Answered: What Is Your Content Strategy?
Why Full Stack Content was created, who this newsletter is for, and what subscribers can expect
Welcome back to the 2nd edition of Full Stack Content. It’s great to see you!
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I have a confession: I didn’t have a content strategy when I started this newsletter.
Does that sound crazy? My friend thought so.
When I first mentioned this newsletter to my friend, she was very supportive. She even subscribed! Then she said asked me, “What is your content strategy.”
I knew in my heart what I wanted to write about but I hadn’t taken the time to thoughtfully consider many details. Shame on me.
So, that became easy fodder for this week’s post.
Origin Story
Full Stack Content was born out of frustration. It was an impetuous decision resulting from boredom and frustration during the Covid-19 crisis.
Substack made it all-too-easy to get started! In less than 10 minutes I had secured a domain and figured out the basics.
My first post came together quickly. It was a short biography, a rallying cry, and a proposed solution. Writing that first article was cathartic.
Then the reality of what I had done set in.
I had just told the world:
I will write an article a week for this newsletter (not so hard).
My newsletter will help subscribers level up their content skills (seems achievable).
Subscribers can use their new skills to advance their careers (an ambitious commitment).
So, here I am. Or more accurately, here we are. Just one week later, and there are already nine subscribers.
Thank you for subscribing and motivating me to follow through with this idea!
Defining Content Strategy
In case you’re not already familiar, here’s a popular definition of content strategy.
Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content
Content strategy is a series of decisions that define why content should exist, what is should look like, where it should be published, and how it should get made. Content strategy spans many mediums: text, audio, video, photo, and more.
The Role of a Content Strategist
A great Content Strategist helps writers, designers, and other creators. By clarifying the audience, goals, and production process, content strategy enables people to create more efficiently and with higher quality.
Many people are de facto Content Strategists. Imagine Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly in “The Devil Wears Prada.” She was a helluva Content Strategist.
It doesn’t matter what your title is. If you’re making decisions about what gets created, where it gets published, and how it gets measured, then you are playing the role of Content Strategist.
Welcome to the club!
The Content Strategy for Full Stack Content
If you Google the phrase “Content Strategy Template,” you will find an overwhelming pile of results. There are countless ways to document your content strategy.
Strategic plans often become large, sprawling documents.
So, it is helpful to distill those plans into a single statement. I learned this technique in Kristina Halvorson’s seminal book, “Content Strategy for the Web” (🤑).
Core Strategy Statement
A core strategy statement aligns business goals with user needs. The best strategy statements are clear, concise, and memorable.
Here’s the core strategy statement for Full Stack Content.
Full Stack Content helps subscribers advance their careers and create exemplary content using proven techniques.
One problem with a statement is that it is necessarily brief. After all, a statement is not a manifesto. So, I’m fond of expanding on a core strategy statement with annotations. I borrowed this format from Content Strategy Inc.
See, that’s clearer.
The annotated details make nuanced writing decisions easier.
Here are a few specific details to help you understand what I mean.
Sharing some details about my experience creating this newsletter, hopefully, makes me more approachable.
Using GIFs (pronounced with a soft g by the way) takes content that is honestly a bit dry and gives it some much need levity.
Repeatedly editing to simplify sentence structure increases clarity and provides a better experience.
Complete Content Strategy
A complete content strategy expands on the ideas presented in a core strategy statement. Content strategy includes four key dimensions that support the core strategy: Substance, Structure, Workflow, and Governance.
As I mentioned, content strategies often become large documents, but I’m trying to keep this one simple since I’m a team of one. If you have a burning desire to see the latest and greatest, then please check out my content strategy spreadsheet. Otherwise, here’s the current (as of this article’s publish date) version of my content strategy.
SUBSTANCE
Audience: People who work in tech but content is not their primary job
Messaging: Content is a topic you can master
Topics: Content strategy, persuasive writing, website strategy, UX writing, writing tools
Voice: Approachable but authoritative; casual but not unprofessional; cute but not too often
Tone: Confident, Sincere, Direct
STRUCTURE
Format: Blog posts ranging from 500 - 2,500 words
Medium: Substack is the publishing platform for text and audio. Visual mediums are still TBD
Organization: Unsure what the possibilities of the platform are
Linking: Cite and link to sources; there is no link-building strategy at this time
Style: Default to AP styles but use a serial comma (a more detailed style guide will follow in time)
WORKFLOW
Process: Have an idea, write it down, find keyword opportunity, write an article
Workflow: Draft in Grammarly, scrub for readability on WebFX, audit headlines in EMV
Human Resources: Just me
GOVERNANCE
Decision Making: Make your own damn decisions. When necessary, ask Robert, Rachael, Evan, Bradley, Sara, Mark, Jorge, Matt, or Diana what they think
Change Management: Publish on Sunday mornings; edit whenever but check in Grammarly first
Editorial Calendar
Depending on your point of view, an editorial calendar may or may not be considered content strategy.
I think it’s incredibly helpful to have some mechanism for collecting and parsing ideas for content. I use that same content strategy spreadsheet as a backlog and editorial calendar. It’s an MVP right now so please be kind with your comments. I promise it will get better.
Now, It’s Your Turn
Writing a content strategy for this email newsletter was clarifying for me.
Was this article helpful for you? Let me know what you think in the comments.
Until next week, thank you for subscribing!
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By the way, we’re on Instagram at @fullstackcontent in case that’s your jam. You can email us corrections/feedback at contentstrategy@substack.com.