Curated for content, computing, data, information, and digital experience professionals

Category: Content management & strategy (Page 109 of 481)

This category includes editorial and news blog posts related to content management and content strategy. For older, long form reports, papers, and research on these topics see our Resources page.

Content management is a broad topic that refers to the management of unstructured or semi-structured content as a standalone system or a component of another system. Varieties of content management systems (CMS) include: web content management (WCM), enterprise content management (ECM), component content management (CCM), and digital asset management (DAM) systems. Content management systems are also now widely marketed as Digital Experience Management (DEM or DXM, DXP), and Customer Experience Management (CEM or CXM) systems or platforms, and may include additional marketing technology functions.

Content strategy topics include information architecture, content and information models, content globalization, and localization.

For some historical perspective see:

https://gilbane.com/gilbane-report-vol-8-num-8-what-is-content-management/

Speaker Spotlight – Content creation a “multi-dimensional” role

As we did last year we’ve posed some of our attendees’ most frequently asked questions to speakers who will be at this year’s Gilbane Conference and will be sharing their complete answers with you here. Today we’re spotlighting Frederick Faulkner, Director, Marketing & Digital Strategist, ICF Interactive. You can see all Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference as well as last year’s event.

Fred Faulkner | Gilbane ConferenceSpeaker Spotlight: Frederick Faulkner

Director, Marketing & Digital Strategist

ICF Interactive

Follow Fred: @fredfaulkneriv

 

 

 Given that there are more smartphones than PCs on the planet and both will be important for the foreseeable future, how should organization’s content delivery priorities and technologies change? How is yours changing?

Mobile is certainly a game changer for how we now perform tasks and consume content in our digital lives. For organizations that have a growing mobile audience, it comes down to a few key factors.

First, what experience do you want your audience to have on a mobile device? What is the “top job” for a mobile setting? Chances are it will likely not be the same as the “top job” for your desktop site. So organizations will have to decide how they will effectively separate the content delivery for both settings.

Second, content creation now needs to take on a “multi-dimensional” role, thus content authors need to create content for each dimension. Mobile, and smaller screens means less attention and tolerance for long-form content. Whereas on a desktop, the screen real estate allows you to show more, add additional features, and keep attention possibly longer. Can a content author communicate the same message in less space? Will that table of data translate down to a small screen? Those are some aspects that need to be considered.

Finally, the marketing and technology teams need to work together to build the best delivery solution possible. What technology stack and implementation can support content delivery to multiple devices without the need for the author to duplicate their efforts? Streamline that process and everyone wins.

Marketing is the most talked about discipline that needs to take on more responsibility for technology to be effective. What can other departments learn from the discussion around marketing technology and marketing technologists.

I believe the best take away from the discussion about marketing technology and marketing technologists is business departments need to engage and understand their needs and how it works within a technology stack. For example, a marketing team needs to know that some systems play better with others, the integrations, the system support and what their own IT department can maintain. They need to listen to their IT counterparts when they identify risks for the integrations, and be able to justify their needs clearly. At the same time, marketers need to use the tools to deliver ROI. We can’t live in a world where we buy tools and only use them partially, or have three tools that have overlap.

Although sometimes used interchangeably ‘content strategy’ and ‘content marketing’ refer to very different though often connected disciplines. How and where should these activities be organized?

To me, they both live in the marketing department. Content Marketing is influenced by a Content Strategy. The strategy defines who you want to market to, what the desired outcome would be, and how you grow the audience. Content marketing is a tactical execution of that strategy. Organizations need to see the forest before they can go down into the trees to get where they want to go.

Does the ‘internet of things’ have an immediate or near-term impact on your organization’s information or collaboration infrastructure? How so?

Absolutely! We work with organizations to come up with strategies and solutions to connect customers to companies. The Internet of Things is the next data point that allows organizations to build personalized experiences around their brand and products. We work with major retailers where if they knew a loyal customer was out of a certain type of product because their fridge, closet, pantry told them, a customized message or automatic replenish order could be created for in-store pick-up on their next visit.

Catch up with Fred at the Gilbane Conference:

Track T: Re-imagining the Future: Technology and the Postdigital Experience

T1: Track Keynote Panel: Marketing Technologists Discuss Multichannel and Enterprise Integration Challenges
Tuesday, December 2: 1:30 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.

Register now to hear more from Fred and all of our speakers.

See our complete conference program for more details.

Managing and Monetizing Paid, Owned, and Earned Content

How does your organization manage and value paid, owned, and earned content? Is there a strategy for each of the three types? A budget?

