but what we're finding is that by starting
to look at the requirements to manage content on an organisation-wide scale,
is a big step towards helping organisations recognise that content needs
high-level corporate (in the true sense of the word) thinking.

[Seth Grimes]

"There is A LOT of content that isn't marketing content."

Further, there is A LOT of content use, whatever the origin of that
content, that doesn't involve marketing.

So I'd offer a simple, differentiating definition --

Content strategy is about making the most of the many possible
uses of content while content marketing is about creating content, or
reusing existing content, for marketing.

Seth

>> ? Love the discussion! I don't have much to add, because other intelligent,

>> thoughtful people have said it already.
>>

>> ? No one has answered the question "How do you define content marketing?"
>>
>> ? Ian, you said that "there are also a smorgasbord of articles that use a

>> stock definition of CS and then go on to explain (content) marketing

>> 'techniques' ? which in my mind (and agency) are a very small slice of what

>> a CS does." Others who have commented classify CS as a cross-organization

>> function. Marketing is a cross-organization function, too ? there are the four
>> P's and four C's <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix#Four_P.27s>as basic principles, for example. Is one discipline "higher level" than

>> another, or do they complement each other, often overlapping? Where they
>> overlap, is there anything content strategists can learn from marketers? And
>> vice versa?
>>
>> To be clear, I'm speaking of CS and marketing here, not CS and random
>> definitions of content marketing. And these follow up questions are open to
>> anyone (*cough* Noz *cough*).
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "Content Strategy" group.
>> To view this discussion on the web visit
>> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/contentstrategy/-/gBu4Wo0iVjQJ.
>> To post to this group, send email to content...@googlegroups.com.
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>>
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>>
>
>

--
Seth Grimes gri...@altaplana.com +1 301-270-0795 @sethgrimes

* 2011 Text/Content Analytics Market Survey: http://svy.mk/m8ZZ7H *
* http://SentimentAnalysisSymposium.com November 9, San Francisco *

Alta Plana Corp, analytics strategy consulting, http://altaplana.com
InformationWeek, contributing editor http://sethgrimes.com

[J. Todd Bennett]

@Clare wrote: "And that requires a bit (a lot?) of re-education internally to get all those business

function owners to recognise the value of their content."

I'd add there's a lot of education needed internally to get those business function owners to recognize what is "content" in the first place. If more people within the organization understood the breadth of what constitutes content (it's not just the fluffy marketing stuff), I think fewer people would tune out at the very mention of content-[strategy, marketing, whatever].

Selling content strategy to these folks is putting the cart before the horse.

Todd

[Clare O'Brien]

Top point, Todd. I had a ridiculously circular discussion with a financial bloke recently where he simply didn’t get the content bit of content strategy and kept saying I should talk about ‘messages’ so people could understand what we were selling. I tried (poorly, I have to confess) to get him to a) embrace content beyond text and  b) to think beyond ‘the crafted message’. It’s something we’re still working on.

 

From: content...@googlegroups.com [mailto:content...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of J. Todd Bennett

Sent: 14 June 2011 11:31
To: content...@googlegroups.com

[Destry Wion]

Noz Urbina wrote:

>I wouldn't have articulated why as clearly as Ian did ... but I do think it's a buzzword.

Okay, I see where you're coming from, and in reflection, that's where
Eric's coming from too, no doubt. And each area has it's people that
steps forward and says as much. Eric is a notable example with regard
to IA, Muriel Vandermeulen (in Belgium) who spoke at the first Forum
in Paris said the same thing with regard to editorial strategy (but
it's a context thing, that's how most of the French-speaking world
still understands it), and we can name hundreds (kidding) who say CS
is TC, etc. But for my part, I think it's moved past being a buzzword.
Still poorly understood by the masses, definitely, but that's not the
same thing to me.

Things have changed considerably by my bearing since 2002, which is
when I first became familiar with the expression (Rockley's book), and
particularly in the last 3 years. Muriel, for example, doesn't make
that argument anymore about CS simply being editorial strategy; she's
even now written the first French-language book on Content Strategy
and largely anchored the name « stratégie de contenu » in the French
lexicon, which is no easy feat. Even the folks at STC France wouldn't
use that expression in French in outward communication about the Forum
just two years ago.

Open question... can CS be a buzzword when companies like eBay,
Disney, UPS, Microsoft, Facebook, and many others I'm surely missing
have CS posts in their organization? It seems kind of silly to call it
a buzzword on that fact alone. I mean content strategists employed at
those companies may not be in complete prostration to Boiko* and the
holy book of DITA (some more so than others), but that shouldn't
undermine the fact that CS is rapidly becoming a position (not just a
side duty) in the organizational chart, and that roles will vary and
objectives evolve. When does it stop being a buzzword, if that's what
you think it is?

