CRyder Design

The History of Content Strategy

Content strategy has been around even before the internet. Of course, as content evolved, so has a content strategy. Author, Rahel Anne Bailie explains, “It has, like so many other fields of practice, been called by different names, and has evolved along with the enabling technology. Digging into the history of manipulation, management, and governance of content takes us down several paths that converged to become what we know today as content strategy.” Understandably, comparing content strategy today, to content strategy in 1945, you would likely find some differences in concepts and practice. But what about in the past 15 years? Let’s talk about this.

Content Strategy in The Past 15 Years

Bailie states, “The first content strategy conference was held in Vancouver, BC in the spring of 2008. The program, curated by Rahel Anne Bailie, wove together three strands: content, technology, and management (such as consumer relationships and change movement).” Let’s think about this, compared to content strategy today. The three strands that Bailie mentioned are content, technology, and management. Much like what content strategy consists of today. Although there has been some evolution and further development of content in the past 15 years, I don’t think these strands, or concepts, have changed. The practice, however, has likely evolved to keep up with the everchanging content production styles of the times. Bailie also states, “With an elevated value of content, organizations will see a need to organize those assets in some sort of integrated way… As content strategy progresses, there will be a need for strategists who can incorporate new trends into their strategies…” Content strategy has to keep up with these changes, and the practice will have to keep up as well. So has there been a change to the concepts and practice of content strategy within the past 15 years? Yes and no. The concepts have stayed relatively the same, while the practice has changed a bit.

Content Strategy Preparation

As previously mentioned, content strategy has had to change to keep up with the constant evolution of content creation and presentation. Because of these consistent changes, it is best to make extensive preparation efforts at the start of a project so these small changes (from project to project) do not throw off the results. Author, Meghan Casey discusses preparation methods in her book Content Strategy Toolkit: The Methods, Guidelines, and Templates for Getting Content Right. Casey discusses preparation methods from preparing your argument (or pitch), identifying stakeholders, holding discussions, discussing budget and timeline, communicating status updates, and much much more. Needless to say, there is a lot that goes into preparing a content strategy. But why?

Preparing exhaustively, early in the content strategy process, helps to develop a guideline for the project in its entirety. This will help to develop a roadmap for where the project starts, to where it plans to go. It will help to provide insights into the details of each and every step and their relevance to the end result. Being prepared at the beginning of the process, and having a budget to present will also prove to stakeholders that you are taking your project seriously and give them all the answers they are looking for when giving you the “Okay” to move forward.

Moving Forward

Keep this information in mind when developing your next content strategy! Make sure that you allow yourself to take the necessary time to prepare everything that you could need for your content strategy pitch to help get the stakeholders on your side. Good luck with your planning!