If you are struggling with measuring the value of marketing related content you are certainly not alone – there is just no easy way to do it. In this session, Gerry Moran from SAP talks about the need for brands to manage and scale the three types of content together to engage customers throughout the sales cycle. Randy Woods from nonlinear creations describes a technique in use for modeling content and mapping it to online behaviors to get a better handle on content marketing costs and return.

Join us Wednesday, December, 3: 11:40 a.m. – 12:40 p.m. at the Gilbane Conference to learn more.

C9. Managing and Monetizing Paid, Owned, and Earned Content

Moderator:
Dom Nicastro, Staff Reporter, CMSWire.com

Speakers:
Gerry Moran, Head of Social Media, North America, SAP
Scaling and Monetizing Paid, Owned, and Earned Media in Your Organization
Randy Woods, President, nonlinear creations
Of Metrics and Models: Measuring the ROI of Content Marketing

See the complete conference schedule.

Speaker Spotlight: Jeff Cutler – Don’t try content marketing without content strategy

As we did last year we’ve posed some of our attendees’ most frequently asked questions to speakers who will be at this year’s Gilbane Conference and will be sharing their complete answers with you here. This week we’re spotlighting Jeff Cutler, Content Specialist, JeffCutler.com. You can see all Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference as well as last year’s event.

Jeff Cutler - Gilbane ConferenceSpeaker Spotlight: Jeff Cutler

Content Specialist

JeffCutler.com

Follow Jeff: @jeffcutler

 

 

Although sometimes used interchangeably ‘content strategy’ and ‘content marketing’ refer to very different though often connected disciplines. How and where should these activities be organized?

Simply put, if you don’t have a content strategy you should not undertake any content marketing. It’s the strategy component that directs smart decisions about to whom; where; and via what technologies your messaging and content will be shared. If you’re trying to connect with people and don’t have a strategy, it’s like trying to sell your services to an empty room. Figure out your audience. Figure out what tools they use to research the products/services they purchase. Determine if you have the capability and capacity to use these tools effectively. If everything clicks, move forward and start having a conversation and sharing content. Content strategy should be organized in brand and mission meetings – or at least discussed. From there it can be fine-tuned and then revisited before embarking on the content marketing campaign. Once approved, use the content strategy to develop a plan – including content calendar, resources, communication vehicles, sites, technology and more – that will help achieve the goals of that strategy.

Catch up with Jeff at the Gilbane Conference:

Track C: Content, Marketing, and the Customer Experience

C12: Content Marketing Panel
Wednesday, December 3: 2:00 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.

Register now to hear more from Jeff and all of our speakers.

See our complete conference program for more details.

Avoiding the Dangers of the Unmanaged Customer Experience

Put your consumer hat on for a moment. Think about the last time you booked travel, bought a holiday gift, ordered flowers, or applied for a new credit card. Online or offline – doesn’t matter. What’s notable about that experience? What do you remember about it? Something? Nothing?

In the midst of the market cacophony about customer experience, three facts define the fundamentals, once stripped of  hype:

  1. Every brand delivers an experience to customers and prospects, consciously or unconsciously. At Digital Clarity Group (DCG), we define experience as “the totality of interactions through all channels and touch points over the entire life of the relationship.” Experience happens by default. As consumers, we always remember the bad. We might remember the good. We mostly forget the vast majority of experience that’s just mediocre. Which is not great if you’re a brand spending lots of money to leave a good impression.
  2. Consciously managing the experience is the only way that a brand can bias the experience for the right business outcome. Consistently good experiences are not accidental. Only when experience is deliberately managed does it become repeatable, predictable, measurable, and capable of being improved and optimized.
  3. The business practice of holistically managing the customer experience across channels is new, and therefore hard and mysterious. One of the many reasons it’s hard is that you cannot just throw technology at it and get results. Today there is no such thing as an out-of-the-box solution for experience management. It’s mysterious because successful paths (by way of repeatable best practices) are still being cut by the pioneers.

If customer experience management (CEM) is hard, it is also not an option. As my DCG colleague Tim Walters notes, “…the mobile and social empowerment of consumers makes CEM an inescapable, compulsory, and essential initiative for virtually every company’s survival.”

Who’s caught between the proverbial rock and hard place? Chief marketing officers, digital marketers, customer experience champions, LOB owners, newly-minted data scientists, marketing technologies, IT – yep, everyone who feels the pressure that customers are putting on them for higher-quality, more meaningful engagement. They want to move forward, know they need to move forward. But they are frequently overwhelmed by identifying the right starting point for CEM.