* Boiko taught one of my classes at UofW and I think he would laugh at
that.

[Noz Urbina]

Hi Destry,

I should have calrified in the first place.  I'm a content strategist by trade.  Even if I weren't, I didn't mean buzzword in the sense of 'illegitimate' or 'meaningless'.

Buzzword = A recent industry term that has so much energy surrounding it that it attracts attention and/or contoversy (buzz), sometimes just by the act of mentioning it.   Many of the active and impassioned discussions that go on on this forum and other CS forums are what I mean by buzz.  If you go on other forums, they simply don't 'buzz' the same way.  So - buzzword.  When the term and profession bed in, there will be far less energy around the whole issue.

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[Ann Rockley]

Bear with me on this, I’m just getting into the discussion after a long business trip. This argument/discussion is very similar to the one we had about six years ago when I was President of Content Management Professionals, at that time a fledgling organization devoted to content management best practices. Many would say that content management is a technology, not a set of best practices. It is in fact both, the technology supports the practice. We had a diverse set of members that were all keen to identify the skills and best practices for content management, but there was a problem, we had many different ideas about what content management was.

 

Many felt that content management was web content management. But just like the discussions here, content management is not just about the web, any more than content strategy is just about content marketing.

 

We had:

 

·         Web content management (management of web content)

·         Enterprise content management (management of enterprise content like documents, email, etc.)

·         Component content management (management of modular structured content)

·         Learning content management (management of learning materials like instructor led training, eLearning)

·         And a few others

 

We sat down and defined what each  “type” of content manager did. There were distinct differences, but in working through the processes we found that there was a core set of processes and associated skills that everyone did. The definition of these core processes and skills became our core of content management best practices.

 

So we had a discipline known as content management which had a number of specializations. I believe that is exactly what we have here.

 

·         Content Strategy is a discipline.

·         There are different content strategy specializations.

·         There are a core set of skills and best practices associated with content strategy.

 

I suggest that it is time to move from the “buzzwords” to some working groups focused on defining the different disciplines in CS then do a comparison. People can begin the comparison at the upcoming content strategy conferences with a potential culmination at Confab. Sorry Kristina, hope you don’t mind but I think it would be an awesome addition to the conference. Let’s begin the process of making content strategy real and definable.

 

My two cents.

 

Ann

 

From: content...@googlegroups.com [mailto:content...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of David Charron
Sent: June-14-11 1:23 AM
To: content...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

 

Sleep? Write? Sleep? Write.

[Rachel Lovinger]

Hi Matt,

 

Great to hear your perspective. I think that what you're experiencing is not necessarily unique to Australia, though. Marketing groups seem to have this influence everywhere.  

 

Funnily enough, I'm going to be in Sydney soon, and speaking at the Social Media Club Sydney :) I promise it will not be entirely marketing oriented. Come by if you can: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=84386e03112d6e7066394e225&id=0c97745ba4

-Rachel

[Noz Urbina]

Well said, Ann.  I think the 'bedding down' of the professional won't really begin until that process has gone through. 

We should never underestimate the usefulness of a good buzzword.  There are good and bad ones.  : )

I've been trying to actually avoid mentioning Congility because it's been my life for 6 months and was actually enjoying not talking about it for a few weeks, but this combination of extension and refinement of scope was of course a huge topic there.  We need to have a framework of terminology to describe the specialicism so that we are not all duking it out in the middle ground. 

I've been trying to bring the marketing and web CS world to tech comms with Congility and 'uniting the camps', but I felt we struggled to get the engagement from the web/marketing CS world.  I really like the framework laid out here: http://www.dot-connection.com/2011/06/horizontal-and-vertical-content-strategy/ as it gives a sort of matrix view.  Combine the vertical and horizontal and you get a grid.  Various CSs could be appearing on various locations on it.

[David Charron]

:) Just lit a match in the darkness and instantly saw confirmed what my nose knew already: I was standing in a pool of gasoline.

Rest assured that I have great respect for Content strategy and its practitioners. Their contribution to marketing is already of great importance. I'm simply am apostle of clarity (and if you read the thread asking for a "Definition of CS in less than 100 words", then you know CS is far from being monolithic as a field of expertise). However, like you, I'm sure, I'm sometimes a witness of ego and personal interest getting in the way. I don't much care for proprietary branding lingo opposing buzz marketing to conversational capital, for example. So if whole boxes of flares have to be thrown in to get the debate past these considerations, I'm stocked.

Thanks for feeding the fire. May we all share in the promising fruits of CS blessings.

