Content Strategy is Business Strategy

The most important thing for someone learning about content strategy should do is to learn at least a little bit about business value. Content is a valuable business asset for any organization because it has the potential to draw in new customers and to retain loyal customers. An organization has a lot of content that adds value to their product or service.

In the module 1 lecture video, a hypothetical business was presented with examples of how profit is earned by selling products. There are several ways that a company increases profit by selling a product or by providing a service. Prime examples include selling a product or providing a service, reducing operating costs, and/or creating a great customer experience. Any one or any combination of these can be used to increase an organization’s profit. Each of the actions described can be used as part of a strategy to increase profitability.

Tying business value to content strategy, a person must understand that to develop an effective content strategy, they must frame content as something that increases the profitability of the organization. Viewing content from a business lens, enables a person to make better recommendations to decision-makers about the best way to leverage content as a high value business asset. This is what makes content strategy a specialized form of management consulting.

Auditors not Editors

What comes to mind for this question is to remember that when learning about content strategy, content strategists don’t edit content. The whole premise of a content strategy project is to assess where an organization is in relation to where they want to be with their content and to develop a roadmap that will help an organization close the gap.

While auditing my client’s content, I was tempted to recommend a number of changes to the wording of their content, or ways that their content could be structured better. That’s part of the reason when my team submitted the draft spreadsheet, some of my feedback was way too long and wordy. I had to take a break from it and remove some of the recommendations because I was not “hired” to edit their content. I was “hired” to assess a sample of my client’s content, then provide recommendations for closing the gap. Ultimately, I included generic editing recommendations in the additional feedback section but not specific language or structural changes. If an edit was needed that would prevent closing the gap between current and future states of the client’s content, I did mention those in my feedback and recommendations. However, I didn’t go beyond grammatical edits that were customer facing. I refocused on actions that would improve the content to close the gap and to provide a strategy to leverage content as the high value business asset that it is.

Career and Academic Potential

As I journeyed through this course, I gained a deeper appreciation for content management and for content strategy. I really enjoyed working on the project because it was like a puzzle to be solved or like a code to be cracked that once solved would contribute to my client’s future success. For me, this course built on the digital literacies course that I took last semester and presented me with a career path in technical communication that I could see myself doing.

Along with an industry career path, I see a path to further education around content strategy. Content strategy is still a burgeoning field and as such there is still a lot to learn in order to advance content strategy in industry. I’m currently contemplating how I can eventually complete a Ph.D. around content strategy, though I realize that I have to earn my master’s first. That being said, I would like to learn more about content strategy as a specialized form of management consulting and plan to seek our more information about it between semesters and after graduation.

What helped me to see the possibilities of content strategy as a viable career field was the industry application of the concepts and practices of content strategy by working with an actual client. During the team project I saw the actual value of what I was doing to help a business assess their content by providing information that they could use to leverage their content to achieve their goals. For the individual project, I can see how my recommendations actually provide a path forward for my client to close the gap between the states of their content and potentially increase their profitability.

AI as a Tool for Tech Comm

In module 6 of the course, we were presented with a video demonstrating an AI platform called ChatGPT and its application to technical communication. In the video, Amruta Ranade demonstrated how ChatGPT could be used for research and draft writing. She pondered the idea of ChatGPT and perhaps other AI platforms replacing technical writers or at least changing how technical writers work.

I really don’t know much about AI platforms. I tried ChatGPT after the watching the video just to see how it works and I can see the potential for it’s use as a tool but not a replacement for technical writers. Seeing the potential in AI platforms such as ChatGPT indicates that this and other AI platforms should be investigated, not only for functionality as a tool, but in the ethics of using AI in academic and professional settings. Like content strategy, AI is a burgeoning field. There is still so much unknown about what it can do and the ethical implications provided by AI. I have no doubt that eventually AI will become an integral part of what tech comm professionals do in their careers. That is why the research must be done now to determine the ethics of using AI in content creation and what acceptable use looks like in practice. I am intrigued by AI platforms as a tool and would like to learn more about them. However, I don’t yet know enough to determine what is or what isn’t ethical when it comes to AI.