In DCG’s work with our enterprise clients, we see another obstacle that presents an even bigger risk. It’s not just that getting started can be overwhelming – it’s also that too many companies are responding to contemporary CEM challenges with legacy practices, processes, and technologies that are misaligned with the new world order imposed by empowered consumers. Doing more of the same, just bigger, faster, better, is a sure path to obsolescence. It’s time for fundamental change.

When we engage in a selection or roadmap development project with an enterprise client, we are typically supporting the manager or team who needs to enable that change in collective thinking about experience management. We often start by helping them write the script for the conversations with stakeholders. A number of the issues addressed in those scripts are distilled in our paper entitled The CEM Imperative: Customer Experience in the Age of the Empowered Consumer. What’s at risk if you don’t take action now? What’s the business case for investing in capabilities and competencies for experience management? If no single CEM solution exists today, how will you build and deploy a platform and toolset for experience management? The CEM Imperative provides insights that can help you start to formulate answers to these and related questions. You can also use it as a call-to-action for senior managers and executives who are hesitating. As DCG author Tim Walters writes:

“CEM is not vendor hype, because it is a response to the desires and expectations of today’s extremely demanding and fickle consumers. CEM is not a back-burner consideration because, as … innumerable studies prove, engaging consumers with superior experiences is a matter of life or death for any firm that cares about having customers.”

Presumably your organization cares about having customers. If that’s the case, then addressing the risk of unmanaged – or mismanaged – experience must be a top strategic goal moving forward.

Download your copy
The CEM Imperative: Customer Experience in the Age of the Empowered Consumer

 

Speaker Spotlight: Rahel Anne Bailie – Content marketing and content strategy not the same

As we did last year we’ve posed some of our attendees’ most frequently asked questions to speakers who will be at this year’s Gilbane Conference and will be sharing their complete answers with you here. This week we’re spotlighting Rahel Anne Bailie, Founder and Senior Content Strategy Consultant of Intentional Design Inc. You can see all Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference as well as last year’s event.

Rahel Bailie image - Gilbane 2014Speaker Spotlight: Rahel Anne Bailie

Founder and Senior Content Strategy Consultant

Intentional Design Inc.

Follow Rahel: @rahelab

 

Given that there are more smartphones than PCs on the planet and both will be important for the foreseeable future, how should organization’s content delivery priorities and technologies change? How is yours changing?

The emphasis on having a proper strategy for content delivery is going to increase as we have more complex delivery needs – and I believe that smartphones are just the tip of the iceberg. Wearables will be the next challenge, and who knows what will come after that. So some of what we need to do is think “content first” and combine that with responsive design and adaptive content. That means changes to technology and infrastructure, changes to processes, and improvements to skill sets of both technologists and writers.

Does the ‘internet of things’ have an immediate or near-term impact on your organization’s information or collaboration infrastructure? How so?

The idea that the internet of things is going to be a walk-in-the-park is a little optimistic. There are lots of business drivers and user behaviors that need to be figured out before there will be adoption at any scale. If any information or collaboration infrastructure is affected, it needs to be between market analysts and technologists, who are usually at opposite ends of a project.

Marketing is the most talked about discipline that needs to take on more responsibility for technology to be effective. What can other departments learn from the discussion around marketing technology and marketing technologists?

Any department along the content delivery supply chain needs to develop basic literacy when it comes to marketing technologies. Each organization has its idiosyncrasies, but that doesn’t mean a particular department gets to take a pass. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and we’ve seen time and time again how weak links can sink an entire initiative, by being blockers.

Although sometimes used interchangeably ‘content strategy’ and ‘content marketing’ refer to very different though often connected disciplines. How and where should these activities be organized?

This is a particular irritation of mine. Content marketing and content strategy are two distinct disciplines. There are overlaps, sure, but the very names indicate the distinction. Content marketing is about just that, marketing, with a focus on acquiring and engaging target audiences, which in turns drives an increase in the bottom line. Content strategy keeps marketing in mind – after all, you don’t want to do anything to harm profitability – but the focus is on planning for the management of content throughout the entire content lifecycle, no matter what the input or output. Content strategy is the umbrella to any content marketing strategy because it does not confine itself to a single content silo or type; content strategy instead provides the glue that connects all sub-strategies together, including content marketing.

Catch up with Rahel at the Gilbane Conference:

Track T: Re-imagining the Future: Technology and the Postdigital Experience

T5: Multichannel Content Management – How do you do it?
Wednesday, December 3: 9:40 a.m. – 10:40 p.m.

Register now to hear more from Rahel and all of our speakers.

See our complete conference program for more details.

Speaker Spotlight: Terena Bell – Multilingual challenges and the future

As we did last year we’ve posed some of our attendees’ most frequently asked questions to speakers who will be at this year’s Gilbane Conference, December 2 – 4, 2014, and will be sharing their complete answers with you here. You can see all Speaker Spotlights from our upcoming conference as well as last year’s event.