David

[David Charron]

My POV also.

[Moritz, Chris]

I (slightly) disagree with the “CS addresses all organisational content, not just the marketing parts or the comms bits” idea, insofar as CS can address things at that level of granularity, but frequently doesn’t. Depends on what purview the content strategist has been engaged with.

I’m wary of any idea that if you’re not accessing and addressing content at the highest possible level, you’re not “doing it right.”

That’s of course putting words in your mouth, but I worry about repeating the error of the “big UX” idea – where everything and anything fell under one master umbrella. I’ve rarely been engaged to work with businesses with that degree of authority and depth.

On 6/14/11 3:06 AM, "Clare O'Brien" <cl...@webwordsworking.co.uk> wrote:

Rachel is right. All content is NOT communication and is not the product of the marketing department. CS addresses all organisational content, not just the marketing parts or the comms bits. It’s just that in the past customers have mostly not been exposed to all the parts that marketers don’t manage.
 
Clare
 

--

CHRIS MORITZ  |  Interactive Content Strategy Manager  |  0: 586 558 7296  |  C: 248 224 9049  |  AIM: cmoritz1976
http://twitter.com/chrismoritz  |  http://facebook.com/chrismoritz  |  http://linkedin.com/in/chrismoritz  |  http://www.c-e.com/

[Destry Wion]

Ann Rockley wrote:

> Bear with me on this,

> I suggest that it is time to move from the “buzzwords” to some working
> groups focused on defining the different disciplines in CS then do a
> comparison. People can begin the comparison at the upcoming content strategy
> conferences with a potential culmination at Confab.

Okay, I'll bite, for what little my two cents is worth...

The methodical approach, anyway, seems reasonable, and if workgroups
were *internationally* represented (as they should be), even better.
But even if there wasn't friction on this idea (and I'm guessing there
would be a lot as it became more known), I can't imagine any finality
being reached before several years time, certainly not within a year.

Forming workgroups to define things and create standards or whatever
just *within* an organization takes a very long time. Here we're
talking about a non-organized and new industry, as well the buy-in
from related industries (UX, marketing, TC...), because if you don't
have their interest then they probably won't take the effort seriously
and you get the expected results.

I can only imagine the immense amount of politics and associated docs
that would come into play as well. It even begins looking like an
organizational process, and at a time when the value of organizations
are frequently called into question anyway, well...

Just determining what the workgroups would be, and (more so) who would
be in them sounds like the grounds for an epic battle...er...endeavor.

Still, it would be... entertaining to hear some other thoughts on this
idea. One of the first questions I would have is what are the
different workgroups and how should they be formed? (Use that as a
pilot exercise.) :)

[Moritz, Chris]

Love love love these 2¢, Ann.

The specializations within the “container” of the Content Strategy moniker are part of what makes it awesome and fun. Devolving into “your application of CS is punier and less profound than mine” is a terrible way to go.

Better (imho) to say that CS is an approach that can be applied to a range of content-centric activities, including marketing, records management, corporate communications, PR, content management, etc.

Content Strategy ≠ Content Marketing. That’s easy enough to agree to, even if a plurality of content strategists in marketing practices recommend and oversee content marketing techniques.

On 6/14/11 10:09 AM, "Ann Rockley" <roc...@rockley.com> wrote:

Bear with me on this, I’m just getting into the discussion after a long business trip. This argument/discussion is very similar to the one we had about six years ago when I was President of Content Management Professionals, at that time a fledgling organization devoted to content management best practices. Many would say that content management is a technology, not a set of best practices. It is in fact both, the technology supports the practice. We had a diverse set of members that were all keen to identify the skills and best practices for content management, but there was a problem, we had many different ideas about what content management was.
 
Many felt that content management was web content management. But just like the discussions here, content management is not just about the web, any more than content strategy is just about content marketing.
 
We had:
 
·         Web content management (management of web content)
·         Enterprise content management (management of enterprise content like documents, email, etc.)
·         Component content management (management of modular structured content)
·         Learning content management (management of learning materials like instructor led training, eLearning)
·         And a few others

 
We sat down and defined what each  “type” of content manager did. There were distinct differences, but in working through the processes we found that there was a core set of processes and associated skills that everyone did. The definition of these core processes and skills became our core of content management best practices.
 
So we had a discipline known as content management which had a number of specializations. I believe that is exactly what we have here.
 
·         Content Strategy is a discipline.
·         There are different content strategy specializations.
·         There are a core set of skills and best practices associated with content strategy.

 
I suggest that it is time to move from the “buzzwords” to some working groups focused on defining the different disciplines in CS then do a comparison. People can begin the comparison at the upcoming content strategy conferences with a potential culmination at Confab. Sorry Kristina, hope you don’t mind but I think it would be an awesome addition to the conference. Let’s begin the process of making content strategy real and definable.
 
My two cents.
 
Ann
 

[Lisa Moore]

Hi Ann:

Such a fascinating discussion and one that is near and dear to my
heart of late (hence my Tweet following Congility ;)

Along with Ken Yau, Clare O'Brien and Dan O'Driscoll, I'm in the
process of launching the UK Content Strategy Association. Now, I know
people have differing opinions about the benefit of such an
organization.

However, our group had been meeting for over a year, and we felt it
would be a good idea to create something "tangible" that could serve
as a resource for practitioners and non-practitioners alike and drive
the discipline forward. I should point out that we don't have
grandiose visions of doing that on a global scale, hence the emphasis
on "UK".

We're about to launch the group's website. We've been soliciting
articles and case studies from the members of the group across a wide
range of topics. In particular, we're keen to raise awareness about
the many facets of the content strategy "diamond" along the exact
lines you've outlined.

We'll be doing a soft launch of the site in the next few weeks. Over
time, we hope that the content that people in the group develop - and
that people from all spheres of influence feel inclined to contribute
- will support discussions such as this one!

Maybe some of what we’re producing will be material to what you’re
proposing here? I think it would be a valuable contribution at this
point. And it almost goes without saying, but if anyone on this list
wants to help us, we'd love to hear from you!

Regards, Lisa

[Ann Rockley]

That sounds great, Lisa! I understand your concerns in making it a global
initiative as that can be very complex. I would hope that people from
anywhere could contribute and as we mix at a variety of conferences we can
share what we have learned.

We can only sell ourselves and encourage others coming up through the ranks
when we know who we are, how to define ourselves, and what it takes to be
good and get better at what we do.

Congratulations on starting the UK Content Strategy Assoc.

Ann

-----Original Message-----
From: content...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:content...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lisa Moore
Sent: June-14-11 1:38 PM
To: Content Strategy
Subject: Re: Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

Hi Ann:

Regards, Lisa

--

[Ann Rockley]

I agree, that it is not the work of a year, but many years. But we make no
progress without starting.

-----Original Message-----
From: content...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:content...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Destry Wion
Sent: June-14-11 1:16 PM
To: Content Strategy
Subject: Re: Content Marketing and Content Strategy: What's the difference?

...

Forming workgroups to define things and create standards or whatever
just *within* an organization takes a very long time. Here we're
talking about a non-organized and new industry, as well the buy-in
from related industries (UX, marketing, TC...), because if you don't
have their interest then they probably won't take the effort seriously
and you get the expected results.

I can only imagine the immense amount of politics and associated docs
that would come into play as well. It even begins looking like an
organizational process, and at a time when the value of organizations
are frequently called into question anyway, well...

Just determining what the workgroups would be, and (more so) who would
be in them sounds like the grounds for an epic battle...er...endeavor.

Still, it would be... entertaining to hear some other thoughts on this
idea. One of the first questions I would have is what are the
different workgroups and how should they be formed? (Use that as a
pilot exercise.) :)

--

[Laura Creekmore]

I've been reading all this with great interest the past 2 days. I've
finally had a few minutes to put down my thoughts.
http://www.lauracreekmore.com/content-strategy-content-marketing-game/

Short version:
Content strategy ≠ content marketing.
Content strategy=mindset that can be applied to many communications
efforts and product development work.

Laura Creekmore
la...@creekmoreconsulting.com

[Suzanne Baran]

@Laura Creekmore - could not have said ti better and more effectively!

--
"I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man."
  -- The BL

[James_Mathewson]

I've been trying to figure out where to jump in here. So many
thoughts...so many threads. I suppose this is as good a place as any.

First: Is content strategy content marketing? Well no. But Content
marketing is the most important part of content strategy, at least as
I practice the two disciplines. From my perspective, if I only have
time to do one aspect of my job as a content strategist, I do the
content marketing part. Let me e'splain. No, takes too long. Let me
sum up:

By 'content marketing,' I mean all the various strategies and tactics
we use to market our content--search and social, primarily. If you
work in an organization that creates a lot of content, as I do, you
know that just because it is important and interesting and well
written and, etc. doesn't mean anyone will ever consume it. My company
is the largest publisher of original web content on the planet. None
of this content would ever meet the eyes of our target audience if we
didn't tell the them we published it. It still probably wouldn't be
found by the people we are trying to attract, who probably don't know
we publish so much content, if we don't effectively tell the search
engines about it.