Terena Bell - Gilbane Conference 2014

Speaker Spotlight: Terena Bell

CEO

In Every Language

Follow Terena: @ineverylanguage

 

Although sometimes used interchangeably ‘content strategy’ and ‘content marketing’ refer to very different though often connected disciplines. How and where should these activities be organized?

Marketing is part of strategy. Think about it like this: An orange is a fruit, but not all fruit are oranges. Marketing is part of strategy but not all content strategy is content marketing.

Marketing is the most talked about discipline that needs to take on more responsibility for technology to be effective. What can other departments learn from the discussion around marketing technology and marketing technologists?

Money. Basically everything not marketing is great, but you need marketing to funnel money to it all. Regulatory content, user-driven content, all of this is great, but it’s post-sale and needs to be paid for.  If you’re not translating and working in a pre-sale environment, then translation and content are cost centers, not profit drivers. So drive profit and then everyone is funded and happy.

Given that there are more smartphones than PCs on the planet and both will be important for the foreseeable future, how should organization’s content delivery priorities and technologies change? How is yours changing?

I actually just wrote an article on this for MultiLingual Magazine, slated to publish right before the conference! In translation and multilingual content creation, we have been very focused on the what—what are we now translating or localizing because of mobile that we weren’t before, such as apps, mobile-optimized websites, etc. But instead, we should think long-term and focus on the how. How do we translate on a phone? This means shaping translation technology around the idea of a mobile as default environment instead of for a mobile environment. How do we create multilingual or multicultural content on a phone, as opposed to for use on one?

Does the ‘internet of things’ have an immediate or near-term impact on your organization’s information or collaboration infrastructure? How so?

Heck yes. In Every Language is a translation company. We already have connected things that talk to us—telephones, alarm clocks, cars. If you think those things should only talk in one language, you’re crazy.

Catch up with Terena at the Gilbane Conference:

Track T: Re-imagining the Future: Technology and the Postdigital Experience

T7: Multilingual Challenges – Current and Future
Wednesday, December 3: 11:40 a.m. – 12:40 p.m.

Register now to hear more from Terena and all of our speakers.

See our complete conference program for more details.

 

Additional Gilbane Conference workshops posted

Gilbane conference lightbulb logo

We’ll be posting the complete program for this years’ Gilbane Conference over the next 2-3 weeks on the main conference website. The afternoon workshops are below.

Workshop D. Adaptive Content Modeling for Omnichannel UX

Speaker: Noz Urbina, Consultant and Founder, Urbina Consulting

Thursday, December, 4: 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Your users need you to come to this session, even if they don’t know it. Multi-channel, or “COPE (create once, publish everywhere)”, content is a bit of a holy grail. Our trade is discussing content being freed from the browser, available for reuse, and accessible in apps, kiosks, responsive mobile deliverables, eBooks and syndication services to our partners – even in wearable technologies. All this should improve the experience of users, and benefit the organizations that serve them. Adaptive content is content that is nimble enough to realize all these ambitions. But making our content adaptive means addressing a topic that sends many running for the fire exit or nearest window: semantic modeling of structured content. This session will connect the dots between adaptive content, responsive design, multi-channel delivery and user experiences to show you why you want and even need to have semantic content structures. It will then go through a non-terrifying introduction to getting started with modeling your own content in a future-proof way. Learning objectives:

  1. The knowledge that their content is already more structured than they realize.
  2. A solid sense of what semantic, structured content actually is and its relationship to adaptive content, multichannel, and UX.

This workshop is designed for either intermediate or expert attendees. Bring your laptop and go home with samples and templates.

Workshop E. CMS Implementations: The View from the Implementor’s Side

Speaker: Deane Barker, Director of Business Development, Blend Interactive

Thursday, December, 4: 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Ever wanted to know how CMS integration shops approach projects, and how you can better work with them or use their techniques in your own organization? In this workshop, Deane Barker will explain the ins and outs of CMS project work from the perspective of a veteran integrator, with the goal of helping you understand how best to find an integrator, work with your chosen integrator, or manage your project and team. Learn about how integrators:

  • Evaluate RFPs
  • Develop proposals
  • Scope projects
  • Schedule work
  • Manage client expectations
  • Plan implementations
  • Select software
  • Execute and manage development
  • Support existing implementations