I am known for writing the book espousing the search-first content
strategy for this reason. I worked as the EIC of ibm.com for several
years and saw team after team spend gobs of money and human brain
power creating great content that got, like, one visit in a year,
probably by the writer. This seemed like a colossal waste to me. I
spent two years carefully crafting style guides and training writers
and editors about standards, tools and processes, etc. All of this
effort improved the quality of our content, much of which was never
even downloaded.

Not only that, but in a company of more than 400,000 very smart people
with a finite number of customers and offerings, the same or very
similar content was being painstakingly created by several teams at
the same time. Users who came to our site were deluged with a
stupefying array of content. No one UX or cool design could ever
possibly guide them through it. It needed to be self guiding--
instrumented, interconnected and intelligent. Above all, it needed to
be promoted through channels prospects frequent--for more than 80
percent of our external audience, that means search. About as large a
percentage of our visits involve internal search at some point. In
short, we needed to focus more on content marketing than on any other
activity. So I wrote a book about that aspect of content strategy.

Content strategy includes lots of practices that are not content
marketing. But none more important.

My 2 krone.

On Jun 14, 12:19 pm, "Moritz, Chris" <Chris.Mor...@c-e.com> wrote:
> Love love love these 2¢, Ann.
>
> The specializations within the “container” of the Content Strategy moniker are part of what makes it awesome and fun. Devolving into “your application of CS is punier and less profound than mine” is a terrible way to go.
>
> Better (imho) to say that CS is an approach that can be applied to a range of content-centric activities, including marketing, records management, corporate communications, PR, content management, etc.
>
> Content Strategy ≠ Content Marketing. That’s easy enough to agree to, even if a plurality of content strategists in marketing practices recommend and oversee content marketing techniques.
>

> On 6/14/11 10:09 AM, "Ann Rockley" <rock...@rockley.com> wrote:
>
> Bear with me on this, I’m just getting into the discussion after a long business trip. This argument/discussion is very similar to the one we had about six years ago when I was President of Content Management Professionals, at that time a fledgling organization devoted to content management best practices. Many would say that content management is a technology, not a set of best practices. It is in fact both, the technology supports the practice. We had a diverse set of members that were all keen to identify the skills and best practices for content management, but there was a problem, we had many different ideas about what content management was.
>
> Many felt that content management was web content management. But just like the discussions here, content management is not just about the web, any more than content strategy is just about content marketing.
>
> We had:
>
> •         Web content management (management of web content)
> •         Enterprise content management (management of enterprise content like documents, email, etc.)
> •         Component content management (management of modular structured content)
> •         Learning content management (management of learning materials like instructor led training, eLearning)
> •         And a few others
>
> We sat down and defined what each  “type” of content manager did. There were distinct differences, but in working through the processes we found that there was a core set of processes and associated skills that everyone did. The definition of these core processes and skills became our core of content management best practices.
>
> So we had a discipline known as content management which had a number of specializations. I believe that is exactly what we have here.
>
> •         Content Strategy is a discipline.
> •         There are different content strategy specializations.
> •         There are a core set of skills and best practices associated with content strategy.
>
> I suggest that it is time to move from the “buzzwords” to some working groups focused on defining the different disciplines in CS then do a comparison. People can begin the comparison at the upcoming content strategy conferences with a potential culmination at Confab. Sorry Kristina, hope you don’t mind but I think it would be an awesome addition to the conference. Let’s begin the process of making content strategy real and definable.
>
> My two cents.
>
> Ann
>
> --

> [cid:3390902393_2436325]
> CHRIS MORITZ  |  Interactive Content Strategy Manager  |  0: 586 558 7296  |  C: 248 224 9049  |  AIM: cmoritz1976http://twitter.com/chrismoritz |  http://facebook.com/chrismoritz |  http://linkedin.com/in/chrismoritz |  http://www.c-e.com/
>
>  image.png
> 4KViewDownload

[Seth Grimes]

I see in this thread a distinction that should be made.

I see "content marketing" and "marketing of content" as distinct species.

In "marketing of content," the content is the product. Content strategy
might be applied to better market a given piece of content, to decide
channels for dissemination and guide the shaping of the content-as-product
so that it sells.

In "content marketing," content is a tool to market something else.
Content itself is not the (primary) product. So use of Web site copy to
paint a compelling image of say, garden tools: that's content marketing in
the service of marketing the garden tools. Here content strategy figures
out what content is needed to sell the garden tools, how and where that
content should be presented, etc., but content strategy has nothing to say
about the design of the garden tools themselves.

Fair distinction?

Lastly, content marketing can be used to market content, of course. For
instance, I tweet my articles to get people to read them.

Seth

>> The specializations within the ?container? of the Content Strategy moniker are part of what makes it awesome and fun. Devolving into ?your application of CS is punier and less profound than mine? is a terrible way to go.

>>
>> Better (imho) to say that CS is an approach that can be applied to a range of content-centric activities, including marketing, records management, corporate communications, PR, content management, etc.
>>

>> Content Strategy ? Content Marketing. That?s easy enough to agree to, even if a plurality of content strategists in marketing practices recommend and oversee content marketing techniques.

>>
>> On 6/14/11 10:09 AM, "Ann Rockley" <rock...@rockley.com> wrote:
>>

>> Bear with me on this, I?m just getting into the discussion after a long business trip. This argument/discussion is very similar to the one we had about six years ago when I was President of Content Management Professionals, at that time a fledgling organization devoted to content management best practices. Many would say that content management is a technology, not a set of best practices. It is in fact both, the technology supports the practice. We had a diverse set of members that were all keen to identify the skills and best practices for content management, but there was a problem, we had many different ideas about what content management was.

>>
>> Many felt that content management was web content management. But just like the discussions here, content management is not just about the web, any more than content strategy is just about content marketing.
>>
>> We had:
>>

>> ?         Web content management (management of web content)
>> ?         Enterprise content management (management of enterprise content like documents, email, etc.)
>> ?         Component content management (management of modular structured content)
>> ?         Learning content management (management of learning materials like instructor led training, eLearning)
>> ?         And a few others
>>
>> We sat down and defined what each  ?type? of content manager did. There were distinct differences, but in working through the processes we found that there was a core set of processes and associated skills that everyone did. The definition of these core processes and skills became our core of content management best practices.

>>
>> So we had a discipline known as content management which had a number of specializations. I believe that is exactly what we have here.
>>

>> ?         Content Strategy is a discipline.
>> ?         There are different content strategy specializations.
>> ?         There are a core set of skills and best practices associated with content strategy.
>>
>> I suggest that it is time to move from the ?buzzwords? to some working groups focused on defining the different disciplines in CS then do a comparison. People can begin the comparison at the upcoming content strategy conferences with a potential culmination at Confab. Sorry Kristina, hope you don?t mind but I think it would be an awesome addition to the conference. Let?s begin the process of making content strategy real and definable.

>>
>> My two cents.
>>
>> Ann
>>
>> --
>> [cid:3390902393_2436325]
>> CHRIS MORITZ  |  Interactive Content Strategy Manager  |  0: 586 558 7296  |  C: 248 224 9049  |  AIM: cmoritz1976http://twitter.com/chrismoritz |  http://facebook.com/chrismoritz |  http://linkedin.com/in/chrismoritz |  http://www.c-e.com/
>>
>>  image.png
>> 4KViewDownload
>
>

--

[David Charron]

It's not all in response to Seth's post but...

Sleep? Write? Sleep? Write. (second jab)

While there is no doubt in my mind that CS is a much needed discipline, though not yet perfectly defined (no consensus anyway) or not yet well put to use, content marketing isn't a discipline. It's just weirdly shaped umbrella, a pleasant collective noun encompassing a vast array of content based marketing tools that have little if anything in common. Some would argue the same can be said about CS. But there is a difference.

If you had all the money in the world and wanted to launch a super CS company, you could assemble all CS specialties under one roof and it would make sense. There would be complementarity. And yes, this super CS company would put most of  its brainpower and technology to work on marketing born or aimed actions. And yes, again, handing out your email address in exchange for the rare privilege to see a short film about Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's plea for resistance would be the result of a marketing strategy. You give, you get. However noble the source's intent or yours, there is a value-exchange. This is marketing.

Now could you launch a super Content marketing company uniting all specialties caught in this rope-in? I don't think you could. Not a discipline in my eye. Not a field either. Too dissimilar.

SEO, product placement, branded entertainment (brandtertainment), database marketing, webinars, custom magazines. Not much in common. Not much complementarity.

In short, to me:

CS =  balsamic vinegar in oil

CM = rocks in water

Hey! I'm not CS. I'm just a curious creative copywriter watching a new galaxy forming and meddling in the affairs of the gods, once in a while, when I should stay put. So it's not about hierarchy or importance to me. It's only about the nature of things and the naming of cats (http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/t__s__eliot/poems/15121).

I'm a big fan of CM! Especially since it's standing on so many capable shoulders. Content creation for marketing purposes has been around forever. White papers are what you'd refer to as CM these days. But white papers are most often used as premiums or hooks in direct marketing actions. Back to the future is pretty much product placement all the way through, and so CM. A podcast on RA would also be CM following the same logic. But it's there to generate repeats (CRM and clicks) and/or for sales promotion intent. Even Caples 1926 piano lessons could be pulled under this monstrous umbrella. Yet it's a tour the force of direct marketing.