Workshop F. What’s it Worth? Assessing the ROI of your Content

Speaker: Lindy Roux, VP, Content Marketing and Strategy, Rauxa

Thursday, December, 4: 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

No matter how well researched and deliberate your content strategy is, the proof lies in the pudding and the most successful content professionals continually evaluate the effectiveness of their content and adapt their strategies to improve the return. Too often, content is evaluated or audited only when a major digital shift is in play (a move to a new CMS, a new marketing automation tool, a new campaign launch.) In order to be truly successful, that evaluation should be ongoing, providing the opportunity to learn from past content marketing successes and failures. Lindy Roux will demonstrate an approach to content evaluation across multiple channels, based on qualitative and quantitative assessments, which has been used to help organizations understand the true ROI of a piece of content. The session will end with a practical exercise in content evaluation where participants will try their hand at developing assessment criteria and then applying these to real content. Participants in the session will learn:

  • How to establish content goals that are measurable and realistic
  • A way to evaluate content against these goals
  • How to establish a regular review workflow and process
  • An approach to optimization across all channels
  • The appropriate team structure for ongoing content performance

First three Gilbane Conference workshops posted

Gilbane conference lightbulb logo
We’ll be posting the complete program for this years’ Gilbane Conference over the next 4-5 weeks on the main conference website. The first three of the six planned workshops are below.

Workshop A. Insiders Guide to Building Digital Marketing Technology Toolkit

Speaker: Theresa Regli, Principal Analyst and Managing Partner, Real Story Group

Thursday, December, 4: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Marketing practitioners multitask just about every minute of every day. There are ongoing email, web, mobile, and marketing strategies to organize, plan and execute. Each of these areas used to include a range of technologies that was purchased and implemented separately such as web content management, campaign management, analytics, digital asset management, and others. Now, there are new suites of tools that can manage all of these processes. But how do you select the right one that will help you to accomplish your marketing objectives?

Specifically, the session will provide a methodology for mapping business needs to technology alternatives, as well as a road map for evaluating digital marketing technology vendors.  We will provide critical and hard-hitting reviews of the available digital marketing technologies. Don’t be surprised after-the-fact. Find out the real strengths and weaknesses of these tools before you purchase them.

Key Takeaways:

  • Digital marketing trends and emerging architectures
  • Hints and tips on selecting a digital marketing product for your organization
  • Overcoming the daunting prospect of selection – how to narrow down your list of vendors to evaluate.
  • A critical, high-level overview of digital marketing solution providers

Workshop B. Foundations for Best-Fit WCM Service Provider Selections

Speaker: Cathy McKnight, Partner and Principal Analyst, Digital Clarity Group

Thursday, December, 4: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Evaluating and selecting technology and service partners is intimidating. And without proper guidance, it’s easy to take the wrong path. This workshop focuses on selection readiness. It is designed to point your organization in the right direction before you even start the journey to new solutions for web content and experience management. You will learn how to create a plan of action for getting your organization ready for a successful selection program – one that results in real business benefits as the direct result of implementing the right solutions with the right technology and service partners. We explore the fundamentals of selection preparation, covering four key areas of readiness:

  • Articulating the business case,
  • Identifying the stakeholder landscape,
  • Managing requirements gatherings, and
  • Developing realistic budgets.

We provide a step-by-step overview of an efficient, results-driven selection program, and we show you how to build a messaging and communications plan that will help you shape internal conversations about it. With this approach, you can set expectations, educate reluctant stakeholders, and get your company thinking about change management, which is often an afterthought but shouldn’t be. The selection process is all about aligning business goals with the “best-fit” solution for your organization’s needs. And finding that fit is about way more than just matching features to requirements. Armed with the outcomes of this workshop, you will be ready to move forward with confidence.

Workshop C. Successful Social Intranets

Speaker: Rebecca Rodgers, Senior Consultant, Step Two Designs

Thursday, December, 4: 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Modern intranets are steadily becoming more “social” and “collaborative”, but this can mean many things. Some recent intranets put social at the heart of everything (including the homepage), while others supplement existing sites with simpler features, such as commenting. While this is still a rapidly evolving space, intranet teams in the real world need to make concrete decisions with confidence.

This interactive workshop will cover four key steps for social intranets:

  • Explore the opportunities. Looking at social intranet examples around the globe, we will explore the reasons, benefits and business cases for social.
  • Understand your organisational landscape. Every organisation is different, and this has a big impact on the what, where, when and how of social intranets.
  • Choose what to launch. Where to start, what to launch and for who: there are multiple options to choose from, depending on your strategy and organisational context.
  • Make social a success. There are a growing list of best practices to draw on, relating to design, launch, adoption and governance.

This inspirational and practical workshop will mix plenty of screenshots and examples with discussions and workshop activities. While not every question will be answered, participants will walk away with a greater sense of confidence and knowledge about social intranets.

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