There are, in my view, to many beautiful useless synonyms and generics in the fields of marketing and communications. But if the world really needs a definition for CM, Wikipedia's not bad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_marketing

Now do we really need to make a distinction between this and marketing of content? I say put that beautiful energy to getting all that crazy vinegar back together.

You're all very interesting minds and great teachers. Thank you. Cheers!

David

[Eat Media]

Great point Seth.

-Ian

> *http://SentimentAnalysisSymposium.comNovember 9, San Francisco *
>
> Alta Plana Corp, analytics strategy consulting,http://altaplana.com

[James_Mathewson]

Seth,

I agree with this, for those who sell content (e.g. AOL). But, in our
case, we don't sell content. We give content away. We sell products
and services. Content is just the vehicle that helps our clients and
prospects make intelligent buying decisions, and to have confidence
that our products and services are reliable, provide value, etc. When
your buying cycle is more than a year and your product lifecycle is
many years, you need to create a lot of content to support your
products and services. Multiply that by hundreds of offerings, in 90
countries and throw in the fact that customers need to mix, match and
otherwise combine offerings to solve their business problems, and you
become the highest volume publisher of original content on the planet.
In order for our clients and prospects to find this content, we must
market it. For all practical purposes, marketing of content is content
marketing for us.

James

> *http://SentimentAnalysisSymposium.comNovember 9, San Francisco *
>
> Alta Plana Corp, analytics strategy consulting,http://altaplana.com

[Robert Rose]

So..... I'll jump in here after lurking for a couple of days...

Why am I not surprised that the Content Strategists are working
diligently to define Content Strategy and Content Marketing... All
while the Content Marketing folk sit back and say... "Hey man, we're
just tryin' to be conversational"..... It's sooo Meta <joke>

In my own work (certainly very specifically focused on content
marketing) I see the work of Content Strategy as extraordinarily
important. Like Anne - I've been around this "Content" thing since
the mid 90's and watched the Content Management space go through
similar fits. I'm also old enough to have watched other fields work
through these "DTDT" conversations. For example, in the 70's/80's
there were huge debates as "Product Managers" became "Brand
Managers"... Content Marketing and Content Strategy are absolutely
related.... But I would never purport myself to be an expert at
holistic Content Strategy. But I'm a relatively decent Content
Marketing Strategist.

I think Laura's post is an important one - and furthers the
conversation quite a bit. For myself, I find the best way to describe
the difference is putting it into the hierarchy of the Strategic
Management discipline.... Aaah brings back long nights of coffee and
other stimulants in B-School....

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_management)

In that idea, Content Marketing and Content Strategy would both be
Functional Strategies applied to the business. This would include
other strategies (financial strategies, legal strategies, supply-chain
strategies, IT Strategies etc...). Certainly there are overlap with
all of them - but the overriding goal is that each functional area
works to meet overall corporate objectives - and thus each takes its
cue from broader business goals. The fact that both focus on
"content" merely points out ow important it is now to the business.

I certainly won't attempt a definition of Content Strategy. But to
me... the simplest way I think of Content Marketing is a fundamental
shift in the approach that we marketers take to our functional
marketing strategy. It certainly involves more than just "generating
leads" as marketing's role has expanded into engaging consumers well
beyond the "buy" stage. As we become responsible for creating the
"evangelists" who will buy *more* of our stuff, share our stories and
(candidly) talk nice about us online - that relationship (and
strategy) goes beyond generating great "ads" and now means we are much
more like the media companies that Forrester talks about us becoming.

In my client work, I'm lucky when I get to work with expert Content
Strategists. They, quite frankly, help me keep my shit together, keep
my story consistent - and leverage it across all the functional areas
of the business.

Organizations that have both roles figured out - are well ahead
indeed.

~rr
Robert Rose
Chief Troublemaker Big Blue Moose (www.bigbluemoose.net)
Strategist In Residence - Content Marketing Institute

On Jun 14, 12:03 pm, Laura Creekmore <lcree...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been reading all this with great interest the past 2 days. I've

> finally had a few minutes to put down my thoughts.http://www.lauracreekmore.com/content-strategy-content-marketing-game/

[Suzanne Baran]

@Robert Rose -- Your "Context is Everything" preso at Wccon was incredible, as is your response below. A tight handshake between content strategists and content marketers is essential for continued growth -- defining terms and values seems secondary and will develop over time as they have organically through this discussion:)

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/contentstrategy?hl=en.

[Robert Rose]

Suzanne... 

Thank you so much for those kinds words... I so appreciate it.....

One other thing that I didn't mention....  Joe P and I have been playing with (all the credit goes to him however) is this explanation (not necessarily definition) of content marketing...  

“Content Marketing is marketers as publishers.  Owning the media, not renting.  Attract and retain customers by creating/curating valuable, compelling and relevant content to maintain or change behavior.”

 

I have a blog post coming on CMI in the coming days - that talks about this a little further...  

[David Charron]

Suzanne, Robert,

I've seen this definition applied to CS in threads related to this very discussion and in others, one of which has generated an impressive amount of interest and reaction: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/I-challenge-any-CS-group-1879338.S.41243331?qid=438ef5d4-d18e-4b0a-9c16-5e725eafc3be&goback=.gmp_1879338.

I also came across a piece of news today, on a blog that does tremendous work reporting on what's hot and new in the multi-platform advertising world., regarding a social media campaign for a tv show I quite like: http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/hbo-true-blood-immortalize-yourself-facebook-app/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DigitalBuzzBlog+%28Digital+Buzz+Blog%29. 

The campaign is described as a proven content strategy.

I would very much appreciate to read your thoughts on the matter. Is it CM? Is it CS?

Thank you.

DAVID CHARRON

Conception-rédaction

514 923-5338

1483, rue Rachel Est

Montréal (Québec)

H2J 2K3

http://twitter.com/David_Charron

http://twitter.com/eeg_nog

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[Suzanne Baran]

@David Charron -- thanks for adding to this lively discussion! From my perspective, the True Blood marketing feat is extraordinary. It required a team/agency to assemble and follows a transmedia approach using offline and connected devices. Many films, shows and other media are using that as a paragon / archetype. For example, "Nurse Jackie" on Showtime is adopting this model beautifully. The show boasts a blog written by a character and that blog exists in cyberspace, called, "nursinityo" -- the URL flashed across the screen during one of the recent episodes. In essence, Content Marketing and Content Strategy are two sides of the same coin and let's not forget as Kristina Halverson says, "content is a business asset." A business of any size can use content to attract, interact with, and influence customers.  Or, more directly, that a website is a “direct-to-consumer warehouse.” -- Valeria Maltoni of Conversation Agent.

[Robert Rose]

@David....

So I just went through the whole process.  It's cute....  What I was hoping to be able to tell you was that there are elements of both....  I was really hoping to say the campaign itself is a great example of Content Marketing - and then assuming they have strategized the structure of the content (both UGC and what they filmed), know how it will and can be re-used in other parts of the business, and worked through all the rest of the Content Strategy process - that it would be a great Content Strategy example as well.

Instead, it seems like a slick version of what we've seen for a few years now - they pull some content in, and personalize the experience for you  - and basically create an immersive brand experience... So yeah, content marketing for sure... But meh.... 

I think Lexus actually did a much more interesting version of this last year with their Dark Ride campaign:

http://darkersideofgreen.skinnynyc.com/dark-ride/

To me... again as a content marketing guy - I think they missed an opportunity here.  The application is cute.  But once I'm done - I really didn't have the desire to "customize" it and watch it again.... And, more importantly, there was no "next step"... What are they hoping for here? They got me to "like" their page (Yay for them)... but a simple call to action to join the HBO Connect (e.g. to have more experiences like this) would have been really easy and seems like a logical goal for this kind of content...  I only found out about HBO Connect by Googling what others were talking about the True Blood app...  Seems like they're trying to build an audience to have "simultaneous online and TV experiences"... I mean that just screams (forgive the pun) for some synergy with what they're doing on that True Blood app...  

http://connect.hbo.com/

Now maybe they made a conscious decision to do that.... Maybe... 

Hope that's helpful..

~rr

[Eat Media]

Robert,

I'm a bit confused by your entry point statement:

"Why am I not surprised that the Content Strategists are working
diligently to define Content Strategy and Content Marketing... All
while the Content Marketing folk sit back and say... "Hey man, we're
just tryin' to be conversational"..... It's sooo Meta"

If the DTDT was irrelevant I don't think this thread would be as
active.

I do however agree with your "meet overall corporate objectives."
Where I believe the split may lie (or at least it does for me) is the
user's experience. Content Strategy seems to be more focused on
Content + UX whereas Content Marketing is focused more on Content +
Distribution?

-Ian

[Robert Rose]

Ian....

The entry statement was meant as a bit of a joke.... trying to lighten the mood a little... Clearly unsuccessful... The point being that content strategists tend to want to put structure around unstructured data and marketing folk tend to want to... ahhh never mind.... I've got a beer in hand now and well....

And yeah, I'd buy into that split as one angle for sure.... That's not bad at all...

~rr

Robert Rose
Chief Troublemaker
Big Blue Moose

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